Stunner: USC snatches Riley away from OU
He was 55-10 in five seasons with the Sooners, winning four Big 12 titles
Southern California hired Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley to be its next coach Sunday in a stunning and rare move of one traditional college football powerhouse swiping another’s highly accomplished head coach.
Riley went 55-10 in five seasons leading the Sooners, winning four Big 12 titles and making three College Football Playoff appearances in his first head coaching job. The 38-year-old Texan is widely considered one of the top offensive minds in the college game, and USC sold him on the chance to return the Trojans to their glory days as a national championship contender and the West Coast’s premier program.
“USC has an unparalleled football tradition with tremendous resources and facilities, and the administration has made a deep commitment to winning,” Riley said in a statement. “I look forward to honoring that successful tradition and building on it. The pieces are in place for us to build the program back to where it should be and the fans expect it to be.”
Riley “will immediately transition to USC,” according to the school. Interim coach Donte Williams will lead the Trojans (4-7, 3-5 Pac-12) in their season finale at California on Saturday night.
Bob Stoops is returning as Oklahoma’s interim head coach to lead the Sooners in their bowl game, the school announced.
USC fired Clay Helton in September. The school has been searching for a head coach to revive a program that has had meager success since a dominant run through the 2000s under Pete Carroll that included two national titles.
Since Carroll left for the Seattle Seahawks in late 2009, the Trojans have struggled under three former Carroll assistants and Helton, who brought stability and professionalism to USC, but not nearly enough on-the-field success while going 46-24.
After being connected to several top candidates for jobs in this hiring cycle, USC athletic director Mike Bohn managed to land an even bigger name than all but his most starry-eyed fans imagined.
“His successes and offensive accolades as a head coach the past five years are astonishing,” Bohn said of Riley. “Lincoln will recruit relentlessly, develop his players on and off the field, and implement a strong culture in which the program will operate with the highest level of integrity and professionalism. Lincoln is universally considered one of the brightest and most talented football coaches in the nation, and the fact that he chose USC is a testament to the strength of our brand, the power of the Trojan Family, and the leadership of our university.”
Riley was Oklahoma offensive coordinator when he was anointed successor to Stoops after the veteran coach retired in 2017. The Sooners have owned the Big 12 ever since. Riley produced two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks — Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray — and some of the most prolific offenses in college football history.
Riley also has recruited well in California. Several players previously committed to the Sooners decommitted from Oklahoma on Sunday after the news of Riley’s leaving broke.
Riley led the Sooners to yet another 10-win season this year, but Oklahoma’s string of Big 12 titles was snapped when the Sooners (10-2) narrowly lost to Oklahoma State on Saturday night. With the Sooners out of contention for the College Football Playoff, USC dived in to make a splash.
The last big-name coach to make such a seismic move was Jimbo Fisher, who left Florida State for a 10-year, guaranteed contract at Texas A&M at the end of the 2017 season. Riley was already making over $7 million per year in Norman, so he is likely to have received a significant increase from USC’s deep-pocketed boosters.
Oklahoma will be forced to conduct its first head coaching search since 1999, the year Stoops was hired.
New leadership will be yet another big change coming at Oklahoma, which is moving to the Southeastern Conference along with Texas. The move is currently set for 2025.