Lincoln Riley shocked many college football observers in 2021 when he left the Oklahoma Sooners program for the USC Trojans, seemingly overnight.
Riley had won four consecutive Big 12 championships at that point but apparently felt he had reached the pinnacle of where he could take the program.
Speaking in an interview with Graham Bensinger, Riley revealed that while he’ll never forget his time in Norman, he’ll also always remember how a small percentage of Sooners fans threatened his family’s safety after he announced his decision to leave for what he perceived to be greener pastures.
“I didn’t care about the house, I didn’t care about anything else,” Riley said in the interview. “Just their safety and we thought we were going to— because we wanted the girls to be able to finish out school, just because the semester was almost over. And as that stuff transpired, we said, ‘No, we gotta get ’em the hell out of here as fast as we can.”
Riley revealed that he needed armed security at the house after multiple break-in attempts in the days following his departure. He also revealed “suspicious packages” were sent to his address.
“… 95% percent of the fans and people out there at Oklahoma or anybody else are great,” Riley said. “You typically always have that percentage that, at times, take it too far. Obviously this was one of those instances.”
