Stoops unretires, joins Dallas XFL franchise
ARLINGTON — Bob
Stoops initially rejected the idea of coming out of retirement to join the reincarnation of the XFL.
Then the former Oklahoma coach had time to think about all the extra time in his schedule roughly 1½ years after he stepped away from the Sooners after 18 seasons.
Add a little arm twisting from league commissioner and former college administrator Oliver Luck and a chat with XFL benefactor
Vince McMahon, and Stoops decided he was ready to get back in football.
Stoops, 58, was named coach and general manager of the Dallas franchise on Thursday at the home of baseball's Texas Rangers. A reconfigured Globe Life Park will be the home field for Dallas when the XFL debuts in the spring of 2020, about the same time the Rangers move across the street to a new ballpark.
“When I stepped away a couple of years ago, one of my major reasons, and I made it very clear, is I wanted my own time,” Stoops said of his abrupt retirement in June 2017, just three months before the start of the season. “As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for. All of a sudden, I got to thinking after a couple of years, some days I've got too much time on my hands. You start to look at what are your options.”
The XFL is returning after an ill-fated single season in 2001 before the league disbanded.
In other pro football news:
• The Atlanta Falcons cut defensive end Brooks
Reed. The release of Reed, who started eight of 16 games this season, followed the cuts of cornerback Robert Alford and kicker Matt Bryant.
Reed, 31, signed with Atlanta as a free agent before the 2015 season after being drafted by Texans as a linebacker out of Arizona in 2011 and playing four season in Houston.