How has Seth Littrell's transition into OU football's OC job gone? 'It’s been very fast'

ryan aber, the oklahoman

Tue, Dec 26, 2023, 10:27 PM·4 min read

SAN ANTONIO — They had the routine down.

During the season, then-OU offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley and offensive analyst Seth Littrell would take a stroll.

“Just talk through the game plan and talk through everything that we’re doing, what we need to do differently and what we really like, how we’re going to start the game and stuff like that,” Finley said.

Those walks helped strengthen the already strong bond between Littrell and Finley and have helped maintain continuity following Lebby’s hire as Mississippi State’s head coach and ease the transition for Littrell into the offensive coordinator role and Finley into co-offensive coordinator role.

Littrell makes his debut as the Sooners’ offensive play-caller and quarterback coach when OU takes on Arizona in the Alamo Bowl on Thursday night at the Alamodome.

“It’s been very fast the past few weeks, having gone from not knowing exactly what I was doing after the season to going out on the road recruiting to the transfer portal to bowl practices to bowl prep,” Littrell said. “Trying to get on the same page as all the coaches has been very challenging. We’ve got a very hard-working crew.”

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Seth Littrell is ready to take over as OU's play-caller for Alamo Bowl and beyond.

Continuity key for Seth Littrell, Sooners' offense

But the bowl, Littrell said, will be able maintaining continuity for this year’s team rather than looking forward to what the offense will be in the future.

“The offense that we’re running will stay consistent with what we’ve done throughout the year,” Littrell said. “Then we can look up after the season and figure out what we need to do moving forward as far as adjustments and kind of evolving and how we grow. But this isn’t the time for that. This is the time for these guys to go out there and play fast and have that camaraderie together.”

Raising her son in Muskogee, it was a nightly routine for Judy Littrell to teach young Seth to dream big.

“Telling me I was gonna follow my father’s footsteps and have the opportunity to play for a national championship,” Seth said. “She said that a long time ago, and I would get so excited. And then we’d say our prayers at night, and that’s the honest-to-God truth and we’d pray on that and she’s been praying over that for my entire life.”

Littrell, of course, did that.

He followed in his father, Jimmy’s, footsteps and came to OU at a time when a national championship seemed like a pipe dream.

But Littrell remained during the transition from John Blake to Bob Stoops and played a key role in the Sooners’ 2000 national championship run.

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A 'deep breath' after leaving Mean Green

After being fired from North Texas after seven years as the Mean Green’s head coach, Littrell wasn’t thinking about a quick return to coaching.

“I felt like taking this year off was the best thing for me and my family,” Littrell said. “The last seven years as a head coach allowed me to take a breath and sit back and evaluate myself. It’s always good to look in the mirror to see the good things and the bad and some things you need to change or some things you need to grow or evolve in. And then also getting a deep breath.”

But when the opportunity to return to Norman came up, Littrell decided to join the Sooners as an offensive analyst.

"This place obviously means everything to me," Littrell said. "I've been trying to get back here for 23 years, and so this is obviously the place I want to be."

He said the experience has helped him grow as a coach.

“Just being able to sit back and really observe this past year has been really refreshing,” Littrell said. “It’s helped me grow as a coach and as a person. I feel like I’ve been given a really good sense of what we did offensively here, the way we played. Coach Lebby did a phenomenal job, along with a ton of great coaches in that room.”

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