Review of "Sooner"

An upcoming book on Oklahoma Sooners coach Lincoln Riley caught my attention, especially with the college football season facing many questions heading into the fall of 2020.  This book is one to read to learn more about the life of this young, dynamic coach.  Here is my review of "Sooner"

Title/Author:

“Sooner: The Making of a Football Coach – Lincoln Riley’s Rise from West Texas to the University of Oklahoma” by Brandon Sneed

Tags:

Football (American), college, biography, Oklahoma, coaching

Publish date:

August 25, 2020

Length:

288 pages

Rating:

5 of 5 stars (outstanding) 

Review:

Not many college football coaches can match the success that Lincoln Riley has had in his first three seasons as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners.  In each season, Riley has led the Sooners to not only the Big 12 conference championship, but the Sooners have also been in the College Football Playoff each of those years as well.  How Riley has reached this point is the subject of this excellent book by Brandon Sneed.

Riley grew up in the West Texas town of Muleshoe and like many other small towns in Texas, the town revolved around football.  Lincoln, along with his brothers, played football for the high school team and he excelled on both offense and defense. An injury when attempting to tackle a linebacker who intercepted one of his passes turned out to be a life-changing moment for Riley.  While he didn’t know that at the time, Sneed uses that moment frequently during the book, as well as another time when Riley’s seventh grade football coach drew blood on his own forehead by doing a head butt with a helmeted player. 

The reason these, as well as advice from one of Riley’s coaching mentors, Donnie Duncan, were referenced frequently is that the steps along the path Riley took from high school quarterback to the Sooners’ head coach was fraught with lessons learned from these events.  Sneed does a very good job of writing long passages about other aspects or people that are important in understanding Riley’s determination and knowledge of the game.  One is his high school experience – fans of the book or movie “Friday Night Lights” will appreciate Sneed’s description of the importance of the sport in Texas. 

It is also important for the reader to understand the head coach who gave Riley his first job in coaching, Mike Leach.  At the time, Leach was the coach of Texas Tech when Riley was attempting to become the starting quarterback as a walk-on.  While Leach didn’t think Riley would be able to play, he saw the smarts Riley had for the game and offered him a job as his football personal assistant.  While Riley’s dream of being a quarterback were gone, he took the job, absorbed Leach’s unconventional offensive ideas and used the job to launch his coaching career which took him to East Carolina as an offensive coordinator, then the same job at Oklahoma under legendary coach Bob Stoops, then inheriting the job when Stoops retired in 2016.  The reader will learn much about not only the life of a college football coach, but some of the non-traditional thinking of Leach, Stoops and Riley. 

Not much about Riley’s personal life is written but enough to let the reader know that Riley isn’t all about the job, sleeping in the office and believing the only way to get out of a tough spot is to “work longer and harder.”  This helps paint a complete picture of the man who has already had enormous success coaching a traditional college football powerhouse at a very young age.  College football fans will enjoy this look at the latest coaching sensation.

I wish to thank Henry Holt and Co. for providing a copy of the book via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

                                                                             

Book Format Read:

E-book (Kindle)                                                                                                                               

 Buying Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Sooner-Football-Lincoln-University-Oklahoma-ebook/dp/B082ZGV6CK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sooner-brandon-sneed/1135712307?ean=9781250622150

Review of "No Excuses"

Since we are now into the new football season, time to break out the new football books of the season. One of the more anticipated memoirs in any area this fall was this one by former Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops.  Not quite as good as I hoped, but one that was still enjoyable to read.  Here is my review of "No Excuses" 

Title/Author:

“No Excuses: The Making of a Head Coach” by Bob Stoops and Gene Wojciechowski

Tags:

Football (American), college, coaching, memoir, Oklahoma

Publish date:

September 10, 2019

Length:

320 pages

Rating:

3 ½ of 5 stars (good)

Review:

When Bob Stoops took over the football program at the University of Oklahoma in 1999, the program was only a shell of what it was during its glory days in earlier decades. In two short years, the Sooners were the national champions. While this memoir certainly talks about that extraordinary accomplishment, it is far from the only event of his life that Stoops writes about with pride in the book.

While Stoops does write with fondness about his siblings, parents and childhood, the book doesn’t feel like it has a personality of its own until Stoops enrolls at the University of Iowa and plays on the defensive side of the football.  It was there that Stoops realized that he stands little chance to play professional football and if he wants to have a career in the game, he has to turn to coaching.

Starting as a graduate assistant under Hayden Fry in Iowa, the reader is taken on the journey Stoops undertakes on his way to Norman, Oklahoma. Stoops makes sure to praise all the mentors he had along the way for working as an assistant coach at Florida and Kansas State, where he was especially proud of being part of the staff that made the Wildcats a prominent program.  Stoops does a good job writing about his coaching career in great detail.

However, the detail doesn’t delve greatly into either the life of coaches who work extremely long hours and there isn’t a lot of X’s and O’s during the football talk – instead he writes more about his family life, his players and his personal reflections.  Some of them are touching, such as when he talks about fellow coaches, whether on his staff or elsewhere. Others can leave the reader as either angry or at least confused, as I was when he was trying to explain why he suspended running back Joe Mixon in 2016 after being charged with assaulting a woman instead of permanently removing Mixon from the team. He wrote about this in the same manner as everything else he writes about – with total honesty.

While it is clear from the book that Stoops is an honest man, he is a family man and has a coaching record that speaks for itself, this book only came across as a decent one for me.  Hardcore fans of college football, especially those who follow the Sooners, will love reading Stoops’ stories, but if not, it will be one that will is okay and interesting but not one that will stand out as one of the best – fortunately for Stoops, no one will ever say that about his coaching abilities.

I wish to thank Little Brown and Company for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

                                                                       

Book Format Read:

E-book (Kindle)                                                                                                                                

Buying Links:

https://www.amazon.com/No-Excuses-Making-Head-Coach-ebook/dp/B07S3VJT9J/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=