Mike Stoops, named the defensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic University in January 2021, is beginning his 33rd year in coaching, having to this point been exposed to a veritable who’s who of the profession’s brightest minds.He played for Hayden Fry at Iowa, and later began his coaching career under the Hawkeyes legend. Mike Stoops also worked under Bill Snyder at Kansas State and Stoops’ older brother Bob at Oklahoma. Fry, Snyder and Bob Stoops are all in the College Football Hall of Fame, and Nick Saban, under whom Mike Stoops served as defensive analyst at Alabama in 2019-21, seems certain to be.In all Mike Stoops has been on the staffs of teams that have gone 298-107-2, played in 24 postseason games, won eight conference championships and two national titles. The latter came in 2000 at Oklahoma and in 2020 at Alabama.Mike Stoops was also the head coach at Arizona from 2004-11, going 41-50 and notably coaching future pros Nick Foles and Rob Gronkowski. In addition, assistants like Sonny Dykes (SMU), Josh Heupel (Tennessee) and Seth Littrell (North Texas) have gone on to become head coaches. So too did Stoops’ younger brother Mark, who served as the Wildcats’ defensive coordinator from 2004-09 and is now the head man at Kentucky.A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Mike Stoops played at Cardinal Mooney High School, where his father, Ron, was the defensive coordinator. The younger Stoops knew even then that he would eventually be drawn to coaching himself. After playing strong safety for Fry at Iowa (and a brief dalliance with pro football), he started out as a graduate assistant at Iowa in 1986. He would later serve as the Hawkeyes’ linebackers/defensive backs coach, and in 1992 began a seven-year run as an assistant at Kansas State. The last three of those seasons Mike Stoops served as co-defensive coordinator on teams that went 31-6.Followed by a five-year stint at Oklahoma under his brother Bob Stoops. The highlight was that 2000 run to the national championship, which the 13-0 Sooners completed with a victory over No. 3 Florida State in the Orange Bowl.Mike Stoops became Arizona’s head coach in November 2003 and served in that capacity until his dismissal six games into the 2011 season. The following season he returned to Oklahoma, working five more years under Bob and two under Bob's successor, Lincoln Riley, after the elder Stoops retired.Mike Stoops was hired as a defensive analyst at Alabama in 2019 and remained in that position the following year, when the Crimson Tide went 13-0 and beat Ohio State to win the national title.