Kliff Kingsbury: Oklahoma job ‘not a topic I wanna touch on right now’

The Arizona Cardinals didn’t have to play in Week 12 to make headlines this past weekend, with ESPN’s Adam Schefter reporting that Oklahoma is targeting head coach Kliff Kingsbury for its head-coaching vacancy.

It didn’t take long for Kingsbury to sidestep the report on Monday.

“Yeah, I don’t get into those things,” the head coach said. “My sole focus the last couple of weeks has been the Chicago Bears, and after watching them on Thanksgiving, it needs to be, because they’re a really good football team and had a big win. And so that’s where my focus has been.

“We’re in season, we’re 9-2, just not a topic I wanna touch on right now,” Kingsbury added when asked why he didn’t take the opportunity to squash the report.

Kingsbury, currently in his third season of a four-year deal that includes a team option in the 2023, is enjoying his best season at the helm in Arizona, which controls the No. 1 seed in the NFC through 12 weeks.

The prospect of heading back to college, an arena the head coach spent more than a decade in, right when the ship looks to be righted in the desert doesn’t make a ton of sense. Especially when Arizona entered the bye week first in more than a handful of statistical categories on both sides of the football.

And being fully engrained in football 24/7 is something Kingsbury lives for. There’s much more that goes into college beyond the on-the-field production, something he realized on his way to a 35-40 record at Texas Tech.

“I really enjoy just the professionalism that these guys approach the game with each and every day,” Kingsbury said. “They’re highly motivated, take care of their bodies, study the game. It inspires you to be a better coach and step your game up because you better come into that meeting room knowing what you’re talking about with a level of expertise and trust from those guys or you’ll lose them.”

For the head coach, it’s on to Chicago.

“I was in the movie room off the grid pretty much all day yesterday, so the [report] didn’t affect me one bit,” Kingsbury said.

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