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COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SEMIFINAL AT THE CAPITAL ONE ORANGE BOWL: CLEMSON VS OKLAHOMA

December 30, 2015

Bob Stoops

Miami Gardens, Florida

BOB STOOPS: I would just like to extend our thanks to all the Orange Bowl Committee people that have organized our trip. It's been a great few days. All the people at Barry University where we've practiced have been just outstanding. Everybody at the hotel, the Donald Trump Doral. I don't know all of it, but the people are fabulous. You know where it is. Everybody has just been so outstanding. It's been really well run, well organized, and again, our facilities to work in have just been exceptional.

So we've had a really good week. I'm really proud of our players, the way they've come to meetings, the way they've handled themselves in all the functions they've been involved in, and the way they've come to practice. I feel like we've had a great four or five days of practice. We've had a lot of good work against each other, competitive work, good on good, along with some definite -- some scout work, of course, for Clemson, and feel like we're in a great position coming into the game.

All the respect in the world to Coach Swinney and his staff and their team, the only undefeated team in the country here, you know, and No. 1 in the country. They've got excellent players across the board on offense and on defense. They do a great job. So it'll be a big challenge. We are very aware of that.

But in the same way, our players are very focused and confident in the way we've been playing, and hopefully we can come out and play our best game of the year here Thursday night.

Q. You've gone against some of the best pass rushers in college football and the Big 12 in your season, in Lawson, and you have one of your roster in Striker. Can you talk about how difficult it is to try to contain a guy that's really the focus of their defense and a guy that's really good at getting off the edge?
BOB STOOPS: Yeah, you've got to do a great job with your technique. You know, if you're late off the ball or if you take a poor step, he's going to beat you. He's just got excellent power to go with quickness and speed. You know, he plays with great technique.

Our guys matching up with him are going to have to do that. They're going to have to play with great technique and execution.

Timing is a factor in it. You know, Baker and his ability hopefully to get the ball out, hopefully we can get open in a quick way and get the ball out quick, and Baker is going to have his moments where he's not going to do that, and he's going to start running around and hopefully he can make them miss him and get away from them, too. He has a way of doing that.

Q. Deshaun Watson is obviously a dynamic player, and you've faced other run-pass quarterbacks, but just some of the things that you have to do to contain him, a guy that can throw and run?
BOB STOOPS: Yeah, first, in all critical situations, it's him that's going to have the ball. You know, quarterback running game or boots, those kind of -- they like to get him out of the pocket on boots in critical situations, third-and-shorts, fourth-and-shorts, as well as run him. So we've got to do a great job on the quarterback run game, and then contain him. When he pulls the ball down, when he's trying to throw it, he can make some great plays when he pulls the ball down and runs, as well, so we've got to do a great job staying in front of him.

Q. Baker is an emotional guy, and all the hype for this ballgame, you could see him maybe being over-amped. Do you talk to guys about being able to throttle it back?
BOB STOOPS: You know, yes and no. Baker is a very smart player, and everyone said the same thing before he played Texas Tech: Oh, he's going to be super amped for this game. Well, he played great, and I asked him about it, he says, no, Coach, I understand that doesn't do well for me. Play like you've been playing all year. I'm sure Coach Riley will visit with him about it, and play within yourself.

For a quarterback to be overly amped doesn't always work. I often tell them when the guys are getting all juiced up, find your corner to collect yourself and get away from it because it's a little bit different animal to be the quarterback and all that they have to think of and operate in, and he's done a great job of it, though, so I trust he'll handle it the right way.

Q. Dabo Swinney had to send three players home for disciplinary action yesterday. Have you had any players have any disciplinary problems since you guys have been here in South Florida?
BOB STOOPS: We have not.

Q. Do you expect that to have any impact on them? Does it change any -- particularly with three guys, kind of a key receiver for them being out, change anything you guys do?
BOB STOOPS: It won't change anything we do, no. I'm sure they'll have another excellent player in there running routes.

Q. You've made other changes, offensive coordinator, during your time at Oklahoma. How hard is that, and how long did you feel like it took to get comfortable and on the same page?
BOB STOOPS: You mean this year?

Q. Yes.
BOB STOOPS: It took a little while, obviously. The obvious games are Tennessee, we really didn't get it going until the middle late in the third quarter, and then the Texas game we were very inconsistent, as well. I think some of it, Coach Riley, along with the offensive coaches, we were helping a young, inexperienced offensive line along with an inexperienced fullback/tight end come along, to gel, to communicate together, to see things the same way in how they were identifying blocks and who they were going to. That took a little while.

And then I think also Coach Riley just personnel-wise figuring out the combinations to be on the field at the same time and to limit -- he really then started limiting our substitution patterns and how we substituted, and that allowed for more tempo, and we started to be more efficient that way.

You know, and rightfully so, when you have a new coordinator who's figuring out all his pieces, you need more than just spring practice because different teams are going to attack you differently, and it just took a few games to -- midway through the season to get the right combinations in there and for some of those younger guys to mature and grow. Once they started to grow and we started to figure out the best substitution patterns for us to be in.

Q. Difference in philosophy go into that, too?
BOB STOOPS: Yeah, all of that, and then it started to click, and then we started to really hum.

Q. Your team in the last four or five weeks of the season is playing the most physical football in college football. How difficult is it to stay that physical throughout bowl practice?
BOB STOOPS: Well, you know, we've really practiced a lot like we did the last four or five weeks of the year, where we really got -- because we've been healthy, we've been able to challenge each other. We have a lot of team periods -- not a lot, but a couple every day, that we keep score, and whether it's third downs, whether it's first downs, whether we have a team-run period, we have some two-minute drill or down periods, a two-point play where we really challenge each other and see who's going to win. And I feel like when we did that through the back half of the season, we continued to get better. So we hope we've made each other better here even in the last few weeks, the way we have kind of competed against each other. So we've practiced in the same manner. So hopefully we can have some of the same results.

Q. Could you talk about the season? You've got work to get done. Obviously you want to win two more games, but talk about how satisfying the season has been considering how last year went, and also you've had people on the outside saying we've seen the best of Bob Stoops, and obviously you've had a bounce-back year. Can you talk about that?
BOB STOOPS: You know, there's not a lot to say about it. You know, what we've done is what we've done. It's pretty evident that a lot of that isn't true, that we've got a strong program. It wasn't nearly as weak as people wanted to say it was a year ago. Again, I had to remind everyone just the year before we had just won the Sugar Bowl and were sixth in the country. You have some bad breaks. You get a few things that don't go your way, and you have -- you go 8-5. That isn't our standards, and listen, I'm the one who set the standards. They're not acceptable to me, either, when that happens.

But players, you know, took heart to it. They had a lot to do with realizing that coaches only do so much, and their actions and what they do on the field, they ultimately make or don't make plays, and they had some meetings even in the wintertime leading up to our workouts that they really were going to hold each other accountable to standards of our work ethic and the way we prepare and the way we play, and it's made a difference. They really have made a big jump this year in the way we've competed on the field.

You know, in the end, is it satisfying? Sure, but it would be if we had won 11, 12 games a year ago. It's still great to be in this position, to be chasing the National Championship here so late in the year. So anyway, it's a fairly young team, so hopefully we can just keep growing from it.

Q. Tickets are distributed evenly or made available evenly, but Clemson will have a larger fan base here. What have you done in preparation for that?
BOB STOOPS: You know, just you pipe in noise and music into practice just like we do any time we're going on an away game. We're used to that. We played in front of 105,000 at Tennessee.

You know what I like, for whatever reason, too, the back half of the year, our best games have been on the road. I'm kind of glad we're all the way down here. I think we've really been the most focused and played maybe the best when we've been on the road.

Q. Two things: Do you like playing on New Year's Eve? And secondly, is it more difficult -- there's been a lot of talk about how you get to be a head coach in this business. Is it more difficult or is the route more difficult now than let's say when you were beginning your journey, and if there was somebody on your team, a kid, not necessarily a big-time player, who would like to be a coach, do you think it's a lot more difficult now than it was when you started?
BOB STOOPS: First, I do like playing New Year's Eve because that's when we're going to play (laughter.) And is it more difficult to enter into the coaching world today?

Q. And ultimately get to be a head coach.
BOB STOOPS: Well, it's always been difficult to become a head coach. I'll be honest, I never had that as my goal. I just loved coaching and wanted to do a really good job wherever I was. I always had great relationships with my players, loved the competitive part of it. I never thought about being a head coach.

And then the better you do or the more exposure you get, all of a sudden people are calling you about being a head coach, and then you start wondering, well, maybe I will. That's sort of how it happened for me.

So I think it's always -- it's tough. There's just not a lot of those jobs. And you know what I think, too? I felt this way: I wasn't going to take one unless it was the right one. I didn't want to just take a job to be a head coach and not be in a very positive situation. That was my feeling, because I loved too much what I was doing at the time. At that time when people started asking about that, I was working for Coach Spurrier at Florida, and I loved going to work every day and loved what we were doing.

So anyway, as far as assistants, I think it is tougher today. You're only limited to two graduate assistants on each side of the ball. I think when I started in football at Iowa, we had five or six on each side of the ball. We had a bunch of former players, all of us that were in one room together sharing desks, breaking down film, but we all had opportunities to pursue then coaching, so I was lucky Coach Fry and Coach Bill Brazier, my defensive coordinator, told me this is what I needed to do, and I trusted them and did it.

Q. The Sooners open as a three-and-a-half point favorite in this game. Are you comfortable being the favorite in this game, especially against an undefeated No. 1 team?
BOB STOOPS: I don't really care about that. I think we were favored last year, and obviously those people didn't see last year's game. (Laughter.)

It isn't something I ever pay attention to.

Q. Sterling Shepard said that there have been a lot of, in team sessions, watching film of that game, and he says he sometimes watches it privately. How have you orchestrated it this week to use that as a motivator?
BOB STOOPS: Well, I think as much as anything, it's segments of the game and all parts of the game, this is what we experienced, this is what we did. This is how I coached, this is how you played. And by our standards, it isn't acceptable, regardless of who we're playing, this isn't Oklahoma football the way we need to play, so we need to make sure that we perform better than this.

Q. I'm sure if you recast the votes today, Baker would easily be a team captain for you, but when you look at from where you started in the year, your leadership, you've got big personalities on this team, you've got earnest guys. What's it been like to watch this team develop? You talked about big wins on the road, this team has had a lot of adversity being in the airport at Kansas State, going to Kansas State. What's it been like watching the chemistry develop on this team?
BOB STOOPS: Yeah, a real joy. One of my really all-time favorite years because of the players. Just their interaction and respect for one another, the way they listen to us, to the coaches, and you know, their intensity and focus, and you're right, we have a lot of strong personalities, not just the captains. I mean, you've got other guys -- as you said, you've got Baker, you've got Sterling Shepard, you've got Zack Sanchez, we've got a bunch of guys that all stick out and have strong personalities and have a lot to say and contribute to the team chemistry.

And I think probably maybe the turning point in our year may have been that 10 hours in the airport in that little FBO, whatever, 140 of us crammed in there for 10 hours. We went out and got pot-luck fast food, whatever people could bring back, find something so the players could eat, and checked into our hotel I think like 12:15 in the morning to play a 2:00 game the next day at Kansas State, coming off a Texas loss.

But the players had a lot of energy, and in the FBO had a lot of fun. There was a lot of interaction with all of us. It's funny when you're stuck somewhere for 10 hours crammed in there, you know, everybody is relating to one another and everybody kept their cool about it, and then we went out and played one of our best games the next day.

But a lot of chemistry on the team.

Q. From the moment Chip Kelly was hired in Philadelphia people were going to say this is going to be a referendum on coaches from college stepping up and could they do it and of course he was fired yesterday. I was wondering, in your mind, does that mean anything? Does it reinforce just how difficult it is to be in the NFL, or does it reinforce the idea that coaching in college and in the NFL is almost day and night and it's a difficult transition?
BOB STOOPS: Well, I think it's difficult anywhere. You know, it's competitive. I haven't been in the NFL, so I wouldn't be -- it isn't right for me to comment on what it would be like to do that. But in the end, there's probably been some NFL coaches that have gotten fired in college, too. So it's competitive, it's tough at all levels, and challenging at all levels.

In our profession, those things happen. But there's a lot of parts to it that I think, too, a head coach can only control so much, and there's a lot of other parts to, I think, NFL organizations as well as in college.

Q. I was curious what you did during those 10 hours at the airport personally, and then my other question is do you see similarities between this and your 2000 National Championship?
BOB STOOPS: What I did, just kept checking in with the players. Like I said, checking in with the people that were on the phones telling us we were going to leave in an hour, and then we didn't, then telling us we were going to leave in another hour, and then we didn't, and trying to find out where our plane was, and then eventually realized, all right, what's our strategy, do we go home? But that's a 40-minute ride back with the buses, and then when all of a sudden a plane becomes available how do we round everybody back up, so that wasn't a great option.

Had we had a night game the next day -- so what I was doing was strategizing what are we going to do. What's the best way to manage the team with our athletic director Joe Castiglione. Had we had a night game, we would have went home and said we'll leave in the morning. But we didn't. I didn't want to risk that with a 2:00 kickoff. And then I decided, we're going to be here, players need to eat, let's everybody who has a car go out and find any fast food joint you can find and bring back 10 burgers or bring back 10 of something, and we had everyone go out and get burgers to pizza to chicken to whatever. I'll give Kentucky Fried Chicken a plug. That was the biggest hit.

When I walked in, one of the -- we had one conference room, and we also spent time, the offense had a meeting in there to review practice that day, and then defense took their turn in there to watch practice, and then it became the music room. So there was probably 40 of them in there blaring music and chanting all the words and jumping up and down, and I came in with two buckets of chicken, and it went crazy.

So anyway, you can get all uptight about it, but it isn't going to change anything, so I just thought as a team we managed it as well as you could, and really ended up having fun with it. You know, that's what we ended up doing.

Q. And then the 2000 team?
BOB STOOPS: Yeah, it's a team that's probably similar to the 2000 team in that, kind of young, started the year a little bit inexperienced but grew, and you know, and playing better than everybody thought they would. We were probably ranked in a similar position to start the year that year, as well.

Q. Two questions: One, are you guys just going to bus to Manhattan from now on?
BOB STOOPS: No, but --

Q. It's not that far.
BOB STOOPS: What is it, about five hours?

Q. Four and a half from Oklahoma City. Police can escort you and make it quicker.
BOB STOOPS: Yeah, but you have to -- in 17 years of me being the head coach, that's only the second time we've ever had a plane issue. The first one was my first year there, our last game of the year, and we lost at Texas Tech where we were favored and find out the plane wasn't coming, and we had to wait for buses, and we had to bus all the way back from Lubbock, and I told my operations guy, Matt, I said, that's what we deserve, so get on the bus, and there wasn't a radio, there wasn't a TV on it. They were clankity old buses, and we rolled all the way back, about seven, eight hours.

Q. Second, a lot has been talked about the speeches that were made in the Cotton Bowl after the game, after the loss to Texas. Some guys yesterday particularly were talking about Zack's, what he addressed to the team. What do you remember about that, and how unique and how different was that?
BOB STOOPS: Well, it's just different. I just sensed a -- I say it a lot. As a coach, I don't want to act like we all can push every button. In the end, players ask about motivation. I said, you know who I motivate? Whoever the heck wants to be motivated. If you don't want to be motivated it's not going anywhere. That's a player's responsibility. When you're 18, 19, 20, 21 years old, nobody is going to fool you into wanting to play for four hours. You be a man and you play.

I sensed that they felt that wasn't happening maybe, that there were some guys that weren't -- whether it be have the fight, the intensity, whatever it is, to play at that level, and that's a player' responsibility. In my eyes it always has been.

So there was some talk just about that, about how they're going to compete.

Q. What exactly is it about Lincoln Riley that you think makes him such a good coach, and the second thing is how much suggesting, if at all, have you done when it comes to play calling and run-pass emphasis this season?
BOB STOOPS: Lincoln is incredibly bright. You can tell he understands his system inside and out, so he's able to make quick decisions. I think probably the number one thing is he has answers to what the other team may be doing because he understands his offense so well.

So all of it, he's a great communicator, great motivator, all those things. He's got a bright, bright future and continues to do great with our guys and does a great job with the rest of the staff. You know, so all of it, he's been excellent.

What was your other part of that?

Q. Just in terms of how much emphasis --
BOB STOOPS: Oh, do I? Yeah, I stay out of it. An offensive play caller I am not, and I think when you start trying to interject into a play caller, that's never a good idea. You know, he has a better feel for what he's setting up and how he wants to do it. All of that. As far as run to pass, I let him come to terms with it as we evolved in the fourth, fifth game of the year, that look, even in the Texas game, if you look at -- if you take Baker's scrambles or sacks out of it, backs still ran the ball for about four or four-and-a-half yards a play. So we had talked just a little bit about that, of possibly let's just keep making sure that that's part of -- that that's a strong part of what we're doing, as long as it fits in what you're trying to do. It started to come to fruition after that, and then he settled -- and that was his -- he wanted to settle on simplifying substitution patterns and just eventually start getting into different formations without substituting, and that helped, as well.

He made the adjustments, and again, I've given him free rein.

Q. Talking to Charles Tapper earlier this week, his arm is all scratched up, and he said Zeus did this. Orlando Brown is really proud, saying he did that, he loves how much progress he's made. I'm curious how unique that is that you have such a loose team off the field that likes each other yet on the field between the lines they're serious in practice and really almost try and kill each other all the time?
BOB STOOPS: Very competitive. You know, there's so much -- it's really fun to watch because they really go at it hard, and they are very close, and then there's a lot of laughing walking to the locker room afterwards, who got who, and there's a lot of jawing and taunting and whatever because you can. In fact Sterling caught the two-point play to win the team period yesterday, and slanting and spiked the ball two days ago. They wanted me to penalize him for it, and he said, he knows there's no officials out here. They go at it. Again, there's a lot of back and forth on who's getting who today, and it's good. It's made us better.

Q. What's impressed you about how your defense has played this year?
BOB STOOPS: Well, all of it, really. A lot of things, our communication has been excellent. I don't know that we've had a missed call all year. So the guys have just been great at the communication. We've been physical. I don't feel really there's a weak area from front to back, you know, so there's talented guys. Like I said, we've played physical. We've been disruptive. We've caused turnovers. We've gotten a lot of sacks and tackles for loss, all of that. You know, they've been a really great unit for us.

Q. The media had a chance to meet Joe for the first time yesterday. Could you talk about him being a part of your program and what it was like when he first earned his way back on the team, what it was like for him and the team to have him back out there and how much excitement he had to rejoin the team?
BOB STOOPS: Well, you know, again, it's a situation that was very unfortunate, and Joe was penalized. Joe was removed from the team for a year, and we believe as a university that you give people second chances if they can do certain things to grow from it and learn from it. There is no excuse ever for violence against women at all. But Joe, again, as an 18 year old and a person we felt, and the circumstances that surrounded it all, that he deserved a second chance, with strict guidelines moving forward, but he's met all of those. He's been a really good student. He's been a great teammate to everybody. So he continues to do the things that the university has set in front of him to do to be given that second chance.

Hopefully as a young man he can keep growing from it, and if he does, he'll be a very productive student and person out in the community if he can continue to do that. We believe overall with what we know about Joe that he has the character to do that. Hopefully he can keep doing it. But he's been a big -- he's a spark for the offense. He's one of those guys that has all the energy. I've said it a lot, like Eric Striker does to the defense, he does to the offense, and it's natural for him. He just has a lot of fun out there and gets everybody energized and everybody enjoys the way he does it.

Q. In regards to the comparison between this team and the 2000 team and in regards to the way the team responded against Texas, that 2000 team was a really mature team and had been through some rough times. This team is a little bit younger. Did they maybe need that wake-up call to get that internal motivation that was maybe missing for this team?
BOB STOOPS: Probably a fair comparison in the team that we inherited in 2000 had been beaten down pretty good before we arrived. We were told they weren't any good. They were really beaten down, and they were sick of it. So they played with that kind of attitude, and of course our guys from last year had been kind of beaten down, and then we don't play very well, or again, I'm all for -- give Texas the credit, they outplayed us, and in the end, that may have been a wake-up call that they needed, that there's more to this, and they've been able to give that extra now to get themselves in that position.

Q. You've talked about how much you love this team. Can you speak to some of the specifics that they've experienced together, whether it's crushing bowl-loss, tackling the social issue like they did with the video on campus and all the things that really go into this being a special group?
BOB STOOPS: Yeah, it goes back to -- starts at last year's bowl loss to then some staff changes to now we're into spring ball and we're cancelling two or three practices because they felt the need to demonstrate, and rightfully so. 80 percent of our team is probably minority, and they felt strongly that this is something that they needed to stand up against because it relates to them so closely. And they felt -- even though this happens around the country, we have it captured. Because we captured it, we're strong enough to do something about it, and that was their stance, and they did a great job with that.

That was a lot. They had a lot of interaction through that time, a lot of meetings, and were very thoughtful about how to continue to approach it, and then had a lot of discussions without coaching in there that were very heated, and so, again, I think they got to know each other more, respect one another more, you know, all of it kind of continued to happen that way.

And then, I don't know, as you -- that was a big factor, and then, you know, just as we roll through the summer, just all of it, they just kept getting tighter and tighter. I think, just again, maybe everybody doubting them, as well. Maybe even for them everybody doubting me gets them to -- that they need to do something about it. All of it together has made them a really -- just a tough-minded, tight team.

Q. What is the single-most important thing for your defense against an explosive Clemson offense?
BOB STOOPS: Well, there's not one single -- first, it starts with Deshaun Watson for sure. We've already talked about that. But a year ago they hit a bunch of big pass plays on us, as well, and he's got a great arm. It's limiting big plays and controlling -- as much as anything, being great against the run game. That's always a major factor.

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