At Oklahoma, Coaches Still Prioritize Relationships Over Financial Transactions

NORMAN — Oklahoma assistant coach Miguel Chavis channeled his inner Tom Cruise on Tuesday at OU Media Day.

College football’s evolution to athlete compensation has left some coaches feeling like the fictional sports agent Cruise played on film 20 years ago.

“At the beginning of this thing, nobody knew what they were doing, man,” Chavis said. “I mean, come on. NIL busts upon the scene and I feel like I’m Jerry McGuire — ‘Show me the money!!’ You know? That was kind of part of it.”

Chavis said there’s not as much shouting into the telephone in 2026 as there was a few years ago, in 2021, when the NCAA kicked open a long-closed door and suddenly allowed athletes to receive financial compensation for the name, image and likeness.

But a big part of the recruiting game — especially with last year’s addition of players receiving an actual share of a university’s athletic department revenue — has simply become a transaction.

“The piece that I did not like was having to do contracts and talk money and things like that,” head coach Brent Venables said. “That’s just not comfortable for anybody. And now we’re dealing with an age group of 17, 16 to 24‑year‑old young people, that haven’t done it before, and there’s a maturity piece to it that is not an easy thing to navigate.

“But everything else is the exact same. You still have to recruit every single day, whether it’s developing relationships or constantly looking at video, evaluating players. All of our coaches have that responsibility.”

To that end, college football staffs have expanded beyond just the head coach and his 10 position assistants who find, evaluate and recruit the players. Now, like NFL teams, schools have personnel staffs that are dedicated to not just talent evaluation, but also contract negotiations.

Still, Chavis and other OU coaches say they’re still invested in the roots of recruiting: relationships.

“Heck yeah, man,” Chavis said. “What you’re alluding to, Jim Nagy and our personnel staff, has that helped us become more efficient? Absolutely. Has it allowed us to evaluate more players? Absolutely. Has it allowed us to be more targeted in a lot of ways? Absolutely.”

“I think a lot of credit needs to go to Jim and his staff, because they’re the ones that are in the thicket with those agents and what’s real and what’s not real, what are the numbers,” said offensive assistant Kevin Wilson. “It’s almost like, sometimes I don’t even know if you can believe what they’re saying (about reported offers). It’s tough. But the game hasn’t changed. You adapt or die.”

Brandon Hall has recruited and coached safeties for 20 years. He said while the coaching part of it hasn’t changed much, the recruiting side certainly has. And yet, in the age of chasing the Almighty Dollar, many of the time-tested strategies still hold true.

“Used to be, you recruit, recruit, recruit, recruit, and you hang onto a kid until January or February,” Hall said. “And now that there’s agents involved and there’s other layers to that, a lot of times they’ll come out and say, ‘Hey, I need this or this,’ and you’re just like, ‘Well, for our locker room, or that room that we’re in, that’s just not where we can be at right now.’

“I used to get sensitive to it, because I’m out creating these relationships. And I would pout, ‘I can’t believe this.’ But now, this day and time, you just really gotta be very — I wouldn’t say unemotional, because you really want kids to do well and you want them to be successful — but that’s just the business side of it, that you just kind of have to learn to get used to.”

“It allows you to be the ‘good guy,’ ” Hall said. “ ‘Hey man, this is what we’re gonna do for you the person.’ And then they come in on the business side of it. That’s been the benefit of it. The first year, when we were trying to figure it out, it was tough at times. It was hard at first. … It gets better and better every year.”

Defensive tackles coach Todd Bates’ life is driven by relationships. He’s very much like a father to his players, and they essentially become a part of his young family.

So it can feel weird when recruits start talking about dollars and other financial rewards.

“I am a relationship guy, and we are in a relationship-driven program,” Bates said. “So although things outside may be moving toward more transactional, the way you stand out is who you are — that genuine and sincere want to get to know somebody before you get married. That’s what we’re all about. And that stands out to parents. They’ll tell you. That will still get you to the table. And then if all things are similar, it’ll make the difference. The relationship piece is everything for me.

“When NIL first started, that was the case, where all guys were kind of putting the developmental piece on the back burner a little bit and it was kind of more about the transaction. Now I feel like they’re paying attention to ‘Who is developing my position?’ And so if you focus on the relationship — I believe the relationship is a big part of that development, the guy believing in you and you believing in him, and that connection is everything. … That’s what we hang our hat on here.”

Venables said his coaching staff needs to have “extreme ownership in their room” in order to maximize everyone’s opportunity.

“We don’t get to draft people,” Venables said. “We have to recruit them. And you can have all the money, and you can have the best relationship, and you still don’t get them — and it’s onward. That’s the nature of college football recruiting.”

“Our NIL is great,” Bates said, “but we want it be guys that want to be here and love Oklahoma and want to be great on defense or offense and be great at their position — that have a burning desire for that.”

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