Lincoln Riley reveals threats against family members by Oklahoma fans

Oklahoma fans were famously unhappy with Lincoln Riley when he left the Sooners to take the head job at USC at the end of the 2021 regular season. But some took their animus toward Riley and his family too far, according to Riley.

In a recent interview with Graham Bensinger, Riley shared that he and his family received a number of threats, among other concerning things, after his public break with Oklahoma. At one point, someone obtained his then-9-year-old daughter’s phone number.

“Just my family’s safety. I didn’t care about the house, I didn’t care about anything else. Just their safety and we thought we were going to — because we wanted the girls to be able to finish out school, just because the semester was almost over. And as that stuff transpired, we said, ‘No, we gotta get ’em the hell out of here as fast as we can,'” Riley said.

He also shared that the family home in Norman had repeated break-in attempts and they were sent a number of suspicious packages.

“Had a lot of different people trying to break into the house the days after it happened. And 95% of the fans and people out there at Oklahoma or anybody else are great. You typically always have that percentage that, at times, take it too far. Obviously this was one of those instances,” Riley said.

Riley is focused on football — and improving his defense — at this point

Riley has one of the best offensive minds in college football. Riley knows as well as anyone what offenses don’t like going up against. To him, one of the biggest challenges you can face as an offense is an elite defensive tackle. He believes USC has that in Bear Alexander.

The Georgia transfer has come in and made an immediate impact for the Trojans. In two games he has five tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass breakup. Alexander’s stats don’t jump off the page, but he has made a bigger impact than what the stats show.

“I think having great interior players can be one of the great advantages defensively,” Riley said. “I think offensively, it’s one of the toughest things to deal with when there’s an elite inside guy, because they’re going to be a part of the run game. Anytime you can get push in the interior of the pocket, in the throw game, it’s a factor.”

There are times when you can scheme around an elite defensive player. However, that’s not an option with a defensive tackle like Alexander, according to Riley.

“If there’s a great corner, or even at times maybe a great d-end, maybe you can do some things just away from them,” Riley said. “But linebackers and interior d-linemen are just obviously, naturally by alignment, they’re kind of right there in the middle of it all.”

As an example of how important defensive tackles can be, Riley pointed to one of the top players in the NFL and the impact he makes each week.

“Look at the NFL and the guy that’s been the most dominant player in the NFL for probably a long time, which is right down the road here with Aaron [Donald],” Riley said.