It’s a question which will hang over Lincoln Riley’s head until he can win his first College Football Playoff semifinal game: Will Riley ever be able to close the gap with Kirby Smart at Georgia, Nick Saban at Alabama, and Dabo Swinney of Clemson, the three coaches of the three most prominent and successful programs over the past eight years in college football?
It’s true that the 2022 College Football Playoff is the first playoff without either Alabama or Clemson. At least one of those two schools has been part of the playoff in each of its first eight seasons (2014-2021). Yet, Alabama will certainly be expected to make the playoff next year. Clemson probably would be in the playoff ahead of Ohio State if it had not tripped up versus South Carolina this year.
It might not be fair, but it’s the cold, hard truth: Lincoln Riley will face questions about his coaching acumen until he wins a first playoff semifinal. He’s 0-3 as a head coach in semifinals, 0-4 if you include the 2015 Oklahoma team for which he was offensive coordinator.
We talked about this and related topics with Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football:
[mm-video type=video id=01gka0mc78xrs1z0qtrx playlist_id=none player_id=01f5k5y2jb3twsvdg4 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gka0mc78xrs1z0qtrx/01gka0mc78xrs1z0qtrx-5357f75dc515c2fef3aa78aae70f1274.jpg]
[listicle id=53979]