We’ve seen more than enough. This is as good as it’s going to get for Lincoln Riley with the Oklahoma Sooners. He needs to leave the Big 12 for the NFL now.
It was so bad, it should have ended at halftime. No. 1 LSU humiliated No. 4 Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl, 63-28, as the Sooners once again proved they didn’t belong.
For the fourth time in the six-year history of the College Football Playoff, Oklahoma lost in the semifinals. The Clemson Tigers beat them in the 2015 Orange Bowl, the Georgia Bulldogs defeated them in the 2018 Rose Bowl, the Alabama Crimson Tide beat them in the 2018 Orange Bowl and now LSU crushed them in the 2019 Peach Bowl. It’s not getting any better at all.
The one common thread in it all for the Sooners has been head coach Lincoln Riley, as well as one transfer quarterback after another. Riley was part of Bob Stoops’ 2015 Big 12 Championship staff that lost to Clemson in the Orange Bowl as the offensive coordinator. He took over for Stoops in 2017 and has now gone 0-3 in his three College Football Playoff games.
Oklahoma does not have the defensive acumen to hang with the college football big dogs such as Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, LSU or Ohio State in a playoff atmosphere. Sure, it has to be cool coaching Heisman Trophy finalist after Heisman Trophy finalist at the quarterback position. Maybe Spencer Rattler is the fourth Riley quarterback to get to New York?
That said, this is as good as it’s going to get with Riley coaching Oklahoma.
The defense isn’t the least bit championship-caliber, no matter how well we think it can complement the Air Raid. Oklahoma can win the Big 12 every year going forward, but will never win a College Football Playoff game.
The Sooners’ ineptitude in the playoff will certainly hurt the conference.
So what is Riley to do? Hold steady? Tell himself next year is the year. No, he shouldn’t do that. He should accept the fact his offensive coaching acumen is highly coveted by another league. Yes, he should go the Kliff Kingsbury route and become a head coach in the NFL and he needs to do that this head coaching cycle.
There will be several teams looking for a new head coach next season. Even though he is a college guy, Riley should have his pick of at least a few jobs. Two of those gigs, in particular, should be very enticing for the Oklahoma offensive genius: the Dallas Cowboys and the Cleveland Browns.
Jason Garrett this offseason, then we can safely say Garrett has a lifetime contract in Dallas. But if Jones accepts that his coaching puppet is that and nothing more, then he can get his new Jimmy Johnson or Barry Switzer and finally compete for Super Bowls again. Both coaches dominated in college. Riley is in nearby Norman.
Yes, the Cowboys job is superior to the Browns job, but Cleveland has something Dallas does not: Baker Mayfield. No quarterback was more impressive playing in Riley’s offense than Mayfield. Together, they can reclaim this sunken ship of a franchise from the depths of Lake Erie.
While leaving a blue blood job would be tough, the reason Riley needs to go pro is that he’ll lose even more shine next season if Oklahoma isn’t playing for a national championship. Winning the Big 12 annually and sending quarterbacks to the Heisman Trophy ceremony won’t impress NFL owners any more than they already do. It’s time.
If Riley doesn’t entertain NFL coaching opportunities this winter, then that window might close for the foreseeable future. There are other great coaches in the Big 12 like Matt Rhule of the Baylor Bears and Matt Campbell of the Iowa State Cyclones who could jump at that NFL head-coaching opportunity while they’re still hot commodities.
Should guys like Campbell, Riley or Rhule fail at the NFL level, so what? They can go back to the college game they’ve dominated and land a pretty sweet Power 5 gig available during that cycle.
Riley shouldn’t be afraid of the ramifications of not winning it all at Oklahoma. He needs to align himself with an accurate quarterback at the professional level.
He can always go back to college.
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