Thirty-three-year-old Lincoln Riley was named the 22nd head coach at Oklahoma Wednesday, becoming the second-youngest coach in program history and the youngest active coach at the FBS level, following the retirement of Bob Stoops after 18 seasons.
According to former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, however, Riley nearly passed up the opportunity to get on the coaching fast track in 2003, when Leach offered him a student assistant job after cutting him from the team as a walk-on QB.
"He's a sharp guy," Leach said Wednesday. "I had too many quarterbacks, so I knew I was going to cut him, but I wanted him to stay around and be a student assistant.