At the expense of Arizona State, the Oklahoma Sooners football staff is whole again.
Last week, the Oklahoma Sooners football program announced that Ruffin McNeill would be stepping down as outside linebackers coach. While McNeill isn’t retiring from the coaching profession, he is leaving to help care for his ailing father.
One week after McNeill’s unexpected decision, it appears Lincoln Riley has found a replacement. According to multiple media outlets, the first of which was The Athletic‘s Bruce Feldman, Jamar Cain will leave Arizona State to take a job on the Oklahoma Sooners football staff.
The Arizona Republic reported that Cain met with Oklahoma Sooners football officials the weekend before last in Dallas to discuss the opening. At some point after that meeting, he was offered the job.
“I was surprised. I didn’t think I had done enough to get that kind of attention,” Cain told the Republic‘s Michelle Gardner. “It was too good of an offer to pass up, I loved my time here but at the end of the day it’s a business.”
The announcement of McNeill’s departure actually came a few days after Cain’s meeting with OU over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
Cain, who is also a respected recruiter, just completed his first season as the Sun Devils’ defensive line coach. The Republic noted that Cain’s “successor will be the sixth different coach in as many seasons for the defensive line.”
One of ASU’s signees this recruiting cycle is defensive tackle Omarr Norman-Lott. Norman-Lott’s uncle? The coach who recruited him to ASU and is now leaving for OU.
Prior to coming to ASU, Cain was the defensive line coach at Fresno State. His first on-field FBS job was at Wyoming in 2013.
With Cain’s unofficial addition, Riley has filled two holes on his Oklahoma Sooners football staff this week. Monday, OU announced that former Sooners running back DeMarco Murray was returning to Norman to coach that same position.