Bob Simmons, an American football coach best known for leading Oklahoma State through the Big Eight-to-Big 12 transition, died on June 10, 2026. He was 77.

Born on June 13, 1948, in Livingston, Alabama, Simmons came up through the game as a student-athlete at Bowling Green State University before beginning his coaching career there. He stayed close to the position group that would help define his early years, coaching receivers at Bowling Green from 1974 to 1977, a first step in a long climb through the profession University of Colorado Athletics.

From there, Simmons spent more than a decade at West Virginia University, coaching linebackers and serving on the staff from 1977 to 1988. He then joined Bill McCartney’s staff at the University of Colorado, where he worked from 1988 to 1994. That stretch put him in the middle of major programs and, by the time he arrived in Boulder, he was already known as a steady coach who had earned his way upward one stop at a time University of Colorado Athletics.

His path changed in December 1994, when Oklahoma State hired him as head coach after he had been passed over for the Colorado head job. The move gave him his first chance to lead a major program, and it also placed him at the center of a difficult but important era for the Cowboys Los Angeles Times.

Simmons coached Oklahoma State from 1995 through 2000, and the record, 30-38, only partly tells the story. He guided the Cowboys through the move from the Big Eight Conference to the Big 12 Conference, a transition that made him part of the program’s modern history Oklahoma State University Athletics Sports Illustrated. He spoke in the plain, practical language of a coach focused on the next snap and the next chance, saying after one game, “I thought we had a great effort,” and after another, “The bottom line is that we walked away with the victory.”

He also understood what the rivalry meant. Before a Bedlam game, he said simply, “This is Bedlam.” In that kind of atmosphere, he said, “you've got to give yourself a chance to win.” Those words fit the way he carried himself at Oklahoma State, measured and game-focused, even when the stakes were high Oklahoma State University Athletics Oklahoma State University Athletics.

Simmons resigned on November 6, 2000, saying he would step down at the end of the season. After Oklahoma State, he later coached Boulder High School football in Boulder, Colorado, and lived there in later life, keeping his connection to the place where he had spent part of his coaching journey. His son Nathan Simmons also played running back at Oklahoma State, another link between his family and the program he had led Oklahoma State University Athletics CHSAANow.

At Colorado, he was remembered not only as a coach but as an early, attentive presence. Rashaan Salaam once said, “Bob Simmons was the first to visit me,” a small line that captured how Simmons was seen by players who knew his eye for talent and his willingness to show up early in the process. That kind of steadiness helped define his career across Bowling Green, West Virginia, Colorado, and Oklahoma State University of Colorado Athletics.

Simmons died in 2026 without a public cause of death being announced. He will be remembered as a coach who bridged eras, helped shape defenses and receivers across several programs, and gave Oklahoma State a steady hand during one of the most important conference transitions in its history. His career was built less on flash than on trust, and that is how it endures.