Nebraska a cautionary tale for Oklahoma and its move to the SEC? - ESPN

AS OKLAHOMA ATHLETIC director Joe Castiglione drove to church the Sunday morning after Thanksgiving in 2021, he received the most stunning phone call of his professional career. Lincoln Riley was on the other line. Out of nowhere, the Sooners coach told Castiglione he was considering leaving for USC.

Castiglione never made it to church. Two hours later, in a meeting with Castiglione and OU president Joseph Harroz Jr., Riley made it clear he had already decided to bolt for Los Angeles.

Earlier that year in July, OU and Texas, just as stunningly, announced they would exit the Big 12 together and join the SEC. Over the following four months, and even then in their final meeting, Castiglione said Riley had never expressed any reservations about OU's impending move to the SEC. Riley has never used that as a reason for going to USC, either.

Still, Riley's unexpected departure sowed a narrative that he didn't believe in OU's ability to compete where «It Just Means More.» Pundits and opposing fan bases since have piled on with skepticism, as the Sooners prepared for their SEC debut. One national radio host recently suggested that the Sooners could go the way of Nebraska — and completely disappear as a power on the way to irrelevance in the SEC.

«There are underlying tones about the move we've made, for whatever reason,» said Castiglione, OU's athletic director since 1998. «It pisses you off.… We just take it as fuel.»

Since the turn of the millennium, no football program has won more games than the Sooners. OU captured the 2000 national championship, played for it again in 2003, 2004 and 2008 and advanced to the playoff in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019. Since 1996, the Sooners were Big 12 champions or co-champions 14 out of a