COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Oklahoma football became a program-in-transition Wednesday, with Bob Stoops traipsing off to early retirement and Lincoln Riley being gifted early advancement.
From my seat, this ranks among the top three tectonic shifts within Big 12 football since West Virginia joined up in 2012. The other two: Texas pushing out Mack Brown in 2013 and the league declining to expand last October.
Stoops made the Sooners great again, playing for the national championship four times. (The sequence of those proved crucial. Seizing his first opportunity in 2000 only exposed Stoops to heightened criticism upon falling short in the subsequent three.) That 121-29 conference record sounds absurd. The 101-9 home mark even more so.
Oklahoma football has enjoyed three coaching giants during the past 70 years — Wilkinson, Switzer and Stoops shepherding 51 of those. It’s not difficult to imagine the pattern continuing with the emergence of a fourth giant soon.
Perhaps that man is Riley, but Oklahoma is gambling. And in the short-term, the Sooners almost certainly are diminished.
While Riley is a sharp, 33-year-old play-caller, he has never led a program. Has never been the buck-stopping decision-maker on sticky personnel matters. Never been responsible for the roster-shaping of 85 players and hiring the multitudes of staffers who develop them.
Those are the unknowns facing the youngest head coach in the FBS.
Chuck Fairbanks was 33 when he took over at OU in 1967, winning three Big Eight titles before jumping ship to the NFL ahead of a recruiting scandal. That left Switzer in charge at age 35, starting an amazing tenure that included three national crowns, 12 league titles and more recruiting sanctions.
Neither Gary Gibbs or John Blake had been head coaches when they took over the Sooners, hires that proved respectively ill-fated to catastrophic.
That didn’t dissuade OU bosses from tapping Stoops, another first-timer, in 1999.
In several respects, Riley is better situated than was Stoops when he arrived from Florida. First, the Sooners are a highly functioning program at present, coming off 18 seasons of averaging 10.5 victories and piling up 10 Big 12 championships — far elevated from the mess Stoops inherited.
Second, Riley has continuity on his side, having coached within the program for two years. No need for the housecleaning the Stoops coaching change required.
In these regards, it’s possible Stoops orchestrated the timing of his departure to guarantee Riley’s promotion. Stepping aside last December surely would have spawned a conventional coaching search. Exiting in early June forced Oklahoma to adjust midair, with Riley the best backup plan to keep 2017 on track.
In fewer than three months, the Sooners will open the season ranked in the top 10, banking on a Heisman-contending quarterback and a superb offensive line. Week 2 brings a trip to Ohio State, when the referendum on Riley’s ascension really begins.