After 24 hours that left many hopes for the Sooners’ future hollowed out, Bob Stoops’ fiery energy reverberated through the room overlooking the stadium his hallowed legacy once restored to greatness.
Oklahoma’s former and now-interim head coach, who’ll be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame next week, was visibly frustrated about mounting concerns that have engulfed the program he led for 18 years, including to a national championship in 2000. He answered questions curtly like he did during his heyday, sparring with reporters and putting the college football world on notice that he’s back and the Sooners aren’t going anywhere.
It was part of a united front OU presented Monday to a shell-shocked fanbase after former head coach Lincoln Riley, whom Stoops handed OU’s program to in 2017, agreed Sunday to become the 30th head coach at Southern California. Riley boarded a plane to Los Angeles at 6 a.m. Monday, alongside four assistants from the team he led for five years, which won four Big 12 Championships, made three College Football Playoff appearances and produced two Heisman Trophy winners. It was a stunning end to the Riley era that OU seemed poised to ride into its looming ascension to the Southeastern Conference, the toughest in college football.
“This job is one of the best ever in sports,” said OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione, equally resolute if less clearly annoyed than Stoops. “It's been made that way because of incredible players that chose to come to the University of Oklahoma that did exceptional things while they were here (and), obviously, the coaches that found them, developed them, and continued to recruit and build upon that as we pursue championships.”
Stoops' son Drake is a redshirt junior Sooners receiver and a handful of players he recruited are still around. He will take over as interim coach for OU’s bowl game and balance his responsibilities as a television analyst for Fox College Football. Simultaneously, Castiglione will begin his search for Riley’s replacement. Stoops and Castiglione, alongside President Joseph Harroz Jr., have collectively amassed over 70 years of service to the university and attempted to soothe concerns about the program’s future on Monday.
Tasked with keeping the Sooners afloat in their darkest hour since he was hired by Castiglione almost 23 years to the date in the winter of 1998, after four straight losing seasons with no bowl appearances, Stoops delivered a passionate spark of hope to players, parents, recruits and fans alike.
“The message to all of you is, listen, when I arrived here Dec. 1, 1998, there was something to be concerned about. … Two years later, we were 13-0 and won the national championship. This place is in a hell of a lot better shape than it was on Dec. 1, 1998.
“Just understand, give it a little bit of time, and you're going to see this is just a little bump in the road.”
‘We would’ve liked more notice’
For weeks as this season unfolded, Castiglione said he and Harroz had been preparing a contract extension for Riley, but they never got the opportunity to formally make their offer. On Sunday morning, Castiglione said he received a phone call from Riley informing him he planned to interview with USC. Riley asked if he could meet with Castiglione and Harroz later in the day, and when they gathered, he informed them of his departure.
“We would’ve liked more notice. We were surprised by it yesterday,” said Harroz, who in his 20 months as president has already seen his athletic department replace long-tenured men’s and women’s basketball coaches Lon Kruger and Sherri Coale. “But that was his decision, and you can only impact those things that you can control.”
Riley told reporters in Los Angeles that USC first expressed interest in him late Saturday and that conversations with the Trojans carried into early Sunday. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, USC athletic director Mike Bohn’s courtship of Riley began in September and persisted through the regular season.
The realities of the job he had versus the one he took makes clear the struggling Pac-12 provides Riley an easier annual path to the College Football Playoff than OU will face after its transition from the Big 12 to the daunting SEC by 2025. Harroz and Castiglione, however, said Riley expressed no concerns to them about the future or what would be needed to consistently contend in that conference.
“There wasn't any mention of any unrest,” Castiglione said. “When (Riley) talked to President Harroz, he said that he was intrigued by a different kind of opportunity. (He was) absolutely happy with everything that we had talked about with our infrastructure, support resources, facilities and all the things that we possibly talked about, so all of that was absolutely great. He just got very intrigued with a different and unique opportunity that he felt was best for him and his family.”
Yet, Castiglione said his program is conducting a “comprehensive review” of its athletics department before entering a new age of competition. Pressed about the review, Castiglione said OU athletics administrators have already visited the campuses of “four or five” SEC schools for insight regarding finances, staffing and facility development.
An agreement between Riley and USC was reportedly reached shortly after his postgame press conference late Saturday. He met with USC leadership via Zoom on Sunday morning, a conversation he said helped seal the deal.
“You can’t just rely on the logo,” Riley said during his introductory press conference on Monday in Los Angeles. “Just because it’s USC, that’s a great start, but that’s all it is, a start. You better have the right people behind it, you better have commitment at all levels, you better have alignment at all levels, or you’re not going to be successful. And when I met with (USC) leadership, I could see there was total alignment, but there was excitement as well.”
Whether he was drawn by shared administrative vision or desires the ability to put his own stamp on things, Riley has always been calculating the future. As an up-and-coming offensive coordinator at East Carolina from 2010-14, in his quarterback meetings, Riley would remind his backups they should aspire to be starters, while the starter should look to become the best quarterback in the country and get drafted. Examining his own profession, he emphasized position coaches should strive to become coordinators and coordinators become head coaches.
“I think that's him,” said Shane Carden, ECU’s all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns who thrived in Riley’s five seasons with the Pirates. “I think he never wants to be complacent, and he's always had an opportunity to do that, to prove how good a coach he is, how good a play caller he is, what he's able to do.”
Riley departs Oklahoma in devastating fashion. A team that had preseason national championship expectations finished 10-2 and failed to win its conference. In the aftermath, preseason Heisman Trophy favorite Spencer Rattler entered the transfer portal Monday, and six recruits have decommitted, among them five-star quarterback Malachi Nelson.
Riley’s final game at OU was a 37-33 loss to Oklahoma State on Saturday, his first and only defeat against the Cowboys and one which, depending on which side is talking, he may have known would be his last. That and a flattening 27-14 loss to Baylor on Nov. 13 — following a bye week where rumors linking Riley to LSU’s head coaching vacancy began to swirl — derailed the Sooners from winning a seventh straight Big 12 Championship, as they missed the conference title game for the first time under Riley.
Riley exits Norman with a 55-10 record but failed to reach the season’s final game with either Baker Mayfield or Kyler Murray, two of the greatest quarterbacks in OU history. His only bowl victory was a 55-20 thrashing of depleted Florida in the 2020 Cotton Bowl after Oklahoma suffered two losses early in the regular season. Ultimately, his Sooners went 0-3 in the College Football Playoff during his tenure.
With his jump to the Pac-12, though, he has the opportunity to achieve something he never accomplished through previous stops at Texas Tech, ECU and Oklahoma, where he only inherited and maintained traditions established before his time.
“He took over a program that Bob Stoops really left in great shape, and he did a great thing with it and continued it on,” Carden said. “But this is just an opportunity to really put his name on something directly on his own.”
‘They are OU football’
Stoops, who in recent years beyond his broadcast duties has coached an XFL team and endorsed a line of tequila, was on the golf course Sunday when his phone rang. It was a call from Castiglione and Harroz, and before they could even finish asking if he’d be willing to serve as interim coach, he answered.
“Of course I will,” he said.
Stoops pledged his assistance for as long as it’s needed, though he said he doesn’t expect Castiglione to take long finding OU’s next coach. He said candidates have already started calling Castiglione to express their interest, and Castiglione said he’s already reviewing a pre-prepared list of names. Above all, Castiglione said the search, as usual, will be conducted in a “stealthy” and speedy manner.
After joining Castilgione and Harroz at the podium Monday with legendary former OU coach Barry Switzer watching from the crowd, Stoops doubled down on his belief Oklahoma football will maintain its stride despite being thrown off balance.
“There’s not one guy, one person, in the history of this program that’s bigger than the program. (Not) Coach Switzer, myself or Lincoln Riley,” Stoops said. “And what I told the players is, they are the program. Players throughout these decades, they are OU football, not us as a coach. I’m getting in the Hall of Fame because of them. … I look forward to doing everything I can within the next few weeks to help it continue to succeed the way it has.”
Moments later, as the assembled parties departed Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, Stoops hopped into a sleek back Porsche coupe and cruised down Lindsey Street. On the way, he passed the statues of himself, Switzer and fellow legendary Sooners coaches Bud Wilkinson and Bennie Owen — the very place where, in Riley’s introductory head coach press conference in 2017, he suggested Riley might one day have a statue of his own.
Instead, Stoops had retaken the keys to the program, determined to help the sports car that is OU football continue at full speed.
