On The Riley Files, Oklahoma insider Kegan Reneau noted how Lincoln Riley gave his players freedom in specific instances, all while walking a political tightrope due to the fact that he was the anointed successor to Bob Stoops.
“Lincoln allowed Baker Mayfield to do that: Baker’s got a Fu Manchu (look) on his face, right? That’s the kind of stuff that was just a little bit different after Riley arrived in 2015. One of the pieces of the puzzle for Oklahoma when Lincoln Riley was head coach was dealing with Mike Stoops as defensive coordinator, of course, the brother of Bob stoops. So when Lincoln Riley took over as head coach (2017), he wasn’t gonna fire or replace Mike Stoops right off the bat. He was gonna give Mike Stoops a chance.
“That (firing Mike) wouldn’t have sat well with Bob. I can’t imagine. So he was gonna at least see what Mike Stoops was capable of. We know the results on the field. They weren’t very good with the OU defense.”
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