Oklahoma football: Will Lincoln Riley stay put or part ways?
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma football head coach Lincoln Riley is a wanted man.
It’s deja vu all over again.
Black Monday has arrived in the NFL, with several head-coaching positions expected to come open following the final weekend of the 2019 NFL season. And guess whose name is out there prominently again as a potential replacement candidate?
Sooner fans went through this same rumor mill in the early years of the Bob Stoops’ coaching tenure. It seemed Stoops’ name was associated not only with coaching openings at several major college programs but also with potential NFL opportunities.
Riley, who followed Stoops, the winningest coach in the 125-year history of Oklahoma football, is also following in the footsteps of his predecessor as a hot commodity at the higher level of the profession, largely because of the huge success he has had at Oklahoma but also because of his reputation as one of the most innovative offensive minds in the game.
Over the five years he has been associated with Oklahoma football (the first two years as offensive coordinator under Stoops and the last three as head coach), the Sooner offense has either led the nation or ranked in the top five in a number of major offensive categories.
Riley has a 36-6 record at OU in the three seasons he has been the head coach. That includes three consecutive Big 12 championships and an equal number of trips to the College Football Playoff. In addition, he has coached two Heisman Trophy winners (quarterbacks Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray in back-to-back years, 2017 and 2018) and a Heisman runner-up this year in Jalen Hurts.
With an impressive resume like that, it’s no wonder that NFL teams would be interested in the 36-year-old Oklahoma head coach. Spread formation offenses are something that Riley has grown up around — at Texas Tech as an undergrad a later an assistant under Mike Leach and at other places — and literally has built his reputation on.
With NFL teams adopting more offensive formations and play-calling schemes from the college ranks than ever before, it would stand to reason that Riley’s name would come up in considering coaching candidate pools.
The NFL head-coaching job that Riley’s name has been most closely aligned with is the Dallas Cowboys, especially with 10-year Cowboys’ coach Jason Garrett on the hot seat after a disappointing 8-8 record this season and missing the NFL playoffs for the second time in the last three seasons. But that is just one of the coaching jobs that could be open in the next few weeks.
Another is the Cleveland Browns, where Freddie Hitchens is expected to be gone after one season and where Riley protege Baker Mayfield is the starting quarterback.
Riley was asked by reporters while Oklahoma was in Atlanta preparing for its College Football Playoff game with LSU if he would consider a coaching job in the NFL? He probably can’t count how many times in the past couple of years he’s been asked that question. But his response on this occasion was something to the effect: It’s not in my plan at this time. That wasn’t a yes, but it also wasn’t a definite no.
Meeting on Sunday with reporters who cover the Sooners, Riley addressed the subject again:
"“This is where I want to coach, and this is where I want to coach for a long time,” the OU head coach said.“I’m not ever going to say never because I don’t ever want to be that guy, but it’s hard to envision me wanting to leave this place unless something about our setup here changed that I thought wasn’t good for the program or our future.”"
With the 2019 college season now behind Riley and the Sooners, the head coach and his staff turn their attention to the recruiting trail and finishing out Oklahoma’s 2020 class. Current and future Oklahoma commitments are especially interested in knowing that Riley is planning to be around “for a long time.”