Coach Switzer Offering College Football Fans An Alternative Gameday Experience

Former OU coach Barry Switzer has founded a website to allow fans to interact with former college football coaches during games.

Monday, August 26th 2013, 12:24 am

By: News 9


Former Oklahoma Sooners football coach Barry Switzer has never shied away from getting involved in a new venture. The three-time national champion has as much on his plate now as ever before.

"I've stayed busy," Switzer said. "I'm on a treadmill all the time, but I enjoy it. It's always an enterprise. I wouldn't be doing it if it didn't have a means to an end."

Last season, Switzer started a new project online called Coaches' Cabana (www.coachescabana.com). Essentially, the idea is to offer fans watching college football on TV an alternative way to hear and understand what's going on during the game from some of the greatest coaches in the game.

Switzer, along with the Sports Animal's Mark Rodgers, watches Oklahoma's game and makes comments about what's happening.

"I'm looking at the game and I've got a monitor where I can send tweets and email me," Switzer said. "People tweet and email me about what's happening during the game, asking my thoughts and impressions."

Switzer saw a need for a unique way to watch college football on Saturdays and decided to do something to provide that. Switzer said it's easier for someone like himself, who is around the Oklahoma program on a consistent basis, to offer quality insight than for a TV commentator who has only been in Norman for a couple of games preparing for the game.

"I have to believe I know a lot about Oklahoma and what's happening than the guys doing the color commentary for the game that just came to Norman for the first time," Switzer said.

In addition to Switzer doing OU games, former Oklahoma State coach Pat Jones has jumped on board to do Oklahoma State games. Altogether, Switzer has pulled 12 more coaches from historical college football programs to participate online. Some of the more notable coaches include Clemson's Danny Ford, Texas' Fred Akers and Tennessee legend Johnny Majors.

"They're on top of the program right now," Switzer said. "They know the program, they know the coaches and they've been coaching 40-50 years.

"It'll be a fun experience. That's what we're trying to make it. Not a serious, stereotype of setting like in a studio."

Switzer said the site grew tremendously over the course of the season last year and is excited about the growth the site could experience in 2013. He added that he won't be doing every game—he did seven of Oklahoma's game last year.

While Switzer only has 14 teams represented right now, he has big plans for the site, hoping to bump up to 50 teams before selling it to a big website such as Yahoo! or Comcast.

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