Who is Lincoln Riley?

Bob Stoops has retired as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. Meet the new man in charge, Lincoln Riley.

Welcome to the new era of the Oklahoma Sooners. After 18 years at the helm, Bob Stoops has decided to call it quits as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. While Stoops is a polarizing topic, we’re here to introduce the new head coach, Lincoln Riley. Although many people are unfamiliar with Riley, he is absolutely qualified for the job. Let’s take a closer look at the new head man in Norman Oklahoma.

Lincoln Riley was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, so his routes are deeply tied within the Texas and Oklahoma region. Riley walked onto the Texas Tech team in 2002 as the team is based in his hometown. Riley never played a down for Texas Tech but gained the necessary knowledge to start his coaching career.

Riley spent his collegiate career as the backup to quarterback guru Kliff Kingsbury. Interesting enough, Kingsbury is the incumbent head coach at Texas Tech. In 2002, however, Riley was under the tutelage of teammate Kingsbury and head coach Mike Leach. The system that Riley learned during his time in Lubbock was the logistics around the Air Raid offense. Quarterbacks like Johnny Manziel, Patrick Mahomes, and others have built successful college careers playing in this offense.

The intricacies of the Air Raid offense stylistically features a very heavy passing offense. The normal formation of the Air Raid features the quarterback in the shot gun in a four-wide receiver set with a running back along side the quarterback. The formation can include wide receiver trips with three wide outs on one side or multiple variations of wide receiver sets to confuse the defense.  The running back can also be used as a weapon in the passing game or provide an additional blocker in the shot gun. Mastering the offense is a different challenge altogether.

After catching on with Texas Tech as a student assistant in 2003, Riley really made a name for himself with East Carolina. Riley was named the offensive coordinator for East Carolina in 2010 and spent five seasons at ECU. His coaching presence made a huge impact on the program and helped elevate it to new heights. ECU won 26 games the final three years Riley was the offensive coordinator for the team. They went on to only win five games the year Riley departed because of the void he left on offense.

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The progression of ECU can easily be seen by the total offense numbers. In 2012, East Carolina ranked 56th in total offense (409 yards per game). In 2013 they rose to 26th in total offense (468 yards per game). Riley’s final year transcended ECU as a top five offense in college football (533 yards per game). Riley’s quarterback project in the final three years of his tenure was Shane Carden who was never drafted in the NFL. Riley helped transcend Carden to a level he frankly wasn’t capable of considering Carden never sniffed an NFL field. In 2013 Carden was even rocking a 70.5 completion percentage on 549 attempts in a vertical passing system!

Riley’s time at ECU obviously helped him land a deserved promotion at Oklahoma where he has been running the Sooner’s offense since 2015. Interestingly enough, Riley has since worked with Baker Mayfield who was a castoff of former colleague Kliff Kingsbury as Mayfield lost the starting gig in 2013 to Davis Webb. Mayfield has been everything you look for in a collegiate quarterback and is under serious draft conversations heading into next year despite being undersized (6-foot-1).

Riley has helped shape Mayfield in the modern day college quarterback, a mobile guy who can get rid of it and take his fair share of chances down the field. Oklahoma’s offense won’t miss a beat with Riley taking the lead role as he has shown an ability to lead Oklahoma’s offense to excellence. In Riley’s first year at Oklahoma, they ranked 7th in total offense (530 yards per game). That stat line improved this past season to the second best offensive unit in college football (555 yards per game). During those two years, the quarterback whisperer has helped Baker Mayfield become a 70 percent completion guy as well. His 40 touchdown to 8 interception ratio is nothing to laugh at either. The Sooner offense will be electric, the question is whether Riley can now succeed at the other responsibilities that come with being a head coach.

Riley will now be tasked with recruiting and taking a no nonsense approach. Riley, 33, has climbed through the coaching ranks rather quickly which only speaks to how brilliant this guy is. Oklahoma clearly knows how valuable he is as a former Broyles Award winner being recognized as the best assistant in college football during the 2015 season. The Sooners didn’t mess around with the interim tag — Lincoln Riley is the guy.

While it’s hard to remember a time before Bob Stoops, he didn’t exactly take the program to where it needed to be after one championship in 18 years. Oklahoma also has had only one player drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft since 2011 (Lane Johnson – a former quarterback recruit turned offensive lineman). It’s clear Stoops’ time was up and Lincoln Riley is just the man for the job. Riley clearly knows what he’s doing in terms of being a play caller his success now will be dictated on whether he can win in the living room and recruit the right guys to get Oklahoma back in the National Title conversation.