Lincoln Riley has not been on good terms with Oklahoma fans since he left to take the USC job.

Riley coached Oklahoma for 5 seasons, and led the Sooners to 3 College Football Playoff appearances. But he took the USC job the day after OU lost to Oklahoma State in November 2021.

Riley shared a troubling series of events that he recalled happening in the days after the job change. He shared them with Graham Bensinger.

“Yeah, I had multiple – had a lot of different people trying to break into the house the days after it happened. And 95% of the fans and people out there at Oklahoma or anybody else are great,” Riley said. “You typically always have that percentage that at times take it too far. Obviously, this was one of those instances.”

Riley acknowledged receiving suspicious packages from unknown people, and someone gained access to his 9-year-old daughter’s cell phone number. Riley said his chief concern was his family’s safety.

“I didn’t care about the house. I didn’t care about anything else, just their safety,” Riley said. “We wanted the girls to be able to finish out school, because the semester was almost over. And as that stuff transpired we said, ‘No, we gotta get them the hell out of here as fast as we can.'”

Beyond his family, Riley said the toughest thing was that the relationships that he built changed after the job move.

“The relationships that you built that you thought at some point went past you being the football coach there and you realized did not go past that,” Riley said.