Lincoln Riley: 'I didn't understand' Gary Patterson's late-game timeouts
Lincoln Riley and the Sooners were ready to run out the clock on Saturday afternoon.
With a 30-14 lead over TCU and less than a minute to play, Oklahoma lined up in victory formation. All Spencer Rattler had to do was take a knee and everybody could go home.
That's when things got testy. Rattler took a knee to presumably end the game, but Horned Frogs head coach Gary Patterson decided to use his remaining timeouts to stop the clock, drawing the ire of Lincoln Riley and the rest of the Sooner sideline.
Riley responded to Patterson's maneuver in kind - he sent out Gabe Brkic to add insult to injury with a 30-yard field goal. The kick put a final flourish on Oklahoma's 33-14 victory.
Riley wasn't asked about it in Saturday's postgame pressers. But in his Monday teleconference, he acknowledged that Patterson's decision to stop the clock in a meaningless game situation baffled him.
“I didn’t understand it. We were trying to end the game," said Riley. "The thing you don’t want to happen is for somebody to get hurt in a moment like that, on either side.”
Fortunately, no one was injured, and the game ended without further incident. Riley and Patterson shook hands and exchanged the customary pleasantries after the final horn sounded.
There didn't appear to be any bad blood between the two coaches, just a definite difference of opinion on the way that the final minute played out.
“At the end of the day, that’s his football team," Riley remarked. "I’ve always had a lot of respect for him; I still do. So I’m not going to sit here and second-guess how somebody coaches their team. I’ve got enough to worry about here.”
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