Big 12 Football: 5 best candidates to replace Lincoln Riley at OU
Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona Cardinals head coach
An interesting move for Oklahoma with their next head coaching hire would certainly be the Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury. Would Kingsbury even want to leave an NFL head coaching gig where he’s finding a ton of success right now?
That could be a tough sell.
Oklahoma has targeted Cardinals’ HC Kliff Kingsbury as one of the potential replacements for Lincoln Riley, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 28, 2021
Kingsbury has one year remaining on his contract after this season.
But it is now clear that the Oklahoma administration is currently considering Kingsbury on their shortlist of potential coaching candidates to replace Riley. A report from Adam Schefter on Twitter on the afternoon of Nov. 28 indicated that “Oklahoma has targeted” Kingsbury. And this is one of the early confirmed names that has popped up in the very early stages of the Oklahoma coaching search.
One thing here is for sure, it should appeal to Oklahoma fans to hire the head coach that has brought so much success to the former Sooners’ Heisman-winning quarterback Kyler Murray in the NFL. Kingsbury also coached up some big-time quarterbacks in college, most famously the current Kansas City Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes.
Yet, the main risk it seems with hiring Kingsbury would be his transition back to the college ranks. While the Texas Tech Red Raiders certainly had some potent offenses while Kingsbury was the head coach in Lubbock, he only finished up with a .467 winning percentage during his six years with the program.