One day after Oklahoma endured a high-scoring loss to Texas, the Sooners fired defensive coordinator Mike Stoops.
Defensive tackles coach Ruffin McNeill was named as Stoops’ replacement on Monday.
The Longhorns set their Red River Showdown points record Saturday in a 48-45 win over the Sooners, and Texas piled up 501 total yards.
“I’m extremely disappointed in my ability to get this team to play at a higher level,” Stoops said Saturday. “It takes everybody pulling the same way. Certainly, I take a lot of that responsibility. That’s for sure.”
Oklahoma (5-1, 2-1 Big 12) ranks 96th in the FBS in total defense, allowing 421.2 yards per game. The Sooners are allowing 27.3 points per game, which ranks 79th in the country.
Stoops, 56, was in his second stint as Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator, with his first run from 1999-2003 occurring while his brother Bob was the Sooners’ head coach.
Mike Stoops left Norman in 2004 to become the head coach at Arizona. In 7 1/2 seasons at Tucson, he produced a 41-50 record and guided the Wildcats to three bowl games. He was fired after the team got off to a 1-5 start in 2011.
He returned to Oklahoma as the defensive coordinator the next fall and remained in that role through Saturday.
After playing safety for the University of Iowa in the early 1980s and a brief stint with the Chicago Bears as a replacement player during the 1987 NFL players strike, Stoops served as a defensive coach at Iowa and then Kansas State before moving to Oklahoma.
—Field Level Media