How many Big 12 titles does Lincoln Riley have? Exploring USC HC's impressive resume

Lincoln Riley is one of the biggest names in college football coaching. It may be hard to imagine the 40-year-old coach is only in the second head coaching role in his career. Riley has achieved so much in the space of eight years he’s been a head coach, first at Oklahoma and now at USC.

This season will be Riley’s last opportunity to win the Pac-12. Not by any fault of his, the conference is just on its last legs, and it’s Riley’s second season in charge of USC Trojan football.

From next season on, the Trojans will be competing in the Big Ten, and Riley will have a new challenge.

In his prior head coaching job at Oklahoma, Riley was able to conquer the Big 12. But how many times? We look at his incredible Big 12 record below.

How many Big 12 titles does Lincoln Riley have?

Lincoln Riley won four Big 12 titles as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners football team. Riley achieved this feat in four straight seasons, right from his debut season in 2017 until 2020.

It was an outright domination of the Big 12 conference by Riley and his Sooners football team. He led the Sooners to three consecutive 12-2 record seasons during this period.

Lincoln Riley was appointed the Oklahoma Sooners head coach in June 2017 following the retirement of Bob Stoops. Stoops had hired him two years earlier, in 2015, as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

In his first season as Oklahoma's offensive coordinator, he led the Sooners’ offense to a 7th-ranked finish in the country. He also won the Broyles Award for being the top assistant coach in the country.

As a first-year head coach, Riley led Oklahoma to an 8-1 record in the Big 12 and a conference title win.

The team also finished No. 2 in the CFP ranking and played in the Rose Bowl, losing to Georgia 54-48 in double overtime. Oklahoma’s star quarterback, Mayfield Baker, won the 2017 Heisman Trophy, the first of three winners coached by Riley so far.

In 2018, he won the Big 12 Coach of the Year Award and the AP Big 12 Coach of the Year Award. By the time Riley left Oklahoma at the end of the 2021 season, he had compiled a 55-10 record.

It set the record for the highest winning percentage by any coach in the school’s history. He also coached two Heisman Trophy winners: Mayfield Baker and Kyler Murray.

Lincoln Riley moved to USC, where he currently has a 17-3 record.

About the author

Kayode is a College and High School Sports writer at Sportskeeda since June 2023. Hailing from Nigeria, he has an undergraduate degree in Linguistics and African Languages, and has previously had stints as an entertainment and politics writer for around 7 months. Adept at creating content around historical perspectives, he strives to report stories based only on verified information. His mantra is - truth is always more important than sensationalism.

A fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team, Kayode admires how Nick Saban developed talent at the team and delivered consistent results, and hopes that the post-Saban era is just as fruitful. He is thoroughly impressed by Johnny Manziel’s talent, and feels that Shedeur Sanders is massively underrated. Nick Saban is his all-time favorite college coach.

While Kayode believes there is little to separate college and mainstream sports, pro leagues absorbing the best athletes leads to their quality being higher. Witnessing the Colorado Buffaloes’ hot streak at start the 2023 football season was one of his all-time favorite college sports moments.

When not writing, Kayode enjoys reading and watching sports documentaries. His most recent watch was "Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In."

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Edited by Deepesh Nair