When Oklahoma’s defense played horribly in 2018, Lincoln Riley showed that he could rise above the pull of loyalty and make a hard-edged, tough decision in the interests of his team. He hasn’t made that decision a lot of times in his career, but this was one.
Kegan Reneau remembered that moment on The Riley Files.
“At that point in that day, he made a decision: ‘Mike Stoops is hurting my reputation, which is in the same vein as hurting my program’s reputation at the time,'” Reneau said about Riley’s thought process. “He had to make a choice that day and the next day in the hours after that. Mike was no longer going to be the defensive coordinator. That’s the moment I think you look at where Lincoln finally decided I can’t let my loyalty hold me back from what I wanna do here (at OU).
“When you go into how did they bounce back in 2017, (remember) they lost to Iowa State. Then they went on and played the best football that had been played at Oklahoma in a decade at that point.
“In 2016, they lost two early-season games when he was the offensive coordinator. Then the offense took off and had the best offense in the country. In 2018, they lost to Texas. Then the offense after that game took off and became one of the most historically efficient offenses in college football history. In 2019, they lost to Kansas State. He (Lincoln) basically took the passing decisions out of Jalen Hurts’ hands. They ran an offense that was very akin to what you would see in 1980, but in the shotgun. In 2020 they lost a couple games and then they became really, really good.”
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