Oklahoma extends Lincoln Riley's contract
Oklahoma has extended Lincoln Riley's contract for another two years, keeping the soon-to-be 37-year-old head coach under contract through the 2025 season. The news was announced at an OU Board of Regents meeting on Tuesday evening. Bruce Feldman reported the deal was agreed upon back in February.
Riley is 36-6 as the Sooners' head coach, leading the program to three Big 12 titles and three College Football Playoff appearances in as many seasons at the helm. Overall, Oklahoma has reached the Playoff four times in his five seasons on campus, dating back to his 2015 hire as OU's offensive coordinator.
Riley has maintained his mission is to bring a national championship to Oklahoma before entertaining another team's offer, despite the football world's interest in him. Riley has increased Oklahoma's recruiting efforts of late, landing the nation's top 2021 quarterback Caleb Williams on the Fourth of July:
There are a million ways to summarize Oklahoma’s accomplishments in Lincoln Riley’s five seasons on staff, but my favorite is this: the worst a Sooner quarterback has finished in the Heisman Trophy voting is fourth place.
Baker Mayfield finished fourth in 2015, third in ’16 and won the thing in 2017. Kyler Murray brought the stiffarm trophy back to Norman in 2018, and Jalen Hurts finished runner-up to Joe Burrow this past season.
Over five seasons, those three players combined to complete 69.6 percent of their 1,874 throws for 20,504 yards (10.9 per attempt) with 193 touchdowns against 36 picks, while adding 3,192 yards and 40 touchdowns on the ground. Again: over five full seasons, the average Oklahoma passing play went for nearly 11 yards.
Riley earned $275,000 in 2014, his final season at East Carolina, and $500,000 in 2015. His pay then rose to $900,000 in 2016 and to $3.1 million in 2017, his first as OU's head coach. (He had signed a new 3-year deal worth $1.3 million per year to remain as OU's offensive coordinator, before Bob Stoops stepped down that summer.) He earned $4.8 million in 2018 and $6.384 million in '19. He was set to top $6.5 million in guaranteed pay in 2020 before the pandemic went haywire on college athletics budgets.
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