One of those things that make you go Hmmmm......
https://www.oklahoman.com/mike-gund...bserve-osu-football-practices/article/5604769
https://www.oklahoman.com/mike-gund...bserve-osu-football-practices/article/5604769
The Face Doesn't Match the Place...
- Thread starter Senior Sooner
- Start date
I wasn’t happy with Gibbs as head coach but he really was up against the wall with all he had to deal with most of his tenure. I had an opportunity to sit in front of him at a high school baseball game the summer after his dismissal. I can tell you he seemed to be really happy and was just a joy to talk with during the game. Really down to earth guy. And.....he never once said “obviously we’re very disappointed” during the entire time we visited with each other.
Gibbs had nothing going for him when he became the head coach. No tv the first year, no bowl games the first two years, 18 recruits instead of 25 for five years.....hard to recruit with that going on. Yet I was still disappointed in his coaching and what I thought was a lackadaisical sideline manner. He just never seemed to be “in” the game. So after that afternoon visiting with him at the high school baseball game I was very confused. Talented yet not head coach material I suppose. Too bad for him and the Sooners. Blake is a completely different story.
Gibbs stepped into a very dirty diaper left behind by Switzer for the reasons you mention, unlike any new coach in OU history.
It took OU 11 seasons to recover, even though the talent level from 1989-1998, I thought, was better than the 61-50-3 record those seasons, with the average per game score of 26-22.
Three losses to Texas in 1989, 1990 and 1991 with Sooner teams that many said had more talent than Texas, had a lot to do with Gibbs' demise.
Gibbs' 44-23-2 record (with three bowl appearances) had an average per game score of 29-17.....Blake's 12-22 record had an average per game score of 20-29 and featured epic beatings to Nebraska two years in a row, 69-7 in 1996 and 73-21 in 1997. Gibbs' worst losses were to Colorado in 1994, 45-7 and to BYU in the bowl game 31-6, his final game as coach.
Like Gomer Jones under Wilkinson who had so much to do with Wilkinson's success, Gibbs did the same for Switzer during his stint as DC from 1981-88, those 8 seasons when OU gave up a whopping average of 13 points per game.
Glad you posted this, CT...I was having the same thoughts...As much as I loved 'The Little Round Man', Gomer T. Jones, he was as 'Good as they get' as an Assistant Coach, as was Gary Gibbs, but they had bloomed where they were planted, and did not fare as well as a Head Man.
Throw John Blake into that mix, and it further proves that promoting from within the Magic Circle, or those with OU Connections, is not always the wisest choice. Many of our fine assistants have moved on, and up, and few have excelled as Top Dawgs...
So many of Gibbs' losses were ones that were lost late in the game and to teams of lesser talent.
The first loss under Gibbs that really made an impression on me was Iowa State his second year as head coach. My brother and I were sitting with an OU AA, who was a my client. It was a beautiful October day in Norman and the Sooners were ranked in the mid-teens. We were 4-1 having only lost to Texas by one point the week before so everyone was expecting a thumping of the Cyclones. We’re sitting in the stands all fat and happy. Long, long story short, we watched a one legged Iowa State QB run for one first down after another. 6, 8, 10 yards on 3rd down. It seemed to make no difference. We lost by 2 points to a team that only won one other conference game that year. As the team was leaving (walking) the field my OU buddy, who hadn’t said much at all stood up and said “if I had just got my *** whipped like that I’d be sprinting off the field”. There were more games like that under Gibbs but none ever so embarrassing for me.
I liked Gibbs and thought he did a decent job despite the restrictions placed on the program due to the NCAA sanctions. However, Gibbs was 2-15-1 vs. texas, Nebraska and Colorado. When you can't play with the big boys anymore, it's time to go. I was sad to see him go, but he has had successful career in the NFL as an LB coach and D Coordinator for several NFL teams.
It was tough for Coach Gibbs during those years with penalties. Like most people have state on here, he was a great defensive coordinator, just not a great head football coach. Of course if I would have known how far we would fall under Blake I wouldn't have been so happy when Gibbs stepped down.
Gibbs went 8-3 that year losing 3 straight but did whip Nebraska pretty bad. I think that was his best season, but the Big 8 was not good in 1990. Five teams only won 2 conference games.
Switzer left OU broken & bare. Gibbs did the best under some of the worst times OU had ever experienced.
He went on to a very successful career as an NFL defensive coach. He was sitting in OKC doing nothing and OU could use his input. Riley should have called him but can’t because Mike Stoops is too friggin prideful to accept that he needs help.
He went on to a very successful career as an NFL defensive coach. He was sitting in OKC doing nothing and OU could use his input. Riley should have called him but can’t because Mike Stoops is too friggin prideful to accept that he needs help.
Gibbs restored some dignity to the program. Not a great head coach, that's true, but he was what we needed at the time. Gibbs = mission accomplished in my opinion.
It was the hires after Gary that doomed our program during the early and mid nineties.
As an aside, he was light years ahead of Blake, which is quite an indictment of Blake.
It was the hires after Gary that doomed our program during the early and mid nineties.
As an aside, he was light years ahead of Blake, which is quite an indictment of Blake.
Don't know how he was off the field, but on the sidelines he appeared to have the personality of a rock.
From my perspective based solely on one afternoon with him, Gary Gibbs was definitely a much different person on the sideline. But is that not true for many, many people? Coaches, athletes, etc. A Barry Switzer personality, he’s not.
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I have a very different opinion of the close of the Switzer years than most OU fans. I'll leave it at that.
Well I am one that doesn't tend to blame Barry for every single thing that happened during that short time. I realize that the buck has to stop with him, but some things were out of his control. I personally love Barry Switzer and he is obviously one of the all time greats.
Oh hell man Switzer is and will always be one of the all time greats. But he was a huge part of the downfall of OU. To deny this is blind loyalty.
Thank you kind sir.
Such high praise... completely inconsistent with what my wife usually says to me. ;-)
Switzer recruited a few idiots and they did what idiots sometimes do. He is at fault for recruiting them, but I don't believe coaches can always be in complete control of what 18 yr old kids do in their free time. Switzer paid a high price as did the program.
Gibbs was a good man and a great coordinator but was in over his head as a HC--Norm Chow anyone? The sanctions and cloud that he inherited didn't help but, at the end of the day, he simply wasn't cut to lead a program like OU's.
That said, IMO the way he was treated at the end of his tenure by many Sooner fans was classless and inexcusable. "For Sale" signs on his front lawn and planes flying banners over the stadium are some of the more embarrassing episodes in our history.
He was a great player on our fantastic teams of the 70s and coordinated our awesome defenses of the 80s. If his record as a head coach warranted his firing, fine, but he deserved far better than the treatment that he eventually got from too many members of our fanbase.
That said, IMO the way he was treated at the end of his tenure by many Sooner fans was classless and inexcusable. "For Sale" signs on his front lawn and planes flying banners over the stadium are some of the more embarrassing episodes in our history.
He was a great player on our fantastic teams of the 70s and coordinated our awesome defenses of the 80s. If his record as a head coach warranted his firing, fine, but he deserved far better than the treatment that he eventually got from too many members of our fanbase.
I was alive and well during that time. I think Switzer gave his players too much credit and freedom and some obviously didn't deserve it. He recruited the players so the buck had to stop there. With that being said, Barry was also responsible for multiple NC's and some of the greatest teams OU has ever fielded. The overwhelming number of his players were fantastic and had no outside issues.
Through all the conversation here, I believe Gibbs' tenure at Oklahoma would have been far better had he became head coach without the scandals and turmoil left in the wake of Switzer's forced resignation...his quiet demeanor and low key personality aside.