Stormin in Norman
Fansided

Lincoln Riley was destined to become a head coach

By Chip Rouse

NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 19: Oklahoma Sooners helmets before the game against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane September 19, 2015 at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Tulsa 52-38.(Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - SEPTEMBER 19: Oklahoma Sooners helmets before the game against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane September 19, 2015 at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Tulsa 52-38.(Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /
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To compete in the offensive-minded Big 12, you better be able to stay on the field on offense and put up plenty of points, something the Oklahoma football team has done in prolific form the past two seasons. since Lincoln Riley arrived on the scene.

Lincoln Riley arrived in Norman in 2015 with a new offensive blueprint. He brought the Air Raid attack back to Norman, and it was no coincidence that Baker Mayfield became the starting quarterback of the Sooners in 2015, Riley’s first season as offensive coordinator.

I say Riley brought it back because this was actually the second go-around for the Air Raid offense at Oklahoma, having been introduced in Bob Stoops’ first season as the Sooners’ head coach, in 1999, by then offensive coordinator Mike Leach.

Riley is one of several coaches from the Leach coaching tree who were introduced to the Air Raid while serving as an assistant under Leach at Texas Tech and later incorporated the offense when he left to take a coaching assignment elsewhere.

Dana Holgorsen, who coached inside receivers’ at Texas Tech in 2002, took the Air Raid offense with him when he became head coach at Houston and at Oklahoma State, and now is at West Virginia. The Texas Tech outside receivers coach that same time was Sonny Dykes, who installed the Air Raid as head coach at the University of California-Berkeley.

The starting quarterback at Texas Tech in 2002 was Kliff Kingsbury, one of a lengthy progression of Air Raid gunslingers under Leach, is now head coach of the Red Raiders.

Riley was a student assistant under Leach at Texas Tech from 2003-05 and a graduate assistant in 2006. From 2007-09, he became an assistant coach in Lubbock, working with the wide receivers. When he left in 2010 to become offensive coordinator at East Carolina, where Ruffin McNeill, a former Texas Tech assistant, was the head coach, it was no big surprise that Riley brought the Air Raid offense with him.

The most interesting thing I heard today was about Riley, and is perhaps the worst thing I have heard or read about Riley since he was anointed as the new Oklahoma head coach, replacing the retired Bob Stoops.

Before becoming a student assistant on the coaching staff at Texas Tech, Riley was a walk-on quarterback for the Red Raiders in 2002 behind starter Kingsbury backup B.J. Symons, who set an NCAA passing record the following season in 2003, and No. 3 signal caller Sonny Cumbie, now the offensive coordinator at TCU.

Riley’s collegiate playing career lasted just one season, however. In an article in the Oklahoma City Oklahoman about Mike Leach giving Riley his start in coaching college football, sports columnist Berry Tramel recalled a story told by Holgorsen, who remembered Leach telling Riley in 2002:

"“You know, you’re not a very good quarterback,” Leach said. “but you’re asking a lot of really smart questions, so you might ought to try coaching.”"

He did, and 14 years later Riley is leading one of the greatest college football programs of all-time, a step up on those other Air Raid disciples who worked Leach in the first decade of the new millennium.

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