The college football community faced an irreparable loss as the former Oklahoma State Cowboys football coach, Bob Simmons, passed away on Tuesday, June 9. He was 77.

On Tuesday, the Cowboys Football account on X confirmed the news. 

Simmons' coaching career spanned over almost four decades. He held assistant coaching roles in programs like the Colorado Buffaloes and Washington Huskies. His latest stint came as the coach at Boulder High School in 2013. However, it was only at Oklahoma State that he held the head coaching role. 

Over six seasons as Oklahoma State’s head coach, from 1995 to 2000, Simmons compiled a 30-38 record, highlighted by a 3-3 record against rival Oklahoma Sooners in Bedlam games.

Simmons endured a difficult debut season with the Oklahoma State Cowboys, as the team went 4-8 overall and 2-5 in Big 8 play. Soon after, the Cowboys and the rest of the Big Eight Conference joined forces with Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech to create the Big 12 Conference.

Under him, the Cowboys went 12-0 against Oklahoma in 1995, the program’s first win in the Bedlam series in 19 years.

After being part of Colorado’s 1990 national championship team, he went on to find greater success in his role as Oklahoma State head coach.

Against Oklahoma, Simmons went 3-3 over six games. The 1997 season marked his best at OSU, as the team went 8-4 and reached the Alamo Bowl.

Simmons passed away only two weeks after former Oklahoma State athletic director Terry Don Phillips, who brought him in from Colorado in 1994, passed away.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma State’s success under Simmons was rooted in his distinctive coaching philosophy.

Bob Simmons Established a Winning Culture in Stillwater

The Cowboys posted an 8-4 record with a 5-3 mark in league play. Simmons’ leadership during a three-game turnaround earned him Big 12 Coach of the Year recognition, while OSU finished No. 24 in the final AP Top 25 poll.

“Bob Simmons was a tremendous catalyst in moving that program forward,” said Terry Don Phillips, OSU's athletic director from 1994-02, in 2011. "It really all started with Bob Simmons.”

Tracing his journey, the coach himself reflected his philosophy in an interview. 

"I created an atmosphere of winning, but understood there were going to be ups and downs in the process," Simmons told The Oklahoman in 2017.

To mold Oklahoma State into a winning team, he recruited talented players such as Jamal Williams, Alvin Porter and Jacoby Shepherd, among others.

While the Cowboys were his sixth coaching stop and the first and only one as the head coach, Simmons used the opportunity to establish a competitive program and leave a lasting impact.

Share your best memories of Simmons’ tenure in Oklahoma State. 

Read more at Michigan Football Community.

Written by

Soheli Tarafdar

Edited by

Soheli Tarafdar