Lincoln Riley has been appointed the new head coach of the college football team the Oklahoma Sooners. Learn about Riley’s career and his personal life here.
Legendary coach Bob Stoops, 56, will retire after 18 seasons leading the college football team the Oklahoma Sooners. Oklahoma reporter Barry Trammell first broke the news on his Twitter account, and was later confirmed in a piece by Fox News reporter Bruce Feldman, who wrote: “Bob Stoops is retiring at #OU effective immediately.”
The other bit of information that Feldman released proved equally important, as he revealed who would replace Stoops as the new head coach: “Lincoln Riley will become the HC” he tweeted out. Riley, a 33 year-old offensive coordinator for Oklahoma, will take upon the role for the first time in his coaching career this season.
To learn more about Lincoln Riley, his personal life, and his coaching career, check out these five fast facts.
Riley Lincoln was born on September 5th, 1983 in Lubbock, Texas. Like most young athletes, he had aspirations of becoming a star quarterback, and even decided to be a walk-on for the Texas Tech Red Rangers in 2002. According to Lincoln’s biography on the sports site The Football Braniacs, however, things didn’ t exactly go the way he thought they would. “ [Coach] Mike Leach quickly told him he would never play quarterback, ” writes Ryan Lewis.
Fortunately, Leach did see something in Lincoln, and offered him the position of student assistant instead. He agreed, and served under Leach for the next handful of years. In 2007, Lincoln was made the receivers coach, a position he held for three years. During this time, he helped Michael Crabtree set countless wide receiver records and win the Biletnikoff Award.
“Lincoln’s one of the sharpest coaches I’ ve ever had the opportunity to work with, ” Leach told the Charlotte Observer, “He elevated very, very quickly because of his work ethic and because of his awareness and understanding of football on offense.”
Head coach Mike Leach was fired from the Red Rangers in 2009, and Lincoln, while staying on to coach the offense during the Alamo Bowl, eventually moved to East Carolina to serve as an offensive coordinator under coach Ruffin McNeill, whom he would later credit as his mentor.
Lincoln was the offensive coordinator at ECU for five seasons, where he coach several high profile players like Shane Carden and Justin Hardy. This all changed in 2015, when Oklahoma Sooners coach Bob Stoops brought Lincoln onboard as the team’s offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. According to The Football Braniacs, Lincoln was “called in to reinvigorate a Sooners offense and bring a fresh perspective to it.” To his credit, he did just that.
The Sooners finished fourth in scoring in 2015, and Lincoln played a vital coach in molding the Sporting News Player of the Year, Baker Mayfield. The following year, he and Stoops enabled the Sooners to finish first in passing and efficiency and second in total offense.
For his work, Lincoln was given the Broyles Award, which is annually given to the top assistant coach in the nation.
Lincoln Riley and his wife Caitlin got an early Christmas present in 2012 when their first daughter Sloane was born. This led to Riley missing practice for ECU as they prepared for the New Orleans Bowl. “ (Riley) being a dad for Sloane and a husband for Caitlin is above and beyond any of this, ” said McNeill, who was Lincoln’s head coach at the time. “I’ m not used to operating practices without him, but at the same time, his family comes first.”
McNeill added that he and Riley discussed possible approaches for the offense if in fact his daughter was born in the days leading up to the New Orleans Bowl– proving himself a savvy coach even when personal matters take precedence. “We had a plan of action in place with (outside receivers coach) Dave Nichol and (inside receivers coach/recruiting coordinator) Donnie Kirkpatrick, ” McNeill said.
Sloane Riley was born at 6 pounds, 9 ounces and 18 inches long. McNeill joked that she was fortunate to get the better of her parents’ traits, saying “Thank God she looks like Caitlin, not like Lincoln! I told him that too.”
In 2016, after Riley had moved on to Oklahoma, he and Caitlin welcomed their second daughter, Stella. When asked about the prospect of raising two children, Riley told Tulsa World “You go through all that stuff with the first one, then you think you got it all figured out. Then you get the second one and realize you don’ t have it all figured out!”
Given Riley’s effectiveness during his first two years in Oklahoma, the Sooners saw fit to make sure they he stick around for the foreseeable future, and offered him a historic contract in May of this year. “We’ re hopeful he’ ll be with us as long as he can, ” President of the OU Board of Regents David Boren told Tulsa World, “We just decided there was no reason to put it off. We made that decision, we were already in agreement over what we were going to pay him and extending for three years.”
The three-year deal, which is the longest ever for an assistant coach in Oklahoma, also came with $1.3 million salary, making Riley the highest-paid assistant in the state’s history. This was the culmination of a massive boost in salary, as Riley earned $500,000 his first season and $900,000 in his second.
“Why not let our competitors know that?” added Boren, “They’ re going around saying ‘Oh, they might not still have him if you got to OU.’ In the middle of recruiting season, why wait to let everyone know he’s coming back?”
Despite his success over the years, Riley will have to contend with the rich legacy left by head coach Bob Stoops. A veteran of thirty years, Stoops joined Oklahoma in 1999 and led the team to an Orange Bowl victory and a national championship in 2000. That same season, he was awarded the Paul “Bear” Bryant Award and the Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award.
During his tenure, Stoops also led the Sooners to ten Big 12 titles and reached double-digit wins a staggering 14 times– the most recent being an 11-2 season in 2016. “When I accepted this job, I knew it wasn’ t a stepping-stone job, where you do well here and get a better job, ” Stoops, also known as “Big Game Bob, ” told ESPN last year, “I thought all along this was the best job.
