Riley: `All-in' on Grinch's defense
Lincoln Riley's predecessor, Bob Stoops, made a regular habit of poking at the SEC during the offseason.
With a nod in that direction, Riley, speaking Tuesday at the Rotary Club of Oklahoma City meeting, said the national perceptions toward the SEC are changing.
“I think some of the TV networks have created a SEC bias over the last few years and I think it's starting to go away a little bit,” Riley said after being asked about the difficulty of recruiting to the defensive side in the Big 12. “I think people are starting to see that that's just smoke and mirrors, to be completely honest. I know the coach before me here had plenty to say behind that.”
Riley went on to say he was happy with the Sooners' recruiting on the defensive side of the ball, though he did want it to take a significant step forward.
He compared it to offensive
recruiting when he first came to Oklahoma vs. what the Sooners are able to bring in now on that side of the ball.
“I think that's a cop-out a little bit for people who don't recruit well,” Riley said. “We haven't had a problem recruiting defensive players … when we can start to put together on-tape and on-the-field the consistent success that we expect defensively, then we're going to be able to recruit even better players. To give you an example, the guys that we recruit now offensively, when I first got here four years ago, we couldn't recruit those guys. We would not have had a shot.
“We're recruiting at a high level defensively currently. To get to that elite level — to take that next step with the guys we're recruiting — we've got to go play the way that we want to play on the field and we're on the way to doing that.”
Riley pointed to the hiring of new defensive coordinator Alex Grinch and new defensive assistants Roy Manning and Brian Odom, comparing it again to when Stoops brought him aboard as offensive coordinator before the 2015 season.
“First finding somebody that did some things cutting-edge as far as the scheme,” Riley said, pointing to Grinch's success at Washington State.
A big reason for the success he's had, Riley said, came from the trust Stoops put in him to run the offense without interference. He said he'll have a similar approach with Grinch on the defensive side.
“He was trusting enough to go all-in with me,” Riley said. “The guy can hire you, but if he doesn't give you the tools and the confidence that you need to be successful if you're going to be running that part of the business, which is really what a coordinator does, he can hire you but are you really sending the message you're all-in with what you're doing.”