Everyone in football can’t wait for the inevitability of Lincoln Riley leaving Oklahoma for the NFL. Everyone except Riley himself.
Riley’s been asked about the NFL plenty of times since ascending to Oklahoma’s head coaching position at the age of 33 in 2017 and immediately leading the Sooners to the College Football Playoff, and Riley’s answer has always been the same: maybe, maybe not, but not right now. Dan Patrick asked Riley on Thursday if the NFL is the ultimate goal for him as it is for many coaches, and Riley was as emphatic as ever.
“No, no, no, it’s not,” Riley said. “I got into this thing expecting to be a high school coach. I started out my coaching career early on, while I was still playing, and that’s what I wanted to do. Not in my wildest dreams did I even think that something like this would have happened, so I don’t know that I have a bucket list. I just try to make the most out of every situation I’ve been in. I know that there’s a thousand other people, a million other people that would want to be in the same situation, so I just try to appreciate each one for what it is in that moment.”
Oklahoma Coach @LincolnRiley doesn’t see coaching in college as a “stepping stone” to the NFL and has never had a goal to coach in the NFL. He sure didn’t sound like a guy who will be leaving Oklahoma for an NFL job anytime soon. pic.twitter.com/A0s1saKgKh
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) October 24, 2019
Now, Riley is only 36 years old. If you had to bet your life’s savings on whether or not Riley will one day coach an NFL team, you’d have to put it on “yes.” But if you had to bet it all on that happening in time for the 2020 season, you’d be insane to bet “yes.”
The examples of Steve Spurrier and Chip Kelly were brought up in the interview, both of whom left great jobs were they were beloved only to be chewed up and spit out by the NFL. Sure, they returned to good jobs, but UCLA is not Oregon and South Carolina is not Florida. For an example closer to home, Barry Switzer coached at both Oklahoma and for Riley’s “hometown” Dallas Cowboys, and he’s on record saying the OU job is better.
@LincolnRiley I told Bob when mentioned for NFL job’s! “More coaches would want the job you just left than one you just took” @OU_Football
— Barry Switzer (@Barry_Switzer) October 30, 2018
The last coach to leave college football, return and not pay a price for it was Nick Saban. The last coach to leave the college game and actually succeed at the NFL level was Pete Carroll, who was in an entirely different stage of his career when he left USC for the Seattle Seahawks in 2009. The last coach before him was... Jimmy Johnson?
Anyway, we could speculate about this all day, but Riley himself has already clicked out of this article and moved on to something else.