Did Bob Stoops earn his 'Big Game Bob' nickname? Yes. And no. And yes and no.

On Oct. 23, 1999, R.C. Slocum brought his No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies, the defending Big 12 champions, to Norman to face first-year head coach Bob Stoops and his to-date enigmatic Oklahoma Sooners.

Aggie quarterback Randy McCown completed just nine of 21 passes while OU’s winging lefty Josh Heupel went 31-for-50. The Sooners exploded to a 27-0 lead midway through the second quarter and cruised to a dominant 51-6 statement win. The Sooners would finish only 7-5 that year, but in their biggest game, against their best opponent, they played their best game.

In 2000, the Sooners beat five teams ranked No. 11 or better. In 2001-02, they went 7-1 against teams in the top 15.

By his fourth season in Norman, Stoops had earned the moniker of ‘Big Game Bob,’ and for very good reason: his teams were virtually guaranteed to get up for, and win, every big game they played.

Of course, with a king-making kind of nickname comes royal responsibility. “Big Game Bob” became a scoff, a sarcastic nudge any time the Sooners actually lost a big game. And in a particularly cruel fan trick, virtually any game OU lost became a “big game” by virtue of OU losing it. Big wins were forgotten; from about 2003 forward, the only big games the Sooners could play were ones they lost. The 2003 Big 12 title game loss to Kansas State? That was a big game. The 2002, 2004, and 2006 title game wins? Not big games.

The nickname stuck, for reasons good and bad, but after that initial surge, did Stoops live up to it? The answer is a bold, hearty “sometimes.”

For the purposes of this piece, we’re going to define “big games” as follows: games against top-15 teams, games vs. Texas, Big 12 championship games, and BCS bowl games (or whatever we now call them). You could change “top 15” to “top 10” or “top 20” if you want, and you could include Bedlam rivalry games against Oklahoma State if you so choose. But this is the definition I went with.

1999 (1-1)

• No. 23 Texas 38, Oklahoma 28
• Oklahoma 51, No. 13 Texas A&M 6

2000 (5-0)

• No. 10 Oklahoma 63, No. 11 Texas 14
• No. 8 Oklahoma 41, No. 2 Kansas State 31
• No. 3 Oklahoma 31, No. 1 Nebraska 14
• No. 1 Oklahoma 27, No. 8 Kansas State 24 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 1 Oklahoma 13, No. 3 Florida State 2 (Orange Bowl/BCS title game)

2001 (2-1)

• No. 3 Oklahoma 38, No. 11 Kansas State 37
• No. 3 Oklahoma 14, No. 5 Texas 3
• No. 3 Nebraska 20, No. 2 Oklahoma 10

2002 (5-0)

• No. 2 Oklahoma 35, No. 3 Texas 24
• No. 2 Oklahoma 49, No. 9 Iowa State 3
• No. 2 Oklahoma 27, No. 13 Colorado 11
• No. 8 Oklahoma 29, No. 12 Colorado 7 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 8 Oklahoma 34, No. 7 Washington State 14 (Rose Bowl)

2003 (2-2)

• No. 1 Oklahoma 65, No. 11 Texas 13
• No. 1 Oklahoma 52, No. 14 Oklahoma State 9
• No. 13 Kansas State, No. 1 Oklahoma 7 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 2 LSU 21, No. 3 Oklahoma 14 (Sugar Bowl/BCS title game)

2004 (2-1)

• No. 2 Oklahoma 12, No. 5 Texas 0
• No. 2 Oklahoma 42, Colorado 3 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 1 USC 55, No. 2 Oklahoma 19 (Orange Bowl/BCS title game)

2005 (1-1)

• No. 2 Texas 45, Oklahoma 12
• Oklahoma 17, No. 6 Oregon 14 (Holiday Bowl)

2006 (1-2)

• No. 7 Texas 28, No. 14 Oklahoma 10
• No. 8 Oklahoma 21, No. 19 Nebraska 7 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 9 Boise State 43, No. 7 Oklahoma 42 (Fiesta Bowl)

2007 (3-1)

• No. 10 Oklahoma 28, No. 19 Texas 21
• No. 6 Oklahoma 41, No. 11 Missouri 31
• No. 9 Oklahoma 38, No. 1 Missouri 17 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 11 West Virginia 48, No. 3 Oklahoma 28 (Fiesta Bowl)

2008 (3-2)

• No. 5 Texas 45, No. 1 Oklahoma 35
• No. 5 Oklahoma 65, No. 2 Texas Tech 21
• No. 3 Oklahoma 61, No. 11 Oklahoma State 41
• No. 4 Oklahoma 62, No. 19 Missouri 21 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 1 Florida 24, No. 2 Oklahoma 14 (BCS title game)

2009 (1-1)

• No. 3 Texas 16, No. 20 Oklahoma 13
• Oklahoma 27, No. 11 Oklahoma State 0

2010 (4-0)

• No. 8 Oklahoma 28, No. 21 Texas 20
• No. 14 Oklahoma 47, No. 10 Oklahoma State 41
• No. 10 Oklahoma 23, No. 13 Nebraska 20 (Big 12 title game)
• No. 9 Oklahoma 48, No. 25 UConn 20 (Fiesta Bowl)

2011 (3-1)

• No. 1 Oklahoma 23, No. 5 Florida State 13
• No. 3 Oklahoma 55, No. 11 Texas 17
• No. 11 Oklahoma 58, No. 10 Kansas State 17
• No. 3 Oklahoma State 44, No. 13 Oklahoma 10

2012 (1-3)

• No. 15 Kansas State 24, No. 6 Oklahoma 19
• No. 13 Oklahoma 63, No. 15 Texas 21
• No. 5 Notre Dame 30, No. 8 Oklahoma 13
• No. 10 Texas A&M 41, No. 12 Oklahoma 13 (Cotton Bowl)

2013 (3-2)

• Texas 36, No. 12 Oklahoma 20
• No. 17 Oklahoma 38, No. 10 Texas Tech 30
• No. 5 Baylor 41, No. 12 Oklahoma 12
• No. 18 Oklahoma 33, No. 6 Oklahoma State 24
• No. 11 Oklahoma 45, No. 3 Alabama 31 (Sugar Bowl)

2014 (1-2)

• No. 11 Oklahoma 31, Texas 26
• No. 14 Kansas State 31, No. 11 Oklahoma 30
• No. 10 Baylor 48, No. 16 Oklahoma 14

2015 (3-2)

• Texas 24, No. 10 Oklahoma 17
• No. 12 Oklahoma 44, No. 4 Baylor 34
• No. 7 Oklahoma 30, No. 11 TCU 29
• No. 5 Oklahoma 58, No. 9 Oklahoma State 23
• No. 1 Clemson 37, No. 4 Oklahoma 17 (Orange Bowl/CFP semifinals)

2016 (4-2)

• No. 15 Houston 33, No. 3 Oklahoma 23
• No. 3 Ohio State 45, No. 14 Oklahoma 24
• No. 20 Oklahoma 45, Texas 40
• No. 8 Oklahoma 56, No. 10 West Virginia 28
• No. 7 Oklahoma 38, No. 11 Oklahoma State 20
• No. 7 Oklahoma 35, No. 17 Auburn 19 (Sugar Bowl)

So that's a 15-2 start, a 4-6 slump, a 14-4 surge, an 8-12 funk, and a 4-0 finish. By this definition, Stoops finished 45-24 in big games, a 0.652 win percentage nearly any coach in the country would be jealous of. But a large portion of the happy results came in two big surges — one from 1999 to mid-2003, and one from 2007 to late-2011.

Stoops coached for long enough, and won enough games, that he had the luxury of coaching in a lot of big games, no matter your definition. And he lived up to the nickname. Except when he didn’t.