Oklahoma Sooners Football: Are the Players Above the Coaching Staff? - Bleacher Report

As the head coach, what do you do when your star player bucks the system and deems himself above the coaching staff?

Do you suck up your pride and allow it because you need your star players? Or do you act swiftly and flush out those who think they are bigger than the program and coaches no matter their status on the team?

That is a tough situation that coaches around nation face all too frequently.

It probably shouldn't come as much surprise when a highly touted high school prospect comes in and is used to being babied and pampered his whole life. He probably got away with whatever he wanted in high school because he was the difference between wins and losses and sometimes that was the difference in a small-town coach keeping his job or not.

Some of these young athletes go into Division I football with a sense of entitlement thinking that no coach is going to discipline him or sit him on the bench. "I am a star and should be treated as such," they think.

Unfortunately for these types of athletes, the University of Oklahoma is not for them.

"I'm not gonna have a bunch of guys every year that are going to come in with their idea of what things oughta be," Bob Stoops stated. "They can do that at another place."

While the short-term pains of being without one your elite players may sting, the long-term ramifications of allowing a cancer to remain in the locker room is much worse.

Stoops made it clear last season that players with attitude problems and refusal to buy in to the system were free to go elsewhere. A number of players left the program during the offseason with varying degrees of reasons why.

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In 2006, when returning starting quarterback Rhett Bomar was found to be violating NCAA rules by receiving payments for time he did not actually work, Stoops immediately dismissed him from the team.

The problem?

There was virtually no one in line to replace Bomar.

Stoops ended up talking wide receiver Paul Thompson into converting back to quarterback and starting for the Sooners.

Bob Stoops is a man of principle and realizes that no player is above the law. What he says goes and if you don't like it then there is a long line of players waiting for an opportunity to take your spot.

Stoops realizes that Sooner nation expects another national championship, but he won't sacrifice his principles to achieve that and I wouldn't have it any other way.