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SEC Day: Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione Drops Mic on Lincoln Riley

The Sooners' athletic director pulled back the curtain a little on his former football coach and perhaps shed light on why he went to USC.

John E. Hoover

Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione
Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione / DOUG HOKE/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY
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Lincoln Riley won't admit it, but Sooner Nation has long believed one of the major reasons he picked up and went to USC so suddenly is because he didn't want to do battle in the SEC.

On Monday, Oklahoma's first official day as a member of the Southeastern Conference, OU athletic director Joe Castiglione all but confirmed as much.

Castiglione recounted during his appearance on SEC Network Monday his conversation with OU coaches about the school's decision in 2021 to leave the Big 12 and join the SEC.

"I will tell you without reservation," Castiglione said, "every (OU) coach we talked to was excited. And, you know what? The ones that weren't, aren't here any more."

That elicited laughs and snickers from the SEC Network panel, but OU president Joe Harroz added his own piece of the action.

"We call that a mic drop," Harroz said.

"You've either got to accept it not," Castiglione added. "This is Oklahoma. Get with it or get on with it."

OU and Texas announced in July 2021 that they would be joining the SEC.

Riley left the morning after OU gave up a double-digit lead and lost at Oklahoma State in the 2021 season finale. He also took with him 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and several other Sooners and OU verbal commits, as well as a handful of assistant coaches and support staff.

Riley later said leaving OU "was hard."

Castiglione hired Brent Venables a week after Riley left, and the programs seem to have been on opposite tracks ever since, with Riley going 11-3 and 8-5 in his first two seasons with the Trojans and Venables going 6-7 and 10-3 in his first two years back in Norman.

The irony is that if Riley didn't want to compete in the SEC, he's probably not very happy about USC's decision just a year later to join the Big Ten Conference.

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John E. Hoover
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.

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