Scott Woodward reveals bizarre reason Lincoln Riley rumors started during coaching search

The 2022 coaching carousel was a crazy one, and one of the first rumors connected former Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley to LSU after the Tigers parted ways with Ed Orgeron. Riley was adamant there was nothing to that rumor and that proved true as he headed to USC instead.

But LSU athletic director Scott Woodward wanted to figure out how such a rumor could start.

“Remember the Lincoln Riley rumor was out of control?” Woodward said on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Friday. “And I couldn’t figure out why, because we hadn’t talked. … I’d talked to his representatives and all this, but there was nothing. When I tell you nothing, nothing.”

Well, Woodward got his answer.

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As it turns out, LSU works with a health care service to contract planes which feature the Tigers’ logo. They went to Oklahoma City and back a few times, and people started guessing Woodward was on one of the planes. The rest, as they say, is history.

“We have two planes that we contract with Acadian Ambulance and they’re a health care provider,” Woodward said. “They were going back and forth with all the LSU logos to Oklahoma City. And someone just [said], ‘That’s it. Woodward’s in Oklahoma City. That’s there.’

“At the end of the day, I said, ‘No way that could be true and that could catch that much traction.’ That’s what it was, Paul. That’s the gullibility and that’s the thing that they see this LSU plane in Oklahoma City and that’s the case.”

After Riley left Oklahoma for USC, Woodward stunned the college football world by hiring Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly. He kept things tight-lipped throughout the process, and he still thinks the Riley rumors helped cover up the talks with Kelly.

“In a way, I was nervous about it at first,” Woodward said. “But then, it got to be such a good distraction, it was a great smoke screen out there for us.”

Oklahoma then hired Brent Venables to replace Riley, and the three programs are in very different places mid-way through the 2022 season. USC fell out of the top 10 of the AP Top 25 after an upset loss to Utah last week while Kelly got a big win over Florida last week as he tries to rebuild the Tigers program. Oklahoma, meanwhile, stopped a three-game losing streak by defeating Kansas last week.