United Football League

Bob Stoops talks upcoming UFL season, how he'd fix college football

Published Mar. 27, 2024 7:08 p.m. ET

Bob Stoops wants no part of the current state of college football — at least, not until it has made some major changes.

The legendary University of Oklahoma coach appeared on FS1's "SPEAK" on Wednesday to talk about preparing for the upcoming UFL season as head coach of the Arlington Renegades. Stoops also coached the Renegades in 2020 and and led them to a championship in the reincarnated XFL in 2023 before the league merged with the USFL to form a singular spring football league, the UFL.

And Stoops is more than content to be in the professional football ranks currently instead of college football, which has been thrown into chaos thanks to new elements like name-image-likeness compensation and the transfer portal, transformed into something Stoops has concerns about long-term.

"I don't believe it's sustainable," Stoops said. "This is an NFL model that we have now, but we're trying to act like we're [still] an NCAA or a college model. And that isn't the case. So in my opinion, there needs to be a lot of movement towards an NFL professional model where you have commissioners, you have contracts, you have salary caps — the NFL has all of this, don't they?

"But college football doesn't. A guy can be a free agent every single year depending on how he plays. It's not good, players just coming in, ‘How much money am I gonna get paid? I’m gonna go here, I'm gonna go there.' I don't know, at some point I think it's gonna affect the fans and turn them off as well."

By contrast, Stoops is thankful for the simplicity that coaching in a professional league like the UFL provides.

[R.J. Young: How Bob Stoops brought back the standard at Oklahoma, and how it endured]

"I'm just coaching football," Stoops said. "When I leave the field, I don't have have to go to an academic meeting, I don't have to go to a recruiting meeting, I don't have to go to a compliance meeting. I don't have to call Johnny's parents because Johnny won't go to class. At the end of the day, it's all just football, and that's fun. I'm working with grown men who have families who pick up the game easily because they've played so much football and they're guys that love to play football. So it's really a joy coaching these guys."

The UFL season kicks off Saturday when Stoops leads the Renegades against the two-time defending USFL champion Birmingham Stallions at 1 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports App.