Take Bob Stoops' personality, and make him a defensive coordinator of a national power that finished the season 8-5.

The same Bob Stoops who can be gruff and combative with the press. The same Bob Stoops who shies away from photo ops and glad handing.

All the stuff that makes him likable to the general public.

How would Bob Stoops go over with the public then?

Just ask Mike Stoops. It doesn't go over well.

It's always been a Youngstown thing with Bob and Mike. They're both good guys. But their no-nonsense personalities don't go over well with your grandma watching at home on TV.

Or passionate OU fans who are still mad about 8-5, still mad about Baylor and Clemson.

Bob Stoops is the head coach who became a college football legend. Mike Stoops is the defensive coordinator who yelled at Julian Wilson during a defensive meltdown against Baylor last season.

Bob has had his detractors for sure. Behind the scenes people rave about how innovative Bob is, how much he embraces new ideas and change.

In front of the scenes Bob can come off as rigid. He once railed against social media and uniform changes. Then he got an active Twitter account and changed the uniforms.

This spring we've been able to watch as his brother Mike is undergoing major changes of his own. Specifically, in the structure of how he operates as a defensive coordinator.

Mike Stoops' world has changed dramatically since last season. He's given up his full-time secondary duties to Kerry Cooks. His coaching duties have been stripped down to allow him more freedom to oversee.

He even coached the spring game from the pressbox, not the sideline.

There is nothing Mike can do right now to change the opinion of fans that have decided he is no longer a great defensive coordinator.

But what he can change, he is.

Even if that change seems difficult for Mike Stoops to swallow at times.

Behind the scenes, Mike Stoops is still driven more than ever to put a dominant defense on the field. I can tell you that based on personal conversations.

Although in those conversations, Mike does most of the talking.

With Cooks, Diron Reynolds and Tim Kish, he's making tweaks that are as personal as they are professional.

As mentioned, he's given way to Cooks as a full-time secondary coach and you can tell it hasn't been an easy move for Stoops, just based on an answer to a question I asked Cooks the other day.

"Did it make it easier knowing Bob and Mike since you came in here and took away his baby (secondary)?" I asked.

Cooks laughed immediately.

"I think that definitely helps," he continued. "I went to school at Iowa. I've known these guys for a long time. It adds comfort, knowing you're coming to join guys you're familiar with."

Mike is still a part of coaching the secondary. He joked earlier this spring that he had time on his hands.

"I coach one guy. I coach (Eric) Striker," said Stoops. "That's it. And Devante (Bond). He always plays great so you can never yell at me about my players."

The changes Mike Stoops has gone through this spring have been interesting to chronicle. He's shifted his focus, his responsibilities.

Sometimes it seems he's done it kicking and screaming.

Mike Stoops was asked about the advantages of being up in the pressbox following this year's spring game.

"For me? Nothing," he said defiantly. "You know what I mean. I see the game."

But seconds later, it was almost as if Mike became accepting of the change right before our eyes.

"It lets you probably think more in between series, is what I would say. Setting the game plan up as you move forward, showing more diversification," he explained. "It gives you probably more time to think."

Even though it may lack a sense of subtlety at times, you can see OU's defensive coordinator is doing his best to roll with the changes.

That internal struggle highlights exactly how much he's willing to change in order to make up for the way last season finished.

How far he's willing to go to become known as a great defensive coordinator again.

Mike Stoops isn't immune or oblivious to the criticisms either. He knows they are out there.

I would say he is a coach that is a victim of his own honesty at times. He's the most likely coach on the staff to put the blame on himself for a bad performance. He does it often.

That also tends to open the coach up to criticism.

It's a double-edged sword. Mike doesn't want to run away from the blame. But the blame comes stronger because he's so open to calling himself out.

In fact, he'll get fired up about it from time-to-time.

Mike told me recently he doesn't read what is said about him directly, but sometimes someone will bring an article to his attention, even a bad one.

Sometimes in public media sessions, he decides to spar with the media, as he did earlier this spring.

"Two years ago we were No. 1 in the conference in pass defense because we played what? We played two (safeties) high, so no one knows that, did you report that?" he asked as he turned to me.

I told Mike I'd heard him say that before, that they played two safeties back to support the pass game more in 2013.

"But you didn't say anything?" Stoops barked.

I actually told him that nobody wanted to read about two years ago, which didn't go over so well.

"So quit writing about last year," he commanded. "That's old news, too, right? It's a new year. I don't want to hear about that either. You want to bring that up all the time, I think you're trying to get me mad.

"It ain't going to work. I ain't going to snap on you, I'm a grown man, I ain't going to snap."

After some nervous laughter and a joke about being '40' normalcy returned to the media session. I actually enjoyed it. It was signature Stoops brothers. It was Youngstown, Ohio.

It was a public display of passion by Mike Stoops. It was Mike Stoops being committed to being better than he was a year ago.

One of the more unique things about Mike Stoops as a coach is his willingness to talk football. He talks about the reasons why some things don't work. He talks about what they are doing specifically to address past failures.

He rarely falls back on coaching clichés like, 'We've just got to execute better.'

He actually talks the internal failings of the execution.

Mike Stoops will talk to you about having lighter edge rushers in a four-man front and the challenges that poses for players like Eric Striker.

"Teams that play with short edges, you know, tight ends - we don't see a lot of tight ends (who line up conventionally). You just have to ask those guys to do what they do well. Not put them in positions where they're covered up, if that makes sense."

Last year there were a lot of busts in the secondary, particularly at the safety position. Mike will talk about moving the secondary all into the same meeting room and why that was necessary.

"I think there's too much miscommunication in the secondary," he said. "We're not communicating the right way. When you separate the secondary that's the one issue that really kind of divided us. We're all in there together, we talk together and we talk problems out. Hopefully our communication will be better too."

Being around Mike Stoops in the spring is different than a lot of coaches. He's not hiding anything. You actually see the inner workings of what he's trying to do, how he's trying to fix things and how much energy and drive he still has to make his defense whole again.

Coming out of this spring, the secondary made more progress than most outsiders thought it would.

In the spring game, nearly every one of the secondary's maligned players made big plays. Ahmad Thomas, Hatari Byrd and Jordan Thomas all picked off passes.

"It's a group that has experience now playing together," said Stoops. "Playing together, working together with coach Cooks day-in and day-out and myself. We're starting to build some continuity."

But if there is one caveat to OU's resurgence as a defense under Mike Stoops, it's the overall talent level.

Mike Stoops, Bob Stoops nor Kerry Cooks have sugarcoated the need for more talent in the secondary, and particularly the safety position.

If Zack Sanchez or Steven Parker goes down, this defense could be in big trouble in a hurry.

"I'll feel a lot better when we get those three (signing day) safeties in here," said Mike Stoops early this spring. "I'll feel a lot better. Right now, we're thin in the secondary. That shows every day.

"We're going to need all three of those guys to come in and contribute - either be back-ups or push the guys we have here. That's just how it is. We're caught thin at the safety position."

Outside of schemes and coaching, the talent level has to improve, which it will with Stoops' fifth recruiting class since returning to Norman.

Which is the other rub on criticism surrounding Stoops. He's been a great recruiter at Oklahoma.

Last season, he didn't get as much credit as he should, but he was still the point man on every player this staff signed in the secondary.

Mike's biggest problem in the perception of him as a recruiter is that he still feels the way Bob felt about social media three years ago. He's not posting selfies anytime soon.

While changes go on behind the scenes, criticism over his defenses will continue until fans see change on the field.

It might not be a realistic goal to aspire to be a dominant defense in this day and age at Oklahoma.

The only true measure Mike Stoops has to live up to is to have a defense that gives up fewer points than its offense can score every week.

Mike Stoops held TCU to 30 points last season in Ft. Worth. The Horned Frogs scored 58 on Baylor, 41 on Kansas State, 82 on Texas Tech and 45 against Oklahoma State.

But Mike Stoops played defensive backs 10 yards off the line of scrimmage against Baylor in a 48-14 loss.

As it happens with high-profile coaches and players at Oklahoma, the good is always overshadowed by the bad.

Josh Heupel and Jay Norvell are gone as offensive coordinators. Trevor Knight has serious competition at quarterback heading into 2015.

Mike Stoops is the biggest punching bag left. In some people's eyes, 2014's 8-5 season begins and ends with him.

Fans choose their side of the argument.

Then they swing away.

These days those punches land on Mike Stoops.

But don't confuse Mike Stoops' postgame press conferences after tough losses for a coach who has given in. Don't confuse his honesty about needing more players as a weakness.

That's not happening in Norman. That's not happening with Mike Stoops.

We've seen enough this spring to know Mike Stoops is making bold changes, changes that haven't been easy, but changes for the better.

With the press, Mike is more than happy to tell you what he's doing to fix things.

Behind the scenes with his coaches, you get an even closer look at how much turning things around means to him.

"He's angry, which he should be," said Kerry Cooks of Mike's drive to rebuild his defense. "I think at the end of the day he's passionate--about the kids, about coaching, about OU--and he just wants it to be the best that it can be.

"And there's no reason why it shouldn't be."

That's a standard many will continue to hold Mike Stoops to, regardless of how hard he works, or how much he cares about being better.

If you ask Mike Stoops, it's the standard he holds himself to as well.