After starting his coaching career at Texas Tech and East Carolina, Lincoln Riley’s journey to Oklahoma was an opportunity that “changed his life.” Riley, who spent seven seasons within the Sooners’ program, decided to leave Norman, Oklahoma for sunny skies in Los Angeles when he was named USC’s football coach in late November.
However, the Lubbock, Texas native wrote in an article for The Players’ Tribune on Wednesday detailing his thoughts and emotions on leaving a place that he “craved for years” to go to USC. When Riley boarded the plane for Los Angeles, he was excited yet filled with some “sadness” and “guilt” knowing that Norman—a place that was more than a coaching stop—was “no longer home for him.