Lincoln Riley reportedly leaving Oklahoma for USC Job

A disappointing day after for the Oklahoma football program just got a whole lot darker with the news on Sunday that Lincoln Riley is leaving the program.

There are an avalanche of reports circulating Sunday afternoon, including ESPN, that Riley has accepted the vacant head coach’s position at USC, another college blue blood program.

The news comes a little more than 24 hours and several weeks of speculation that the 38-year-old OU head coach was going to accept the open job at LSU. Riley addressed that very question in his postgame press conference following the Sooners’ 37-33 loss to Oklahoma State on Saturday night.

“I’m not going to be the next head coach at LSU,” Riley said. Very cagey of the young head coach believed to be one of the brightest and most creative offensive minds in college football. In retrospect, that probably wasn’t the right question. The real question was: Why would he consider leaving Oklahoma?

Riley took over a championship-caliber team following Bob Stoops’ retirement in 2017 and built a 55-10 record in five seasons as the Oklahoma head coach, and he was 37-7 against Big 12 opponents. The Sooners have held the Big 12 championship trophy for all six of the seven seasons Riley was in Norman. He was the offensive coordinator for two seasons under Stoops before ascending to the head coach’s role.

As part of his highly successful run at Oklahoma, Riley took the Sooners to three consecutive College Football Playoff appearances his first three seasons as head coach and also produced two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks and a Heisman runner-up in addition to two No. 1 overall NFL draft picks.

USC has been without a head coach since September after firing Clay Helton two games into the 2021 season. Helton was 46-24 at USC in seven seasons.

Financial terms of Riley’s contract with USC were not immediately available, but it is reasonable to expect that he will make more than the $7.6 million per year he was making at OU. His contract with Oklahoma runs through 2026, and it contains a $4.5 million buyout clause.

So, if all the reports are true, the search will begin for the next head football coach at Oklahoma.

This is a developing story that is sure to have many moving parts over the next days and weeks.

The timing is highly intriguing with college football recruiting Early Signing Day coming up Dec. 16 and the Sooners currently having a top-10 2022 recruiting class. Another question is how may current OU players might decide to enter the transfer portal with Riley leaving, including who might follow him to USC: Caleb Williams, Spencer Rattler and who else?

The Sooners will be going to a bowl game in December, although the site and opponent will not be known until after Selection Sunday, Dec. 5. Riley is not expected to coach OU in that game. Interestingly, that is how Riley got his first head-coaching assignment when Mike Leach was fired from Texas Tech in 2009.

Oklahoma currently has the No. 1-ranked recruiting class for 2023, which includes a handful of five-star recruits. A couple of those highly touted recruits, quarterback Malachi Nelson and his high school teammate, Makai Lemon, are from Southern California. Also at risk is the Sooners’ top running back commitment for 2022, Raleek Brown, who is from Santa Anna, California

Although Riley has not publicly commented on this news, one theory that is being tossed about is that he was not happy with the idea of Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC and the potential reality that the Sooners would no longer be perennial top dogs. The future for that is more realistic in the Pac-12 and with that conference’s premier program, not to mention the rich California recruiting environment for top talent.

Lots of questions with little or no answers at the moment. The biggest one being: Who might be the next head coach at the University of Oklahoma