Oklahoma analyst Kegan Reneau drew a clear line of distinction between Lincoln Riley’s first five offenses with the Sooners (two of them as an offensive coordinator, not a head coach) and his last two offenses.
This is part of the larger story Reneau unpacks on our Riley Files podcast series.
“They were so good from 2015 to 2019,” Reneau said. “They were so good getting into second and twos and second and threes, which obviously a lot of coordinators like to take shots in those situations down the field. They were so good at getting into very favorable passing situations and maximize those things. The last few years (2020 and 2021) were different. They were getting into third and sixes, third and sevens, with young quarterbacks behind a poor offensive line relative to Oklahoma standards. It’s kind of like rolling the dice. If you get into as many of those as Oklahoma was in, at some point it was gonna come back to bite you, and it did quite frequently actually. That was a little bit concerning.
“I don’t buy this idea that they needed to run the football more than they did, because it’s not like he was passing it like he was at East Carolina.”
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