Fansided

30 college football head coaches cooler than your coolest uncle

By Andrew Miller

AUSTIN, TX - OCTOBER 21: Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy watches warm ups prior to 13 - 10 win over the Texas Longhorns on October 21, 2017 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, TX. (Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
AUSTIN, TX - OCTOBER 21: Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy watches warm ups prior to 13 - 10 win over the Texas Longhorns on October 21, 2017 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, TX. (Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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PASADENA, CA – JANUARY 01: Head coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts on the sidelines in the 2018 College Football Playoff Semifinal Game against the Georgia Bulldogs at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA – JANUARY 01: Head coach Lincoln Riley of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts on the sidelines in the 2018 College Football Playoff Semifinal Game against the Georgia Bulldogs at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual at the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images) /

The meteoric rise of the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners Lincoln Riley through the college football ranks is nothing but thoroughly impressive. He’s done an awesome job with the Sooners so far too. Riley took OU to the College Football Playoff, and won the Big 12 Championship Game, in his first season as head coach in Norman, OK.

Just a few years ago Riley was the offensive coordinator for a head coach with the East Carolina Pirates that is now one of the assistants with the Sooners in Ruffin McNeill. It’s a good sign that Riley kept an experienced coach like McNeill on his staff in Norman, despite him being a coordinator under him in year’s past.

One of the qualms that people typically have with Riley’s success in his first year as the head coach for the Sooners is that he was handed a really good program and Heisman winning quarterback in Baker Mayfield following the departure of Bob Stoops. We’ll see this year if that hurdle proves to be true since Mayfield was the first overall pick of the Cleveland Browns in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Riley is one of the youngest coaches in the nation overall and could be looking at one of the best careers of any active coach. If he can find the same level of success he did last year with the Sooners, that would prove his coaching prowess. Even if he wins another Big 12 Championship, it’s a big accomplishment for both him and the Sooners.

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