Lincoln Riley says he made up his mind to leave Oklahoma to take the USC job on the morning of Nov. 28, 2021, at which point began the laborious process of him leaving Oklahoma.
Riley famously took USC's private plane along with a handful of assistants before the sun rose the following morning, but his wife and daughters stayed behind.
In an interview with Graham Bensinger, Riley said he had "a lot of different" people trying to break into his house in the days after taking the USC job.
The wording of Riley's claim is unclear. He initially says it was "a lot of different" people, which implies it was possibly multiple break-in attempts. One sentence later, he implies it was a singular event. The Rileys were also in the process of building a new home, so it's unclear if the assailant(s) were trying to break into the new home or the Riley family home. (Not that one or the other makes it okay.)
"Had a lot of different people trying to break into the house the days after it happened," Riley said. "Ninety-five percent of the people at Oklahoma or anywhere else great, but you typically always have the percentage who take it too far. Obviously this was one of those instances."
It's an extraordinary claim, which would make it all the more puzzling for the Rileys to make up after the fact, nearly two years removed from the move. Bensinger also references Oklahoma fans getting the cell phone number of the couple's then-9-year-old daughter.
Ultimately, the incident(s) led the Rileys to leave Oklahoma for California earlier than intended.
"We wanted the girls to finish out school because the semester was almost over. As that stuff transpired we said, no, we've got to get them the hell out of here as fast as we can," he said.