Can Lincoln Riley climb higher than No. 4 in coaching rankings?

Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley has occupied the No. 4 position for a couple of years now in the ranking of the top 25 college football head coaches published by The Athletic.

That’s a significant accomplishment, especially given that Riley’s time as a head coach spans just four seasons. Not near the time in grade as the head coaches who rank ahead of him, but also most everyone who ranks behind him in this year’s top-25 coaching rankings.

The Athletic has only been ranking the top-25 coaches in college football for a couple of years. Before that Athlon Sports annually came out with a ranking of all FBS head coaches. Bob Stoops was No, 5 in the 2016 Athlon rankings. Riley took over for Stoops the following season and was No. 63 in the Athlon 1 through 128 rankings prior to the 2017 season.

So, the fact that Riley is now rated as high as the fourth best coach in college football is hardly something to sneeze at. But could he actually climb even higher in the years ahead?

The easy answer is, sure he can so long as he continues to win at Oklahoma at the same rate he has in compiling 45 total wins against eight losses and averaging 11 wins in his first years on the job.

The popular phrase, “How do you eat an elephant” One bite at a time,” is probably the best way — or at least the most reasonable way — for the Oklahoma head coach to move up even higher in the coaching rankings.

As long as Nick Saban at Alabama and Dabo Swinney at Clemson continue to produce national championship caliber teams, you won’t see anybody knocking those two out of the top two spots in any ranking of the best active coaches in college football, but No. 3 is certainly up for grabs.

Riley’s four-year numbers are the best of any head coach in Oklahoma’s illustrious gridiron history. As impressive as they are — 45 wins and three consecutive College Football Playoff appearances — there is a glaring omission.

The Sooners have failed to win a game or advance beyond the semifinal round in any of their three trips to the playoffs under Riley. Winning a playoff game is one thing and the low-hanging fruit in a resume that is filled with all kinds of other championship-level accomplishments.

Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly is No. 3 in this year’s coaches’ ranking by The Athletic. Kelly has two fewer wins (43) at Notre Dame than Riley in the same number of years. Notre Dame has not won a College Football Playoff game under Kelly either, but the Fighting Irish were playoff participants last season, while Oklahoma was left out for the first time in three seasons.

You can be sure that as much as Riley and the Sooners want to get back to the playoff and get the monkey off their back by winning that elusive opening game, the ultimate prize they have their sights set on is the team’s elusive eighth national championship, something that evaded them for 21 years now.

The good news for Riley and Sooner fans, as Oklahoma spring practice gets underway. is this could be Riley’s best OU team in his five seasons as head coach and the best chance the Sooners have had in quite a while to get over the hump and play for, and even win, a national championship.