The law of unintended consequences sends Lincoln Riley to USC

It is entirely possible that Lincoln Riley would have left Oklahoma for USC if the Sooners had no plans to move to the SEC. It is possible that Riley, a west Texan who has spent all but five years of his life in the Big 12 footprint, had an itch at age 38 for the bright lights and the big city. But what we know is, faced with shepherding the Sooners’ move into the SEC, Riley chose to take a transfusion, blue blood to blue blood.

Welcome to the law of unintended consequences.

Here I thought no school could match Nebraska’s financially motivated move from the Big 12 to the Big Ten for membership in Realignment Infamy. With Riley’s departure, Oklahoma is on the clock. The university has experience hiring a new coach without missing a beat. Oklahoma did it four years ago, when Bob Stoops retired. The difference is that Stoops orchestrated that transition after spring practice, when it would have the least possible impact.

The news Sunday came as a lightning bolt, especially after Riley’s misdirection Saturday night. He has few peers as a play-caller on the field. His declaration that he would not be the coach at LSU had media heads looking in the wrong direction, like a linebacker watching the wrong Sooners receiver.

Riley’s move from Oklahoma to USC has few comparables in modern college football history. The Pop Warners and John Heismans moved from campus to campus regularly. In the modern era, coaches don’t leave the Oklahomas for the USCs. Jim Tatum left Oklahoma for Maryland after the 1946 season and won the 1953 national championship with the Terps. The Sooners made out all right: Oklahoma promoted Bud Wilkinson.

We’ll find out if Riley has an assistant coach who will win three national championships and toss in a 47-game unbeaten streak for good measure. The odds would be against it even if Oklahoma’s new coach didn’t have to move to a tougher conference. The Sooners are stepping up in weight class. Riley’s staff of analysts and pseudo-assistants – Sabanistas – is barely half the size of the group working at Alabama.

One Big 12 coach estimated that Oklahoma, based on current resources, is a mid-level job in the SEC. Moving to the league where money flows like White Claw at a Kappa Sig darty allows the Sooners to catch up, yes. But why fight that battle when you can take over a blue-blood program that has a much shorter path back to national relevance?

Riley’s hiring will help Pac-12

The Pac-12 has many issues, ones that won’t be solved overnight because they have taken years to develop.

• Most of its teams are in professional sports markets, where fan attention is easily diverted.

• The league isn’t suffering a TV revenue drought, but the schools sure could use a good storm.

• The quality of football has diminished. Schools across the country are raiding California for its best talent.

Hiring Riley means the best talent will give USC a look-see. And this isn’t the first column to declare that as USC goes, so goes the Pac-12. Kudos to Trojans athletic director Mike Bohn.

Riley’s credibility, combined with USC’s tradition, will give the Trojans the benefit of the doubt. If he shows any progress whatsoever in returning USC to national relevance – and the last Trojans to enter bowl season with a chance at the national championship are in their 30s – college football will declare USC is back.

If the native of Muleshoe, Texas, who has coached only in Lubbock, Greenville, N.C., and Norman struggles to gain his footing in Hollywood, there won’t be much of a grace period. That’s what he signed up for.

Riley will have some adjusting to do. The USC coach is a local celebrity. Riley has spent the past four years being the most visible man in his state, but this is different. The most successful Trojans coaches become A-listers – Pete Carroll, John Robinson, John McKay – in a city full of movie stars. The Los Angeles media sets rules, and Riley will be expected to accommodate them, and if he doesn’t, USC will pay a price. Attention in the second-biggest market in the country is not a given. That is not a side issue. The football roadside is strewn with the wrecks of coaches who took jobs where they didn’t fit. There is no guarantee that Riley will win at USC the way he did at Oklahoma.

Riley won four Big 12 championships and took the Sooners to three College Football Playoffs in five seasons. He went 0-3 in the semifinals, the gap between Oklahoma and the national championship growing bigger each year. If you look closely, you may notice a trend. From semifinal overtime loss (54-48 to Georgia, 2017) to semifinal defeat (45-34 to Alabama, 2018) to semifinal rout (63-28 to LSU, 2019) to no semifinal (2020) to no Big 12 championship (2021). That’s harsh, but it’s factual, and it’s certainly no harsher than ending the season Saturday night and leaving the program Sunday.

Lincoln Riley is an elite coach, moving from one elite program to a program that wants to return to the elite. Bohn made a smart decision. Judging Oklahoma’s decision to go to the SEC just got more complicated.

The university took a calculated risk in leaving behind the rivals it has played for a century or so in order to secure its financial future. The risk looked a lot safer with the football program on solid ground. That’s just another reason to describe Riley’s departure as earthshaking.