Why Oklahoma OC Seth Littrell has 'Been Trying To Get Back Here for 23 Years'
SAN ANTONIO — When Seth Littrell was a little boy, his mother made a prediction that he would follow in his famous father’s footsteps and win a national championship at Oklahoma.
“She said that a long time ago, and I would get so excited,” Littrell said Tuesday during a press conference at the Alamodome. “And then we would say our prayers at night, and that's the the honest to God truth, we'd pray on that. She's been praying over that for my entire life.”
Littrell is now the offensive coordinator for the Oklahoma Sooners, the very team he once helped lead to the 2000 national title as a captain and a red-blooded fullback from Muskogee who’s fullback dad won a pair of national titles under Barry Switzer.
Brent Venables has already said how important it was for Littrell personally to be back and coaching at his alma mater. On Tuesday, ahead of the No. 12-ranked Sooners’ Alamo Bowl matchup Thursday against No. 14 Arizona, Littrell finally got the chance to express just how important.
“This place obviously means everything to me,” Littrell said. “I’ve been trying to get back here for 23 years, and so this is obviously the place I want to be.
“I’m just as much of a fan as I am a coach. I'm a huge fan of Oklahoma. So I have high expectations of this program along with everybody sitting up here and everybody within our program.”
It was Littrell and co-offensive coordinator Joe Jon Finley’s first time in front of the media since Venables promoted Finley from tight ends coach and Littrell from offensive analyst. Finley also expressed profound appreciation for being exactly where he wants to be in his career.
“I’ve picked Oklahoma three times,” Finley said. “I picked it as a player in '03 and then came back as a (graduate assistant) in 2012 and '13 and then as soon as I got a call (from Lincoln Riley) to come back here three years ago, I couldn't get in the car fast enough.
“ … Man, I absolutely love the University of Oklahoma because of the players that you see sitting beside us. These guys have so many expectations on their backs. There's so many fans that want us to win every single game and play perfect every single game. These guys do a great job of handling that. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I love the expectations. I love playing in front of 85,000 every Saturday.”
Littrell said he’s always had two dreams in life: to play for the Oklahoma Sooners, and to coach the Oklahoma Sooners.
“So I feel blessed to be living out my dream in that sense,” Littrell said.
He said when he was officially hired, he met with the team and explained why it was everything he wanted since he was back in Muskogee, “laying in bed growing up,” just a little kid with big dreams.
“For me, obviously, being born and raised here (in Oklahoma), my father played here and so that's all I ever knew growing up,” he said. “That was my dream growing up.”
Littrell insisted that on Thursday night, when the Sooners and Wildcats meet inside the Alamodome, his offense will look a lot like Jeff Lebby’s offense. He said it’ll be part spread, part air raid — whatever that means; there’s no need for labels, he said — and any good offensive coordinator will adapt his play calls to what his players can execute best.
“As of right now, it's just keeping it the way we've been doing things,” he said. “Terminology is not changing. The offense that we're running will stay consistent to what we've done throughout the year. And then we can look up after the season and figure out what we need to do moving forward as adjustments and kind of evolving in how we grow.
“But this isn't time for that. This is time for these guys to go out there and play fast and have that camaraderie together.”
Littrell was hired by Mark Mangino as a grad assistant at Kansas, by Mike Leach as running backs coach at Texas Tech, by Mike Stoops as position coach and offensive coordinator at Arizona, by Kevin Wilson as offensive coordinator at Indiana, by Larry Fedora — his only trip outside the comfort and shade of the Bob Stoops coaching tree — as offensive coordinator at North Carolina, and now by Venables as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma (with a seven-year stint as head coach at North Texas).
He said after he was let go at UNT, Venables’ reaching out to ask if he was interested in being OU’s offensive analyst — who could have know for how long as Lebby’s future certainly wasn’t certain? — was just what he was hoping for.
“Getting that call was special to me,” Littrell said. “It gave me an opportunity to come back home, be near family — but at the same time be around the Oklahoma family that I’ve missed over the years.”
- Follow AllSooners on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest OU news!
- Want even more Sooners news? Check out the SI.com OU team page here!
- Listen and subscribe to the AllSooners Podcast!
- Watch more Sooners videos and subscribe on YouTube!
- Sign up for your premium membership to AllSooners.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network!
