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Cocaine hoax not funny to OU's Stoops

The Rocky

Published July 23, 2008 at 3:56 p.m.

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He Said It

"I've got a lot of friends who go to CU, so, yeah, I heard about it . . . but we got the (Big 12 championship) ring, so that's OK."

Jon Cooper, Oklahoma senior offensive lineman from Fort Collins, on losing 27-24 at Colorado last season.

Numbers Game

31-94 combined record of Baylor's three previous coaches. Art Briles, who was 34-28 in five seasons at Houston, begins his turn this season.

The hoax story still can be found online, but many versions have retractions.

The hoax story still can be found online, but many versions have retractions.

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Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops is no fan of Internet message boards, particularly after the recent cyberspace episode targeting Sooners quarterbacks Sam Bradford and Landry Jones.

Claiming it was just a joke, a Nebraska fan working at the University of Texas wrote and posted a fictional story claiming Bradford and Jones had been arrested for cocaine possession, even using the Web masthead of The Oklahoman and the byline of its Sooners beat writer.

Not surprisingly, the newspaper has filed suit against the man, a move Stoops said he "absolutely" supported.

"It's sad," Stoops said. "I read the guy's comment - (saying) he didn't mean to hurt anybody. Well, what did you think would happen?

"It's amazing to me, to be honest with you. And I find it just as humorous, though, that people actually read it and believed it."

Added Sooners safety Nic Harris: "That was a great joke . . . I hope the guy goes to jail."

HOW LONG, MACK?

Texas coach Mack Brown, about to enter his 11th season in Austin and celebrate his 57th birthday, is the conference's longest-tenured coach. He hasn't entertained any thoughts of retiring, but he sounds as if he'll never challenge the legacies of Penn State's Joe Paterno or Florida State's Bobby Bowden.

"I think I would stay in coaching as long as I'm healthy and as long as we're doing the job that's best for . . . Texas," he said. "If we're not doing our job and Texas could do better, then we wouldn't be one of those that would want to stand in the way."

SLOGAN TIME

Oklahoma is 5-1 in Big 12 championship games in nine seasons under Stoops but has lost four consecutive BCS bowl games, including last season's 48-28 beatdown against West Virginia in the Fiesta.

That sticks with the Sooners like a stomach virus, said Harris: "We hear about it all the time . . . when everything is going bad, everybody's got something to say and wants to talk about you. We need to hone in on what we need to do."

So, Oklahoma has adopted this acronym for 2008: WTLG - Win The Last Game.

THANKS, BUFFS

Colorado's costliest, most bitter 2007 loss was 31-28 at Iowa State in the season's next-to-last regular-season game.

Seizing momentum after CU coach Dan Hawkins' fourth-and-short gamble failed near midfield, the Cyclones roared back from a 21-0 halftime deficit and scored 31 consecutive points.

Iowa State finished only 3-9, but two of the victories were in the final three games, and Gene Chizik, now in his second year as Cyclones coach, still views the win against CU as a program turning point and potential springboard for 2008.

Said Chizik: "I think our players understand now when we talk about taking every play, play by play, and you fight and you claw and you scratch and you keep going, that small victories can turn into big victories . . . we always talk about that."

Iowa State visits CU on Nov. 8.