Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley said assistant Shane Beamer will stay with the Sooners through at least the Big 12 championship game before leaving for South Carolina.
Beamer was officially announced as the Gamecocks’ new head coach Sunday afternoon and is expected to return to Norman on Monday afternoon.
“It's a great thing when people in your organization get a chance to move on to new and great opportunities,” said Riley on the Big 12 teleconference. “I'm very excited for him and appreciate all that he's done.”
Beamer has been crucial for OU’s development on the field and on the recruiting trail. While he will continue to deal with the 2020 Sooners, Riley said Beamer will no longer be involved in recruiting future players to OU. Any time for recruiting will be squarely about South Carolina.
In years past, when an assistant leaves, we’ve seen a coach added so that they could go on the road and recruit. But with 2020 being the COVID-19 year, not much of a point to doing something like that.
“With the fact that we can't travel anywhere – that would be a factor if we were traveling to see these people, we would activate somebody – but in this case, we'll use the staff that we have and everything is going to be done virtually,” Riley said. “I don't anticipate much of a difference.”
Signing period is really next week
Definitely doesn’t feel like it, but the early signing period is nine days away. Riley admitted it does feel strange, especially since OU has two games left. Especially since signing period is next week, and then OU plays the Big 12 championship vs. Iowa State that same weekend.
Coaches and programs can adjust and have adjusted. But it’s still one heck of an ask for recruits and their families when they haven’t been allowed to visit anywhere in the traditional manner since March.
“Again, the people I sympathize with the most are the families and some of these recruits that are trying to see these places, having to either not see places or fly out on their own dime and not being able to see facilities, coaches, all that stuff,” Riley said. “It's a tough situation. It is. I'm sure it'll kinda sneak up on us, especially since we'll be busy the next couple weeks getting ready to play as well. We're excited about it.
“We're really excited about where the class is headed and we've done a lot of work on the front end, did a lot of work on this throughout the time where everybody was quarantined and the country was shut down. We were able to really make up a lot of ground that I think is gonna prove really beneficial here in the end.”
OU had a bunch of top-tier recruits in town for its 27-14 win vs. Baylor. Recruits and their families had to pay for everything and there was no face-to-face interaction with any coaches. The recruit-guided visit became a staple in recruiting the last few months and was the case again over the weekend.
SCOOPHD highlights this week's Big 12 Teleconference
