Lincoln Riley is currently the head coach at the University of Oklahoma. He started training quite early and is currently one of the youngest coaches in the top league of college football, and for him, this is the fulfillment of a dream. Before his coaching career, he played as a quarterback for Texas Tech.
Lincoln Riley Bio, Age
Riley was born on September 5, 1983, in Lubbock, Texas. He attended Muleshoe High School in western Texas, where he began his high school career as a defensive end and later switched to quarterback during his junior and senior seasons. After high school, Lincoln Riley began his college career at Texas Tech University as an errand boy. He played in the QB position behind future Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury, who was a senior at the time, and B. J. Symons, who served as a back-up at the time.
After his first year on the team, he became the student assistant to Mike Leach, the team’s head coach at the time, and over time he was promoted to Assistant Coach and then Receivers Coach. After the dismissal of coach Leach, Riley went to East Carolina University, where he served as offensive coordinator under coach Ruffin McNeill for five seasons.
During his tenure on the team, his players performed very well. Receiver Justin Hardy broke Ryan Broyles’ record for the most receptions in his career and ended his four-year college career at East Carolina University with a total of 387 receptions against Broyles’ 394. Two years later, Zay Jones, another receiver who was a Riley recruit, broke the record again with a total of three hundred and ninety-nine catches.
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At the end of his five seasons in East Carolina, he was hired by Bob Stoop as the Oklahoma Sooners’ new offensive coordinator. He began his career with the team with a very impressive performance and led the Sooners into the college football playoffs. He strengthened the team’s offensive team, which was down the previous year, and led them to 7th place in the best offensive team in the country.
The team also finished fourth in the scorer’s list and number seven in yards per game in 2015, and later won the Broyles Award for Best Assistant Coach of the Year in the nation.
In June 2017, Coach Rob stepped down and Lincoln Riley was announced to replace him as the team’s new head coach, and that same year Riley and Baker Mayfield led the Sooners to the Big 12 Championship where they became number two in the CFP rankings and made it to the semi-finals of the Rose Bowl. At the 2018 edition, they made it to the final but lost to Georgia in a double-overtime 54-48.
Lincoln Riley Salary
In June 2018, Lincoln Riley signed a contract extension with the team that will keep him at the club until the end of 2023. The contract came with a $1.7 million increase, which raised his annual salary to $4.8 million in the first year, with an increase of $100,000 every 12 months, bringing his annual salary to an average of approximately $5 million per year.
However, many believe that the extension and the colossal amount was the team’s way to keep Riley in Oklahoma longer as Stoops’ successor, and this is really not far from the truth.
Lincoln Riley’s Family: Parents Wife, Children
Riley is the son of Mike and Marilyn Riley. His parents live in Muleshoe, where his father has run a cotton warehouse for many years. Riley is not the only child of his parents, he has a younger brother named Garret who is also in the soccer business.
Lincoln Riley is married to Caitlin Riley since 2007. The couple has actually come a long way together, they started meeting in 2002 during Lincoln’s first year at Texas Tech, Caitlin was a senior at Dimmit at the time. Caitlin graduated in 2006, and the following year they joined forces.
The couple has two lovely daughters together; they welcomed their first daughter Sloane Riley in December 2012 and their second daughter Stella in 2016. Before they married, Caitlin was a kindergarten teacher.
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His Height And Other Facts
Details of his height and other body statistics are currently not confirmed. As an adolescent, Lincoln played baseball, basketball, and athletics in addition to American football.
He currently drives a red 2017 Toyota 4Runner; his first car was actually a truck – a 1999 Chevy pickup.
According to Caitlin, Lincoln’s favorite foods are fajitas and wings, and anything else that is prepared on the grill.
The Sooners’ coach is a music lover and doesn’t really have any preferences, he listens to different genres.
