The life Lincoln Riley lives at USC is the life of a football coach. In that regard, it’s the same life as the one Riley had at Oklahoma. Yet, that’s just about the only similarity between coaching in Los Angeles and coaching in Norman: the coaching part.
The lifestyle, the scrutiny, and the fishbowl existence (or lack thereof) are all very different, as Kegan Reneau told us on The Riley Files, a look back at Riley’s Oklahoma years.
“Lincoln has mentioned this. He can go to places in Southern California and go out to eat and people don’t even know who he is. That sounds like it fits him perfectly. That would never, ever be the case in Oklahoma, not a shot. There’s no way he couldn’t leave his house without someone wanting to get an autograph from him,” Reneau said. “I covered him. I have an idea of what a great working relationship is with the media. My best example would be, he goes, ‘Hey, look at what Shane Beamer’s doing at South Carolina.’ It appeared on the surface that they were very open with the media, but he was reserved. It was for a reason. he’s very private. He did not have a very good relationship working with the media.
“Whenever you don’t have that and when times get tough, you don’t answer those questions. People start to ask questions and try to find out what’s actually happening and find different avenues to get to those conclusions.”
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