As Oklahoma Regents Set Pivotal Meeting, OU Athletics is Front and Center

Thursday’s meeting of the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents will put OU athletics front and center.

In addition to the hiring of Roger Denny as the Sooners’ new athletic director — the hire will be approved and the school is expected to reveal details of his contract — several football coaches will have their contracts updated as well.

In the meeting agenda published this week, OU also announced 29 “principal gifts” to the university larger than one million dollars. Twenty of the 29 gifts (totaling nearly $122.5 million) are earmarked for the athletics department at a sum of $94.108 million.

In addition to Denny helming the department, two new football coaches will be welcomed to Brent Venables’ staff.

Tight ends coach Jason Witten, a record-setting NFL tight end for the Dallas Cowboys and a five-year veteran high school football coach in Texas (he won two state championships), will be formally added to Venables’ staff. (Witten will find out Feb. 5 if he’s a first-ballot induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.)

And Matt Manninger has been added as senior strength and conditioning trainer (a new position) at an initial salary set at $200,000 a year. Manninger was previously assistant strength and conditioning coach at Illinois for five years following a six-year stint at Vanderbilt.

After a 10-3 season and a home game in the College Football Playoff, Venables’ staff can expect significant pay raises, which will be announced Thursday.

Including Witten, nine of the 11 assistant positions are scheduled for new contract consideration. Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Ben Arbuckle and running backs coach DeMarco Murray, whose contract runs through January 2027, are the only full-time coaches not under consideration for a new deal. Arbuckle signed on last January for a three-year, $4.5 million deal. Murray received significant raises each of the last two years after he flirted with job openings at Ohio State and Penn State, and his annual compensation sits at $800,000.

Oklahoma Sooners assistant coaches salaries

Defensive line coach Todd Bates, offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh, defensive ends coach Miguel Chavis, special teams coordinator Doug Deakin, linebackers coach Nate Dreiling, safeties coach Brandon Hall, wide receivers coach Emmett Jones, cornerbacks coach Jay Valai, and offensive analysts John Kuceyeski and Kevin Wilson are all expected to receive contract extensions and pay increases. Also, Kuceyeski and Wilson will have their titles officially changed from Analyst to Coach (Kuceyeski coaches quarterbacks, Wilson coaches offensive line).

In addition to the hiring of Manninger, the football strength staff will be expanded as longtime Jerry Schmidt assistant James Dobson has been promoted to Director of Sports Performance and Conditioning for Football/Executive Strength and Conditioning Trainer. Dobson came to OU with Venables in 2022 after leading the Nebraska program for seven years.

Schmidt’s new title is Professional Consultant for the Athletics Department and his salary will be adjusted from $285,000 to $145,000, according to the published agenda, although Schmidt's total compensation last year was reported at $700,000.

Regents are also scheduled to approve the resignations of tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley, football operations director Woody Glass and basketball assistant Josh Oppenheimer.

Castiglione’s title will change from Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics and Director of Athletics to Emeritus Athletics Director, and his compensation will be reduced. Longtime Castiglione assistant Larry Naifeh also has a new title: special assistant to the AD, with a salary change from $357,889 to $286,311.

Several of football general manager Jim Nagy’s personnel staff — senior assistant GM Lake Dawson, scouting director Stacey Ford and assistant GM Taylor Redd — will get new contracts or reappointments.

Elsewhere in the athletic department, Senior Associate AD Greg Tipton, who has long overseen the baseball team among other duties, has been promoted to Operations Deputy AD with a raise from $259,212 to $272,172.

The regents’ agenda also included the formal retirement of Hall of Fame football coach Bob Stoops from his title of Senior Administrative Manager. Stoops, 65, officially stepped down from his post as OU’s winningest head coach in June 2017, but has remained on staff as a special assistant to Castiglione, with an annual compensation of $325,000.