Lincoln Riley is a very guarded, cautious football coach. He likes to preserve “state secrets,” so to speak. An anecdote from our Riley Files podcast series last year conveys this point clearly.
Oklahoma insider Kegan Reneau recalls covering the Sooners and Lincoln Riley in 2019. He talked to OU receiver CeeDee Lamb.
This is what happened, preceded by a little background:
“It’s not a question I directly asked Lincoln Riley, but in 2019 against UCLA, CeeDee Lamb caught a long touchdown. Jalen Hurts had rolled to his right. It looked like and appeared on television that he was scrambling. But no, it was set up. It’s the same play. What they had against UCLA in 2019 in Los Angeles, they ran that same play against TCU in 2018 when Kyler Murray found CeeDee Lamb, same receiver, same play. It worked out the same exact way.
“So in 2019, after the UCLA game, that next week I had a one-on-one with CeeDee Lamb. The story that week was walking me through a Lincoln Riley touchdown play. So we got all the way to the point where I had CeeDee Lamb talking about going in motion and the play being called. I asked CeeDee Lamb if that was the touchdown or the play that was called, did he know it was gonna be a touchdown? He started smiling and joking and said yes. Then I started to have him go through a couple more details.
“CeeDee stopped answering questions. He was like, Lincoln Riley was right behind him. Even though he wasn’t in the room. It was like, ‘Hey, Hey, stop it. Stop talking.’ Um, so I mean, they were very reserved. Lincoln even mentioned in press conferences when people would ask him about that stuff.”
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