Oklahoma football: Five best Sooner coaches who never won a national title
By Chip Rouse
Lincoln Riley
It wasn’t that long ago — just a little over 18 months, actually — that people were talking about Lincoln Riley as destined to become next in line to win 100 or more games at Oklahoma and have a bronze statue joining four other legendary Sooner coaching icons.
Bob Stoops hired Riley away from Eastern Carolina, where he had established himself as one of the best young offensive coaching minds in college football, in 2015 as the Sooners’ new offensive coordinator replacing Josh Heupel. All Riley did in his first two seasons at OU was produce the college football’s seventh-best offense in 2015 and second-best in 2016.
Following Stoops’ retirement announcement in June 2017, Riley was elevated to head coach, and he took the baton in a seamless coaching transition, carrying on right where his former boss left off.
Riley won 12 games in each of his first three seasons, going 12-2 in each and leading the Sooners to three consecutive College Football Playoff appearances. Oklahoma had won the Big 12 championship in each of Stoops’ final two seasons (2015 and 2016) with Riley as offensive coordinator, and Riley was able to extend OU’s conference championship domination to six with four more consecutive league titles.
In addition to winning four conference championships and leading the Crimson and Cream to four College Football Playoffs, Riley padded his resume as a college quarterback whisperer who was the best in the game at developing quarterbacks for NFL careers. Two Sooner quarterbacks (Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, won the Heisman Trophy, under Riley’s wing and a third, Jalen Hurts, finished as a Heisman runner-up. He also had a direct hand in bringing No. 1 quarterback recruits Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams to Oklahoma.
Less than 24 hours after the Sooners’ final regular-season game of the 2021 season — a loss to Oklahoma State that eliminated OU from the Big 12 championship game for the first time in seven seasons — Riley made the stunning announcement that he was leaving Oklahoma to become head coach at USC.
It’s amazing how fast a highly successful Oklahoma head coach fell out of favor and has become persona non grata among the Sooner Nation. Not only did Riley up and leave the program for a perceived better college job — something that just doesn’t happen at OU — but he also took several Sooner assistants and several top players and recruits with him, including this past season’s Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams.
The fact remains, however, Riley won 55 of 65 games at Oklahoma, a winning percentage of .846, the highest percentage of any Sooner head coach who served at least five seasons.