Mike Stoops

Year	School	Record	Bowl
2004	Arizona	3-8
2005	Arizona	3-8
2006	Arizona	6-6
2007	Arizona	5-7
Career		17-29	.370
	Arizona	17-29	.370

2008 SCHEDULE

Date	Opponent	Location	2008 CHS Prediction
8/30/08	Idaho	Tucson, AZ	W
9/06/08	Toledo	Tucson, AZ	W
9/13/08	at New Mexico	Albuquerque, NM	L
9/20/08	at UCLA	Pasadena, CA	L
10/04/08	Washington	Tucson, AZ	L
10/11/08	at Stanford	Palo Alto, CA	W
10/18/08	California	Tucson, AZ	L
10/25/08	USC	Tucson, AZ	L
11/08/08	at Washington State	Pullman, WA	L
11/15/08	at Oregon	Eugene, OR	L
11/22/08	Oregon State	Tucson, AZ	W
12/06/08	Arizona State	Tucson, AZ	L

	Coaches Hot Seat Prediction		4-8

Coaches Hot Seat Analysis

At the weekly Coaches Hot Seat golf matches, a regular refrain by a 90+ shooter is, "How in world did I shoot a 97?" Finally, after hearing this a few dozen times, it was time to end the madness. Again, the 90+ shooter says, "How did I shoot a 97?" Person fed-up with the bitching, "Let me see that scorecard. Let's see, you have a 7, a 9, an 8, two more 7's, here's another 8, and a bunch of 6's. You're lucky you broke 100!" Bitching golfer, "Well, I did have that those 2 pars and 1 birdie!" There's the problem, both with the bitching Coaches Hot Seat golfer, and for teams like Mike Stoops one at Arizona. Let's go to the numbers, or rather the statistics in this case:

If you ever get bored, a great place to pass the time is looking at the team/individual statistical numbers at www.ncaasports.com. Just go to www.ncaasports.com and hit the Statistics Tab, and then hit the team/individual link under Football, and you will find the statistics for all of Division I-A football. Whenever a team is struggling, it is always a good idea to go to the statistics, 2007 Arizona, where most of the problems will jump off the page. The first thing that looks odd for Stoops and Arizona is the low offensive rushing numbers, but with a disciple of Hal Mumme and Mike Leach running the offensive show, Sonny Dykes, you can't expect much out of the Wildcat running game. The Arizona running game is ranked 114 out of 119 teams, and averages 77 yards per game. That is way too low for our taste, but we here at Coaches Hot Seat tend to be more of the, "We are going to line-up and whip your ass" types, but to each his own. June Jones and Mike Leach are winning without running the ball, so we guess it can be done at Arizona as well. The next thing that jumps out is the offensive and defensive scoring. The Arizona offense is scoring an average of 28 points a game and the defense is giving up almost 27 points a game. As everyone knows, those numbers are not sustainable, because anything below a 5 point spread between the amount of points you score and give up (scoring 5 more points per game than the defense) is a recipe for disaster, because you will be playing way to many close games. Mike Stoops does not have the hosses that he coached as an assistant at Oklahoma, but Arizona has traditionally had very tough defenses (hence "Bear Down Arizona"), and giving up almost 27 points a game is just unacceptable if Stoops wants to build a consistently winning football program. Of course, we can vividly recall many situations over the past few years where the Arizona offense gave up points on turnovers, or put the Arizona defense in very tough spots on the minus side of the field. The bottom line is that Sonny Dykes needs more output from his offense, and Mike/Mark Stoops need to stop giving up so many points on defense. The last item that jumps out to us on Arizona's statistics is the Turnover Margin. In 2007 Arizona was -.08 in Turnover Margin, which ranked them 64th out of 119 teams, and this is a category that a team that has equal or less talent than their opponents has to be a leader in. The Arizona statistics from 2007 paint a picture of a very average football team, that struggles in some very key areas, and it is very easy to see how that would add up to 5-7 in 2007, and an overall record of 17-29 during Stoops tenure in Tucson.

We have been watching bits and pieces of Mike Stoops Arizona teams over the past 4 years in this offseason, and the other night we asked Coaches Hot Seat members to throw out one or two words to describe what they have seen watching these games. Here are some of those comments:

1. Inconsistency - The main problem with Mike Stoops' coached Arizona teams seems to be inconsistency from play to play, series to series, and game to game. The great college football teams are very consistent in their play, and their focus leads to a lot less breakdowns on both sides of the ball. Arizona can play very well for one play, two plays, sometimes even an entire series, but the next series out there will be problems. Consistency of purpose seems to be a real problem at Arizona

2. Foolish Mistakes - This problem almost jumps out more than consistency, because there have been a tremendous number of foolish mistakes, fumbles, interceptions, stupid penalties, players way out of position, and boneheaded mistakes by players during the Stoops tenure at Arizona. Also, many of these foolish mistakes have come at very critical moments during the games, and have cost Stoops and Arizona by our count 4 or 5 games over the past 4 years.

3. Inconsistent QB play - The Arizona QB play in 2007 was better than in past years, but overall Stoops is not getting enough leadership and quality of execution from his QB. If Mike Stoops wants to turn things around in 2008, and a bowl trip would quite a turnaround, then he is going to have to get a lot better play from his QB.

4. Chaos - There are fewer team sidelines that are in more chaos than the Arizona sideline. Bob Stoops goes nuts sometimes during football games, but the Oklahoma sideline is almost always in total control and everyone is doing their jobs well. The OU players are always into the games when the outcome of the game is still in question, but sometimes it looks to us that the Arizona players are on the sidelines making plans to meet up with their friends or dates after the game, while the football game is still going on. This problem can be solved very easily, by finding a very good "Get Back" guy who could also be the "You had better damn well be paying attention to this game or you will be running stadiums after the game" guy. Controlling one's on sideline is important, especially when consistency and foolish mistakes are two of your main problems.

5. Effort - It may not be fair to say the Arizona players are not giving enough effort during football games, but a few of us here at Coaches Hot Seat had the opportunity to see several Dick Tomey coached Arizona teams play from the sidelines, and there is no doubt in our mind that the Tomey's Arizona coached teams played harder, had more effort, were more consistent, made fewer foolish mistakes, and had much more consistent effort than Stoops teams at Arizona.

What does all this add up to? Mike Stoops is now entering his 4th year at Arizona, and we don't know if it is any better there than on the 1st day he arrived. Stoops is a very good defensive football coach, but in order for Arizona to improve and become a contender in the Pac-10, he must become a very good head football coach. Time is short, because the Arizona fans are not going to tolerate mediocrity football teams forever, especially with the number of high-quality assistants and up-and-coming head football coaches that would walk to Tucson from their current location for a head coaching job in the Pac-10.

Coaches Hot Seat Bottom Line

We predict that Mike Stoops and Arizona will have a 4-8 record in 2008. Stoops and Arizona face a very difficult schedule in 2008, but the season comes in like a lamb with Idaho and Toledo in Tucson. We see a 2-0 start for Arizona, but things get tougher in week 3 with a trip to Albuquerque to play New Mexico, who Arizona lost to in Tucson in 2007. After New Mexico, the Pac-10 season begins in earnest with a trip to Pasadena to play UCLA, and Washington comes calling in Tucson the next week. We see Arizona really struggling in the Pac-10 in 2008, and we are predicting a 2-7 conference record and 2-1 out-of-conference, which adds up to 4-8 overall. There is not a chance in Hades that Mike Stoops keeps his job at Arizona if he finishes 4-8 in 2008, unless of course the Arizona fans don't give a rip about how their football team performs.

Of course, Mike Stoops could very easily turn things around in 2008, especially if addresses the very obvious problems that exist on his football team. As always, how a football team performs is a near-perfect reflection of its head coach and the way he has chosen to run his team, and that goes for both off and on the field of play. Taking an optimistic look at the 2008 Arizona season, we can imagine that a Wildcat team playing at or near the top of its game could win 8 games. The difference between 4 and 8 wins in 2008 will measure exactly on how well Mike Stoops does his job.

Anything less than 7 wins, and the will be a change made in the head coaching position at Arizona come December 2008.

2008 Coaches Hot Seat Prediction: 4-8

Will Mike Stoops be back for the 2009 season? NO

Potential Replacements: Brady Hoke (Ball State), Brian Kelly (Cincinnati), Butch Jones (Central Michigan), Charlie Strong (Florida DC), Dan Mullen (Florida OC), Dave Christensen (Missouri OC), DeWayne Walker (UCLA DC), Kyle Whittingham (Utah), Mike Leach (Texas Tech), Mike Locksley (Illinois OC), Pat Hill (Fresno State), Robert Anae (BYU OC), Steve Sarkisian (USC OC), Todd Graham (Tulsa), Turner Gill (Buffalo), Will Muschamp (Texas Co-DC)