Lincoln Riley selects Shane Beamer's replacement for Cotton Bowl

Ryan Dougherty, who's been a special teams analyst at Oklahoma since 2017, has been elevated for the Sooners' upcoming bowl game against Florida

John E. Hoover | Dec 29, 2020

Lincoln Riley selects Shane Beamer's replacement for Cotton Bowl /

With all the talk about opting out and COVID-19, Oklahoma went into this bowl season with one big personnel question mark that had nothing to do with either.

What would Lincoln Riley do with Shane Beamer’s position?

Beamer took the head coaching job at South Carolina on Dec. 6. Beamer came back to coach the season finale against Baylor and the Big 12 Championship game against Iowa State, but Lincoln Riley has been prepping for life without Beamer.

“We’ve elevated Ryan Dougherty, who’s been our special teams/quality control,” Riley said Tuesday during a joint video press conference with Florida coach Dan Mullen. “We’ve elevated him to coordinate and to take over Shane’s responsibilities, and he’s done a great job.”

Dougherty is a native of Orlando, FL, and played at East Carolina from 2002-06. He previously coached special teams at ECU and Lehigh before Riley added him as part of his original OU staff in 2017 as a special teams analyst.

Beamer oversaw most of the special teams units, so with Dougherty’s history there, that’s a natural fit. Adding the duties of coaching Sooner H-backs and tight ends will be new. OU has plenty of experienced players at that position.

Also, it won’t be the first time Dougherty has stepped in for Beamer.

“We obviously didn’t have coach Beamer available for a game earlier this year,” Riley said, “and Ryan did the same thing, and he did a tremendous job. So he’ll serve in that same role, and he’s very comfortable and very well-versed in what we want to do there.”

No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 7 Florida clash on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the 85th Cotton Bowl Classic in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX.

Published Dec 29, 2020

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.