SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — More than 385 miles west of Fort Worth, the small Texas town Muleshoe has become a key place in the current landscape of college football.
How could that be possible for a town with a population of just over 5,000?
Muleshoe, just 22 miles from the New Mexico border, is home to the National Mule Memorial. It’s also home to two of the greatest offensive minds in college football.
One is USC head coach Lincoln Riley.
The other? His brother and TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley.
The younger Riley won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach after turning TCU into one of the most explosive offenses in the country. The Horned Frogs play Michigan on Saturday in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl and the college football semifinal on Saturday.
Lincoln and USC produced Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, who beat out Garrett’s TCU quarterback Max Duggan for the prestigious award. What is it about that town that molded the two Rileys into becoming great play callers and designers?
“We were just so lucky to be in a great town that had great football coaches,” Riley said on Wednesday. “That’s probably where we fell in love with football.”
A lot of the credit goes to their parents Mike and Marilyn Riley.
“We were raised in a great way,” Lincoln said. “We were raised in a small town with really hard-working parents that held us accountable. We’re just very fortunate to have the upbringing we did.”
From Muleshoe to national stage
Now their teams in Fort Worth and Los Angeles are fortunate to have them pulling the strings for two of the best offenses in the country. The two don’t just share the same last name and lineage, but also a similar path up the coaching ranks.
After Garrett was named the 2007 Associated Press Class 2A Offensive Player of the Year at Muleshoe High, he continued his playing career at Texas Tech and began learning under the late Mike Leach. Lincoln was also a quarterback for the hometown Mules and then the Red Raiders and would eventually spend the first seven years of his coaching career in Lubbock.
Garrett transferred to Stephen F. Austin in 2010 and led the Lumberjacks to a Southland Conference championship, leading the nation’s top passing offense.
Garrett’s first coaching break came in Lubbock, too.
It wasn’t at Texas Tech, though. Garrett was the quarterbacks coach at nearby Roosevelt High for a season before taking over as the running backs coach at a private college Augustana in Illinois. He parlayed that into a position at East Carolina and then on to Kansas.
Those years were key to both the brothers’ development.
“Listen we’ve both worked hard, but we’ve both been given some early cool opportunities,” Lincoln said. “Our careers have transpired in different ways.”
Lincoln also spent multiple years at East Carolina before getting his break with Oklahoma in 2015. Meanwhile, Garrett left Kansas to become the running backs coach at Appalachian State. He finally got his big break there after one season as Sonny Dykes brought him to SMU and then to TCU.
“He’s had kind of a long journey,” Lincoln said. “For him to get that opportunity to work with Sonny at TCU and work with Max, it’s just been really cool to sit back and watch him go. He’s a great coach.”
Garrett still ties his greatness to the lessons he learned on the football fields of his hometown.
“We were lucky to have great junior high coaches, great high school coaches our whole time there in Muleshoe,” Garrett said. “They’re a big part in why we’re here and why Lincoln is where he’s at.”
Creative offensive minds
Beyond his experience as a former player and a coach of multiple offensive positions, what separates Garrett from so many coordinators?
“I think he’s just so creative,” Max Duggan said. “He’s confident in what he does and what he calls. He puts everybody in the best position. He takes our strength and uses it in his scheme and what he thinks is best for us.”
Garrett doesn’t come into most games trying to reinvent the wheel or trying to overload the players mentally with a complex scheme.
“Do what our players do well, pretty simple,” Garrett said of his philosophy.
That simplicity has been key in TCU upping its scoring average from 66th in the country in 2021 to No. 6 this season. The Horned Frogs average 40 points per game with an offense that can do it by land or air.
TCU is second in the country according to Pro Football Focus with rushing touchdowns of at least 20 yards with 11. Only Michigan, Saturday’s opponent, has more with 12.
Max Duggan was tied for second among Power Five quarterbacks with 16 touchdown passes of at least 20 yards and won the Davey O’Brien and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. That balanced explosiveness is something Garrett and Lincoln’s offenses share in common.
“When you put on the film you see big play ability,” Michigan co-defensive coordinator Steve Clinkscale said. “Throwing the ball down the field, then as you watch it more (Kendre Miller) is very special. He’s fast, he’s elusive, he’s got good cutting ability.”
Miller has been able to thrive with a touchdown in every game this season plus more than 1,300 yards thanks to Garrett’s sound use of him as TCU’s feature back.
“A lot of coaches overthink things and he’s more of a ‘We are gonna do what we do,’” Miller said. “That’s calling basic plays and executing them at a high level. He makes it as simple as possible and I feel like that’s what makes him such a great coach.
“Every week, there are a lot of college coaches that are like ‘We’re going to change the whole scheme.’ We run pretty much the same thing we run, week in and week out and just do it at a high level.”
Brotherly competition
As Garrett gears up to help TCU try to outmatch a top-10 Michigan defense in the College Football Playoff, Lincoln hopes to finish his first season in L.A. strong with a win over Tulane in the Cotton Bowl.
As the brothers keep ascending in the coaching ranks, there’s just one question left to ponder. Who’s the better play designer?
“He’s gonna say he is, I’m probably going to say I am,” Garrett said with a laugh.
Lincoln may have some evidence for his case.
“We had a pretty fun video that Caleb (Williams) was the star in, he saw a play that TCU might or might not have run that he used from us,” Lincoln said with a smile. “Caleb sent him the video and we had some fun with it.”
Eventually when Garrett becomes a head coach, he’ll have his chance to answer back to that moment. For now he’s focused on helping the Horned Frogs prevail in the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday.
