Oklahoma football: Lincoln Riley talks Jalen Hurts, Austin Kendall

After a wild couple of weeks in Norman in which the Soooners said goodbye to a Heisman winning quarterback, saw a redshirt junior transfer and brought in a national-championship player at the same position, Lincoln Riley finally sat down with the media to discuss Kyler Murray, Austin Kendall and Jalen Hurts.

The discussion ended some of the speculation about the crazy quarterback roulette game that was played in Norman this past week and shed some light on what went on behind the scenes.

Here’s what we were able to gather from the press conference.

Lincoln Riley advised Austin Kendall to enter the transfer portal

After finding out that Kyler Murray wouldn’t be coming back to Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley was already looking at adding an experienced quarterback to the Sooners’ depth chart. Riley told The Franchise about his thought process after finding out Murray wouldn’t return:

"I  started thinking about adding somebody older in that (quarterback) room. Thinking we might need another older presence in there. I started off by looking across the country and in the transfer portal. When I found a few guys I thought were intriguing options I started making contact with the current quarterbacks and their families. I had good conversations with all of them and was very upfront and honest with them like I always am and in Austin Kendall’s case, I probably even jumped the gun a little bit letting him know before I knew if there was any interest from any of these transfers out there. I wanted him to be able to know, and honestly I encouraged the family to enter the transfer portal as difficult as that was. … When given the question from his dad ‘what would you do if he were your son’ that was my honest answer. Give yourself options and see how this thing plays out."

To read a bit between the lines, it appears Riley at the very least needed to provide more competition for Kendall, if he wasn’t outright searching for another starting quarterback to take over for Murray.

This tells us that he wasn’t ready to crown Kendall as “the guy” at this point. Rather than lure him back to Norman with false promises, Riley allowed his first quarterback recruit at Oklahoma to explore other options.

Riley and Kendall were talking through the entire transfer process

Riley  admits he wasn’t quick to sign off on allowing Kendall to transfer within the conference, but also says many of the contentious reports coming out on the situation were blown out of proportion. Per The Franchise: 

"All this stuff was going on on the media and all of these people jumping to  conclusions about things that they have no actual facts about. We were just kind of laughing about it. We were just joking and laughing like we have every minute for the last three years that I’ve coached him. And I appreciate how the was handling all of that. At the end the human element won out."

The whole college football world was drowning in hot takes concerning Kendall, Jalen Hurts and how that whole situation went down. In the handful of hours between hearing Oklahoma had not granted Kendall his release to transfer within the conference and Riley making the decision to do so there were national columnists and local media chastising Riley and the OU program. Now the news comes out that at least some of this was (completely unsurprisingly) played up for dramatic effect.

The Sooners will look a little different on offense under Jalen Hurts

Riley clearly made some changes to the offense to extenuate the strengths of Kyler Murray this past season and it appears you can expect the same as they make adjustments for Jalen Hurts.

A bigger, stronger player with different abilities than the previous two Heisman-winning quarterbacks at Oklahoma, one can expect to see more quarterback power run game than we’ve seen with either Mayfield or Murray. Hurts isn’t Samaje Perine by any means, but he’ll be used inside the tackles and on more zone read-type plays than Murray, who’s speed worked best getting to the sideline. Per The Franchise: 

"He’s strong. I think he’s going to have a different build than a couple of these guys we’ve had here in the last few years."

That’s not to say the Sooners are going to abandon what they want to do throwing the ball as Riley expects Hurts to be more than capable as a passer. Per The Franchise: 

"I think he’s really progressed as a thrower. A lot of the film I saw this year I see a very very capable thrower."

After an intense three-to-four week period for OU football news that included blockbuster recruiting commits, three new coaches and a crazy quarterback carousel it appears things might be approaching something that resembles a regular offseason for the Sooners.

At least as normal as it ever gets in Norman.