Bob Stoops Quotations

We're in good shape and the guys understand the plan. It just gets down to making plays and handling the different wrinkles.

Until we can be responsible with the ball, it's impossible to win.

Watching the TCU game and critiquing it Sunday) on tape, we just weren't very physical up front. TCU just outplayed and outcoached us.

We're going to give Rhett Bomar an opportunity to start and see where he takes us,

We're going to give Rhett Bomar and opportunity to start and see where he takes us,

We're going to give Rhett Bomar a chance to start and see where he takes it. By no means am I sitting here saying that Paul Thompson is responsible for the way we played Saturday. That's not the case. We had a lot of guys, mostly older guys, play as poorly as I have seen them play. We feel Rhett deserves the same opportunity that Paul had.

When we did protect him, we didn't convert our opportunities.

What he has been able to do is just remarkable.

We're going to keep getting better as we go. I believe there's great potential as we go. Are we there yet? Obviously not. But we're going to keep trying.

We feel that Rhett deserves an opportunity to have the opportunities that Paul had and see what he can do with, ... That's the direction we're going to go and work from there.

I don't want to say [the teams] are mirror images of each other, ... but there's a lot of similarities on both sides of the ball.

It just shows you have come prepared to play and ready to execute. It doesn't give you that much comfort when it's early and you still have another two and a half to three quarters to go. You better keep playing. But it is a positive, it gives you energy and it gives you a little boost like that.

Dear Lord, I pray that my place will never be with the cold, timid souls who do not compete yet criticize, for they never know or feel success or failure.

I'm a huge wrestling fan. Wrestlers have so many great qualities that athletes need to have.

We are all happy for Darrell and his family. He feels the NFL is the direction he wants to go and we are supportive of him reaching his goals. We are all appreciative of the work he did here in coaching our receivers. He developed a great number of excellent players, and as also a strong recruiter.

We had no intention of bringing Dusty back when he was let go a year ago. I figured he'd enter the NFL draft, and that would be it.

We need to make something of this week.

So for me, being here, it's OU-Texas. It's two good teams that have won national championships. They have a great and strong tradition. And they have traditionally been nationally ranked.

So for me, being here, it's OU-Texas, ... It's two good teams that have won national championships. They have a great and strong tradition. And they have traditionally been nationally ranked.

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No, they had most of their guys before they won the national championship.

Rhett Bomar made a lot of plays, which will continue to give him confidence. He was much better in executing our passing game.

Nobody promises you anything. We've had a lot to deal with when you look at the entire season and all that's happened in a short amount of time. You do the best you can to fight through it and you keep working.

I didn't anticipate all that's happened and who we've missed,

I don't believe as much as you write about it, you truly know how down it was and how poor and how bad it was,

But there are other parts of what we do here as college students and on a college team that also need to be fulfilled.

I'm a little bit disinterested in it. . . . We have been in both situations, and we found our way in other years to win championships and other years we have been picked favorites and not won championships.

I felt like Rhett started to get some rhythm and confidence in what he was doing, ... Our receivers made some nice plays, and that part of it, I feel like we're getting somewhere.

I feel like we're making good improvement up there. The good thing is that those guys are out there everyday. They're getting a ton of snaps and that will make them better.

I don't root for either team, but in the end, I have to be happy for Dan and the way he's building that program. They continue to make improvements. I'm sure this is a big step for them.

I don't think so, ... He remembers those other 12 games. They didn't fade from his memory.

He was always the first guy Jason White would talk to when he came off the field. Josh has a really good way with those guys and I'm sure he'll step right in here tomorrow night and do the same thing.

He handles it well and, I'll tell you, he has good hands. He catches the ball. He'll definitely be more a part of our passing offense.

He has not lived up to his responsibilities or expectations with the team or academically. He also hasn't followed through on the disciplinary measures that resulted in those areas.

He has been in the way we work. I'm going to tell you there is not a guy who goes at it harder in the weight room in the summer and on the field. You watch him, the way he plays determined,

He has worked hard on improving himself in many ways,

He is indifferent to all the attention he has been receiving. It does not seem to bother him one way or the other.

He got better and better as the week went, and was close the other day. He just didn't have the lateral movement and the pace that he needs.

He'll get his share of carries, but we also hope that we can get him another five to 10 touches through the passing game with a little more space, as opposed to everybody sitting there lined up looking at him in the backfield. How that works out, we'll see.

We're one of those teams that gets criticized even when we win. In the end, though, I'm smart enough to recognize all that we overcame down here in this atmosphere and still came away with a victory.

Together, both quarterbacks are throwing for about 250 yards per game and completing about 70 percent of their passes. That's pretty strong for a couple of guys who don't have a lot of experience.

What we were doing at the end of the game, we've never done before. The other side of it is, if we don't do it, for instance when we did take a knee against Texas Tech, does that then come back and haunt you? Is that the reason that maybe kept you out of something, and how do you live with that as well? Its really a rotten position to play in.

He's had the fewest number of snaps overall when you look at his time here, and he's been that close all along. We feel like if he gets more snaps maybe he can do something with it. We'll see.

We may get a little bit more than other people. You've got to be able to make plays when they do.

He wasn't making the cuts he was used to making. We knew there was a chance he may not play.

He continues to amaze you in what he is able to do. The ball is a little bit slippery and the grass is wet, and people take it for granted that he's in there executing in a great way.

Kirk and Dan are great friends of mine. I do my best to watch the game and not root for either one.

I think you're always looking for guys, especially in the offensive line, that are just tough, hard-working, fighting guys. That's what you look for. It's not always the easiest thing to find.

I thought the play was really a breaking point for us. I am not at all questioning the call, but we thought we had it, then we didn't, then they went down and got a field goal. Thinking we had the ball at the 30, and then not, that was a big swing.

I thought the secondary played solid and good the entire day. The one deep wheel route we gave up on our boundary was somebody else outside of the secondary busting an assignment and not covering their guy. They tackled well for the most part, their positions on the ball and challenging in many coverage, I thought, were really pretty good.

I think we're still better than the way we played.

I think back to last year and, I don't want to say it was easy, but we made it look easy. We weren't challenged in difficult situations. This year, we have been, and it's built our character.

Just because what we've done in the past has worked and worked well doesn't mean that it will continue to. We have really got to be smart in what we're attempting to do. We need to make some adjustments and make sure we can execute certain parts of our passing game more consistently.

Jason knows what's best for him. If that's what he has to do, he's had an incredible career here.

I saw him walk in and he said he felt pretty decent. I don't know where reports of a high-ankle sprain came from. I don't think he would have been able to play like he did the rest of the game if he had a high-ankle sprain.

I remember the night we saw him in Columbia as a freshman and thinking to myself that he was going to be a handful for the league over the next four years. That definitely turned out to be the case. He just presents so many challenges to a defense with his size, his speed and his feel of the game. He is also a player who had the respect of people around the Big 12 for the way he conducted himself. He is a person that the Missouri program and fans can be proud of in a lot of ways.

Our imagination as a staff, and Chuck's imagination with the offensive staff is to move the football,

Playing a team that's 10-1 gets your attention big-time. Our players recognize it as a major challenge. It does excite them.

Really, the second quarter there, late in the second quarter was really the breaking point.

Really, our expectations will not change. I say it every year. We respect Texas. We've been on both sides of it. We've been picked behind them before, and we've been picked ahead of them before. We'll get off the bus when it's time to play.

That didn't surprise me at all. Clint is just a ball magnet. He makes plays like that every day.

It doesn't really matter to me whether we are picked favorites or not. You know, we have been in both situations and we found our way in other years to championships, and other years where we have been picked favorites and not been.

I still think we haven't put it all together, and maybe that's good that we're still good enough to win. I told the guys, our 2000 national title team -- we won 12-7 here, and we went on to win out and play in the Orange Bowl. So a lot of things are setting up similarly.

I think they're great. I don't know if that's a surprise to anybody.

That surprised me, ... I thought they both would have reacted better and played better. There were some opportunities there, but we just couldn't quite get it right.

We don't expect Travis to play. He hasn't progressed to the point to where he is effective or can be at full speed. A receiver not at full speed makes it pretty tough.

We have a great opportunity to go down and win. That is what we are always shooting for and we will be ready to go after it. ... We feel like we are making great strides, too, and traditionally we have matched up with them.

With the success of our program and the media attention we have received, we feel we can attract players from all over the country.

We came out of spring believing that they each had a scrimmage or two that they were good at and one or two that they made some mistakes at. Each of them did that and in our mind there was not a separation going into (Thursday's) practice. I feel it's unfortunate that so many of you in the media have ranked them and have put them in place so that players have to hear that the entire summer. It's really not fair.

We need to establish some kind of passing game.

We have not been good. The players haven't been good. You can say whatever you want. I have done a lousy job.

Those conversations are usually pretty short. He hasn't been in that position much, and I understand where he was coming from.

Those guys all have ability .... I believe they've got a chance to really be a great group.

We prepare our kids to look and see. You can't be fully prepared. You have to expect them to do something to slow us down, and we'll try to do the same thing to them.

We didn't push it. I'm not going to detail it for you.

To me, you look at both of those games, the turnovers are the biggest issue, and the turnovers lead to all the other problems.

We're doing things discipline-wise, and everything else like we always have. That doesn't mean it's right or good, and it's fair to criticize me because some teams accept it better than others and listen or are disciplined better than others.

We'll see. At this point, we anticipate him playing. Start or not depends on how we feel practice is going, what we feel we need to do. Depending on what further happens from here, we'll see.

With all my Iowa ties, I do my best to watch the game indifferently. But you have to be happy for Dan. He's been building that program and that sure is a big step for them.

UCLA has made improvements, and talent-wise they have always been good. They continue to have sound schemes and are disciplined.

Typical of our recent classes, this one is well-balanced.

We (coaches) believe that Rhett has played well enough and is close enough that we do intend to get him snaps early in games as well as late in games.

We need to do our best to be as sharp as we can. I think that's the frustrating part for us,

This shows the youth that we have and the way that we have grown throughout the year. We have a number of young guys who are capable of being really good, and I think they'll get better and better.

We need to develop a passing game that our players can execute. For whatever reason, for the past two weeks what we have been doing hasn't been productive. That is being about as kind as I can be. We are not going to continue to go through the year like this and not be able to throw the football some.

Every year coming into the season, I'm always the most anxious because you want to see what you are. How competitive are we? How tough are we? What's our attitude?. And what's the players' demeanor in the locker room and coming out of the tunnel?

We were fighting, scratching and clawing all year. At the end of the game, you had that feeling of 'Here we go again,' but we made the plays we needed to win the game.

While we deny many of the allegations made in the lawsuit, our attorneys will continue to try and resolve this matter, ... It is our expectation that this lawsuit will not unduly disrupt our family or professional duties and responsibilities.

To me, it'd be way too premature right now for that to happen. That's something that will be talked about and discussed,

To me, I am most critical that we were not tough and physical. It's something we have always done. For whatever reason we didn't do that to the ability we're capable of, and that's my fault, along with my staff.

This typifies our whole year. We've been fighting and clawing this way all season. Fortunately, our ball magnet came up with the big interception.

We want to give him opportunities to get on the field. He's excited about it. He sees opportunity there.

You guys probably forgot how he played those first 12 games,

When a guy's really good, he's really good. We realize that, and we realize that everything runs through him. When you look at not only the passing but also the run game, it all goes through him. He's a big factor, and we've got to really defend him.

With Kansas, we need to execute better. Going up to Arrowhead Stadium to play KU, we need to do our best to be as sharp as we can.

With Kansas, we need to execute better, ... Going up to Arrowhead Stadium to play KU, we need to do our best to be as sharp as we can.

We felt, as a staff, we're going to start Thompson. We feel that he has earned it to this point.

We felt we needed to bolster our team along the offensive line because we had the fewest number of scholarship players returning at those positions. We feel like we met our needs. We recruit the kind of players that we feel can play early in their careers.

We're going right now with Rhett, but we've still always got Paul ready to go.

We had our opportunities, we just didn't convert.