Mike Stoops Top Quotes From Sports Animal Interview: ‘I’ve Made A Lot of Mistakes’
After getting fired on Sunday, Mike Stoops went on The Sports Animal in Oklahoma City to discuss the past few days and where things went wrong. Here is a link to the interview from the Monsters of the Midday and below are some of the most interesting quotes from Stoops this morning.
“Everything kind of came to a head on Saturday. Our inability to play a level of football that Oklahoma should expect and ultimately that fell on me. That was tremendously hard, I have so much respect for this program and all the players that play in it, Lincoln and the administration. We just didn’t get it done, that hurt greatly and it just all came to a head on Saturday in a lot of different ways for a lot of different reasons.”
“Our lack of consistency was concerning to me. It’s been very uncomfortable for me the last few years… our inability to tackle, our inability to cover receivers consistently, to pressure to QB… leads to all that.”
“Disappointment in myself is probably the No. 1 thing, that I couldn’t get our program back to that level consistently is probably what hurts the most. You know you know defense, getting players to buy in consistently to play at a level that I’m used to players playing at is probably the most disappointing part of ti all to me. Lincoln has been incredible, he gave me the opportunity to correct it. Players aren’t going to always like you but they’ve got o respect what it takes to play every time they step on the field… just couldn’t get that consistent effort from certain parts of our team. That’s probably the thing I’m most disappointed about.”
“Social media has changed the game in a lot of ways. Kids are much different now than they were back when you [Dusty Dvoracek] were playing and we were together that first time around… I noticed a little bit more of it when I came back and we really had a great group of secondary guys… they were the first group I started to notice a little bit different, they had their own thoughts and ideas, but still played to a very high level… there has to be accountability and you have to play for each other at a high level… I’m a stickler to detail and being precise in everything you do and maybe that just wore on players, but I still believe it’s the right away to approach any way.”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes trusting certainly elements of our team that’s my responsibility and that’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve made.”
“That’s ludicrous, number one. Whoever would report such erroneous situation and defame me and him is beyond ridiculous. That hurt as well. And for people to say that, there’s so much fake news out there’, that me just not getting it done and it was the right time to make a move, and it was unfortunate… that’s just people in the media that want to sensationalize all these things. I for once know how President Trump feels about Fake News. I didn’t say one word to Curtis at halftime.”
“After the game, we hugged each other, I told him how sorry I was… we walked out of the locker room and said we would talk on Sunday. We talked on Sunday morning for about a half hour and some of the issues that happened… we left each other, we talked about the future, what’s going to be best for our program. We talked about five or six hours later and came to this conclusion.”
“Going down with integrity is the most important part of all this.”
“I just want to rest, get healthy, it’s been a great strain on all of us, my whole family. I think everybody here, it’s been very strenuous. I want to rest, health, reflect and see where it takes me. I really don’t know. I wouldn’t say I’m in the same situation Bob is in. I don’t know. I could see myself doing a lot of different things. I could see myself being an understudy to somebody, a Nick Saban, a Kirby Smart, some of that magnitude, re-think, re-learn, re-teach. I don’t know. I’ve got t see where my gut takes me, media, something like that I would enjoy to do. First thing I’ve got to do is re-charge myself. Reboot. Think this all through. When I left Arizona and got right into this thing, I don’t know if I took enough time to re-think things. I got right into another very high-profile situation that takes a lot out of you.”
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