Lincoln, where are your great players today at USC?
As I viewed various YouTube videos, today my attention focused on Baker Mayfield’s Heisman season in Norman, as the Sooners had a very successful season, losing to Georgia in the National Semi-Final in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. The double overtime loss to the Bulldogs was a heartbreaker for Sooner Nation, as the loss ended Lincoln Riley’s first year as the head coach at Oklahoma. And it was a wonderful year, 2017, for Sooner football and it’s rookie coach. Riley had it going in 2017, and despite the loss in the Rose Bowl, he continued to win at OU, going 12-2, 12-2, 9-2, and 10-2 the next four years. His overall record at OU was 55-10 with three Big 12 titles. Riley got the big need for money, an avoidance of having to survive in the coming Southeastern Conference on the horizon, and the preverbal “the grass is greener……” Riley moved on to the University of Southern Cal for the reasons above, and in my opinion, it was the biggest mistake any Sooner head coach has ever made. Riley had it all and in just a short three years, he has nothing of the sort in Los Angeles. He is 26-14 in LA, and the hot seat is getting hotter one of the newest members of the Big Ten is burning his ass. Lincoln Riley would not have lost 14 game at OU if he had stayed. Riley messed up and must be said that USC is in no better a position now than when he came to the West coast. The Trojans play in a tough conference, the schedule is not easy, and it now seems that the offense continues to lead a team that a defense is not that great. USC does not draw the football attendance like OU, they are not the talk of the town sports wise in LA, which is dominated by professional sports, and the NIL monies are not much better than any B10 or SEC school as the donors are not happy with Riley’s results the past three years.
The Sooners were loaded with talent in 2017. Previous head coach Bob Stoops had hired Riley in the summer of 2015, as the offensive coordinator, and during the first two years at OU, Stoops and Riley help stockpile for Riley’s first year in 2017 as Stoops retired in June of 2017. Lincoln was personally chosen, by Stoops, as his successor as the two years previous grooming him to follow his footsteps as the head coach. OU was 22-4 in those two years with Riley the offensive coordinator and two Big 12 Championships. Stoops believed that Riley, the offensive coordinator at East Caroline University before coming to OU to do the same, was a top offensive play caller and the best quarterback coach in the country. Stoop knew that having a top-tier offensive guru would allow OU to continue to win at the highest level and Riley was the man. The two years as the top offensive assistant was all Stoops needed to recommend him to take the helm for the program.
Riley’s overall look is not as positive as it was just after his move. He is not getting the numerous All-American players that he was able to put to the test in Norman, and the fans are not packing out the LA Coliseum.
As I viewed Baker Mayfield pass to CeeDee Lamb and Mark Andrews in 2017, USC does not have these great players at USC. And his OU transfer he took to LA, abet a Heisman winner, has gone off to Chicago. Riley needs to find talent, and it seems to harder for him at USC than at Oklahoma. Am I right or am I right?
Photos: On3.com
reap what you sow!! Is the saying anyway. He deserves to be irrelevant in the game now. He didnt have enough class, respect, or appreciation, for those that put him where he got. I don’t think anyone in OK cared he left. But to try and gut OU and not have the balls to even tell your team is the true character of the dude. He didn’t becomea better coach because he moved. Same exact path. OU won games in spite of him. Talent, not coaching won more of those 55 and coaching lost 10 out of 10. He would of been Tech’s coach with a 500 record and that’s about it, if Stoops didn’t nurse him. He’s a liar, and a joke.
reap what you sow!! Is the saying anyway. He deserves to be irrelevant in the game now. He didnt have enough class, respect, or appreciation, for those that put him where he got. I don’t think anyone in OK cared he left. But to try and gut OU and not have the balls to even tell your team is the true character of the dude. He didn’t become a better coach because he moved OU won games in spite of him. Talent, not coaching won more of those 55 and coaching lost 10 out of 10. He would of been Tech’s coach with a 500 record and that’s about it, if Stoops didn’t nurse him. He’s a liar, and a joke.