Lincoln Riley

About

Lincoln Michael Riley (born September 5, 1983) is an American college football coach and former player who is the head football coach at the University of Southern California. Riley previously served as the head coach at the University of Oklahoma for five seasons from 2017 to 2021, where he won four consecutive Big 12 Championship Games.
Playing quarterback himself as a walk-on player at Texas Tech and known for his “Air Raid” offensive scheme, Riley has mentored three Heisman Trophy winners at quarterback (Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Caleb Williams) as well as another starting NFL quarterback and Super Bowl MVP in Jalen Hurts.

Riley ran track at Muleshoe High School in Muleshoe, a small town of roughly 5,000 in West Texas. He began his high school football career at defensive end and made the move to quarterback for his junior and senior seasons. Riley played quarterback at Texas Tech University as a walk-on in 2002, behind senior starter and future Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury and back-up B. J. Symons.

In 2003, Riley became a student assistant to Mike Leach, gradually progressing to graduate assistant and then to…