Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops replacement, has been a rising star for years
Riley will be FBS’ youngest head coach. Maybe that’s a bit or a risk, but chances are he’ll do fine.
The news that Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops is retiring after 18 seasons on the job is a bombshell. Stoops has become a college football institution during his run in Norman, the only place he’s ever been a head coach. He won 190 games and lost 48, delivering the Sooners to a national title in 2000 and lots of high-end success in the seasons that followed it. He leaves behind the best team in the Big 12.
Stoops will be an almost impossible act to follow, but the Sooners are fortunate to have his replacement already in house. Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman reports it will be Lincoln Riley, OU’s 33-year-old offensive coordinator of two seasons.
It seems unlikely that Riley is just a stopgap. Feldman says OU has been “grooming him for this opportunity for over a year.” Riley’s name has come up often in other schools’ coaching searches over the last few hiring cycles, but he’s not going anywhere now. He’s slated to be the youngest head coach in the FBS, college football’s top division.
Oklahoma has a history of hiring young coaches like Riley and letting them ride for a long time. Stoops was still months shy of 40 when he took the job before the 1999 season. Barry Switzer, Chuck Fairbanks, and Bud Wilkinson were all in their 30s, too, at the time of their hirings. Those three are, with Stoops, among the greatest four or five coaches in Oklahoma’s history. Sooners fans will be familiar with this timeline.
Riley is known for coaching an exciting spread offense.
He landed at Oklahoma for the 2015 season after five years as East Carolina’s offensive coordinator. He spent 2003-09 at Texas Tech, and his offenses resembles his own coaching heritage. Riley coaches a spread scheme that looks a lot like the air raid, with tons of short passing to open up both the run game and vertical passing. The designed QB run game — a longtime strength of OU’s, including the last two years with Baker Mayfield — is very much a part of what Riley does. The Sooner offense will probably not change much.
More than fun, though, Riley’s offenses are good. The Sooners were No. 1 in the country last season in Offensive S&P+, when both Mayfield and receiver Dede Westbrook were Heisman Trophy finalists. They were No. 7 the year before that. Riley also fielded top-50 offenses by S&P+ in his last three years at ECU.
He’s also been a part of OU’s entrenchment in the last few years as the top recruiting program in the Big 12.
I won’t pretend that Texas being bad hasn’t been a bigger factor, but Riley’s still done good work. His 247Sports commitments page looks pretty, and he’s just about the poster child for The Energetic Young Recruiter With Serious Credentials. Stoops has set a high recruiting bar in Norman, and this year’s class will be tough to put together. But can Riley recruit in the long term? Almost surely. It gets easier in Year 2, anyway.
Oklahoma is one of the best coaching jobs in college football. The Sooners wouldn’t be turning the controls to Riley if they didn’t think he could handle it, no matter his age. The available information on Riley suggests they’re not making a bad bet.