Mark Stoops and Bret Bielema's Days as Scheming Recruiters on the Road

by:Nick Roush08/21/16

@RoushKSR

bielema-stoops

The football fraternity of college coaches is a lot smaller than you think.  Mark Stoops and Bret Bielema’s back-and-forth at SEC Media Days revealed a shared past few knew of before.  Little did we know.

In the late 90’s the two shared the recruiting territory of Minnesota.  At Iowa, Bielema was reimbursed for his traveling expenses.  Stoops’ deal at Wyoming gave the two a little wiggle room to work up a scheme.

“They gave us a per diem where you didn’t have to turn in a receipt,” Stoops said. “You can do what you want: You can sleep in your car, you can get a nice hotel, you can get a cheap hotel. So I would pocket the money, stay with him (Bielema), then I’d buy his dinner.”

But paying for dinner was only the half of it.  With Stoops’ extra spending money, the future SEC coaches took to Vegas to increase their earnings.

“We went to a casino and we won a little bit; at that time, we thought we were really rolling in it,” Bielema told Gridiron Now.

Their celebration was pure class: red wine at Longhorn Steakhouse.

[Gridiron Now]

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