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Oklahoma football: Sorry NFL, Lincoln Riley isn’t going anywhere anytime soon

By Christopher Dukes

FORT WORTH, TX - OCTOBER 20: Head coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners leads his team against the TCU Horned Frogs in the fourth quarter at Amon G. Carter Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
FORT WORTH, TX - OCTOBER 20: Head coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners leads his team against the TCU Horned Frogs in the fourth quarter at Amon G. Carter Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /
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NORMAN, OK – SEPTEMBER 29: Head Coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners watches warm ups before the game against the Baylor Bears at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 29, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Baylor 66-33. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK – SEPTEMBER 29: Head Coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners watches warm ups before the game against the Baylor Bears at Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on September 29, 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma defeated Baylor 66-33. (Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images) /

University leadership

This is one of the biggest reasons Stoops stayed at Oklahoma for 18 years. The university’s president and athletic director are supportive enough to give the Sooners’ program what it needs from their positions without stepping on the toes of football making football decisions.

To see this in action you only have to look back a few weeks to when defensive coordinator Mike Stoops was released following Oklahoma’s 48-45 loss to Texas. A clown car’s worth of silly rumors were swirling around the decision, including supposed secret meetings between the university’s higher-ups and Riley in which they demanded action.

“Oh no. Oklahoma doesn’t work like that,” Riley told the Daily Oklahoman when addressing the rumors. “Other places do and that’s why they go up and down. At Oklahoma, the people who make the decisions are the people that should make the decisions, and that’s why this place has been so good for so long. …. This decision was mine and mine alone.”

There aren’t a lot of jobs like that in either college or the NFL. Certainly not a place like Cleveland, where internal struggles between ownership and coaches have been well-documented. Or Dallas,  which inexplicably always seems to come up when it comes to OU coaches leaving for the NFL.

Loyalty

Okay, so this one will come off a bit naive to some readers. After all, college and pro football are businesses and many of the decisions are business-related, but Lincoln Riley has shown more loyalty than most when it comes to his coaching career.

Riley was entrusted by Bob Stoops with the care of the program he built for 18 years and the trust that both Stoops and the university put in him isn’t lost on the second-year head coach.

“Oklahoma’s been great to me,” Riley told the Daily Oklahoman. “They didn’t have to give me a shot (as offensive coordinator) three years ago and the certainly didn’t have to give me a shot a year and a half ago (as a head coach). That’s something I’ll never forget.”

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