There aren’t a lot of guys left at Oklahoma from the 2016 and 2017 classes, but the ones still there have been getting a treat this last month and are getting a chance at history.

Long before he was a TV personality on FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff. Long before he was promoting Rock ‘N Roll Tequila. Long before he would visit the program on various occasions in the last four years just to see how it was doing, Bob Stoops was a ball coach.

And a damn good one, too.

The turnaround at OU. All the conference championships. Winning the BCS bowls. Of course, winning the national championship. And earlier this month, being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Those remaining members, though, get a chance to really send off Stoops in a nice way Wednesday evening vs. Oregon in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio.

“For me, I think it does just because playing with Bob, a legendary coach, I think will be fun,” running back Kennedy Brooks said. “It's something I always wanted to do. It's one of the reasons why I came here, so having that chance to fulfill that dream for me will be fun.”

Fun? Absolutely. Memorable? No doubt. But the minute that patented high crown visor gets puts on, that’s Coach Bob Stoops.

He’s back.

“I think the way he's came into things and embraced things kind of like solidifies him that much more as being a legend,” captain Pat Fields said. “Speaks to the type of program that we have that we can call a Hall-of-Fame coach literally off the golf course to come in and coach.

“I think that speaks to what the University of Oklahoma is, and then also as well as seeing all the players that reached out on Twitter in support. I think that speaks to the university, but just having Coach Stoops as a coach, I think it raises the intensity, the competition of practice, and I think all of us want to play up to the standard that he set. It's like we're playing for a legend, so everybody has to take and elevate their game to the next level.”

Fields has been around Stoops for years and years in different capacities. He was recruited by Stoops when Fields was at Tulsa Union although Fields was a 2018 high school recruit.

At Union, Fields played against the Stoops’ boys, Drake and Isaac. So Fields has seen some of Coach Bob, has seen Bob as a father, and he’s embraced the attitude Stoops has brought to the program more than ever in the last month.

“But I think the biggest thing, he doesn't really have to take it out us of us. I think we want to elevate our game because we're playing for him, if that makes sense, so he doesn't even have to come crazy, it's just everybody wants to like live up to the legend status of him so everybody is kind of taking their games to the next level.”

It still hasn’t been a month since Lincoln Riley made that decision. That sounds asinine, but it’s true. We’re just shy of a month since Riley shocked the OU and college football world to leave the Sooners to become the head coach at USC.

Stoops was out golfing that Sunday afternoon when he got the call, hey, we need you. No hesitation, within 45 minutes, Stoops was there.

Counselor, first, to the seniors, to the underclassmen. Whatever the program needed, check it off. He was ready, including being named the interim head coach for the bowl game. Including going on the road once again to recruit and do in-home visits for a week until Brent Venables was hired.

Ready, willing and able. And 100 percent necessary.

“It was really big for us,” linebacker DaShaun White said. “We needed someone to sort of step in and help us sort of keep each other together. He got in there with the leaders and he was like, ‘I know there’s a lot of things that we really don’t know right now, but the most important thing is that we stay together.’ We went out and just sort of followed his lead. I think that was definitely what we needed at the time. I was really thankful for him.”

White gets it now. He admitted it, as a 2018 class member, that he wasn’t buddy-buddy with Stoops. He’d heard the stories, now he’s getting to experience the real thing.

The stories of yesteryear about who Stoops was. Program guy all those years ago, program guy still to this day.

“This place sort of doesn’t let him go,” White said. “He doesn’t let go of this place either. Having the opportunity to play for a coach like him, really excited to be honest with you. I’ve watched him from afar, just watched the way this place has really loved on him. I think I’m starting to understand why so many people are really big on him.”

You don’t have to be from the 2016 or 2017 classes, the guys that committed to Stoops, to appreciate who he is and what he’s done and is doing.

You don’t even have to be a senior leader like White and Fields. All it took was one or two practices for the younger guys to realize, oh, that’s why he’s Bob Stoops.

“I’ve definitely seen it sometimes when’s he’s mad and stuff like that,” sophomore wide receiver Marvin Mims said. “But I think it’s cool seeing the experience I’ve had here before. He’s definitely getting stuff out of different people the way that other people can’t do. That’s a very unique thing. It’s cool to have him out there, it really is, especially knowing the things he’s done in the past.”

Motivation becomes a big talking point for non-New Year’s Six bowl games. Really, any non-playoff bowl game and you begin to wonder who is in or out or who cares.

Stoops cares and that attitude feels like it has carried over with OU and trying to ending a crazy and wild 2021 season the best way they know how.

It wasn’t winning the program’s eighth national championship or even capturing the Big 12 title for the seventh year in a row. To go 11-2, however, and win the Alamo Bowl, would be one heck of a way to punctuate the last month.

And honor Stoops once again.

“You see him on TV. You see him on Big Noon Kickoff,” sophomore defensive end Reggie Grimes said. “To have him as a head coach, you hear about the legend of Bob Stoops. As far as that’s concerned, he’s a great guy. He’s another guy who I would run through a wall for. Whatever was asked of me from him, I would be more than happy to accept and do it because everything that’s been said about him is true. He is who he says he is.”

On Wednesday night? He’s a ball coach, one more time.