The College Football Hall of Fame released its 2021 class on Monday afternoon and former Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops was among the names that were chosen for the Hall of Fame. After the news of the class broke, one of Stoops’ mentors, former Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, congratulated Stoops on his induction on Twitter.

“And to congratulations to Bob Stoops, who began his major college coaching career at KSU on his selection to the NFF College FB Hall of Fame,” Snyder wrote in his tweet.

While Stoops made a name for himself with the Sooners, his first high-level coaching job came at Kansas State. Stoops and Snyder worked together at Iowa from 1983-1987 when Stoops, who had previously been a graduate assistant for the Hawkeyes, left for Kent State. But when Snyder left for Kansas State, Stoops reunited with him in Manhattan in 1989 as the Wildcats’ defensive backs coach.

Stoops coached at Kansas State from 1989-1990 as the defensive backs coach and then was promoted to co-defensive coordinator from 1991-1995. Stoops served as one of the key pieces for turning around the worst college football program in the country at Kansas State. By the time he left the Wildcats for Florida, Stoops had helped the Wildcats go 46-33 and make it to three bowl games, winning two of them.

Of course, Stoops would go on to be hired as a head coach by Oklahoma in 1999 and his tenure with the Sooners was legendary.

In his time at Oklahoma, Stoops went 190-48 and won the Big 12, 10 times as a head coach. Stoops was a National Coach of the Year in 2000 and 2003 and was the Big 12’s Coach of the Year six different times. In 2000, Stoops guided the Sooners to a National Championship victory, which is still the school’s most recent title.

Stoops’ resume is strong enough that he doesn’t need to recognize anyone else for what it ended up being. But after the announcement he was in the Hall of Fame, Stoops thanked many of his old mentors, including Snyder.

“I feel incredibly fortunate to have traveled this road. All the stops along the way were such positives for me and led to the extraordinary opportunity at Oklahoma,” Stoops said in a statement. “The coaches I worked under were the best of the best: Hayden Fry at Iowa, Dick Crum at Kent State, Bill Snyder at K-State and Steve Spurrier at Florida. I feel amazingly blessed that I was around so many remarkable coaches and people.

“In the end, I am so honored to join the College Football Hall of Fame and feel a great sense of humility.”