Dear Santa: Here's What Oklahoma Really Needs for Christmas

Dear Santa,

I'm sure you remember me from North Pole. I grew up four houses down from you on Fifth Street, until you moved out to your current address on the highway. Anyway, it's been a while. How have you been?

Just like Christmas, the 2025 college football season has pretty much come and gone for Oklahoma fans. It was a good year. But everyone around here agrees that it could have been better.

With that in mind, we’ve decided to get ahead of things and be first in line with our Christmas wish list — for next year.

We know you’ve been busy, and we hope you enjoy your day off. But please get started on this list first thing tomorrow morning. The transfer portal opens in about a week, and a lot of teams are going to be asking for help. Just remember, we got our list in first.

And we understand the stadium renovation won’t be finished until 2029, but we figured if we asked early enough, you could get your elves working ahead on it. Maybe they can squeeze it in after they finish their toy shift early. OU is in the SEC now, Santa, and having a mid stadium capacity is not cool.

Anyway, here's our Christmas wish list for 2026:

No More Temu Skill Position Players

Seriously, has anyone ever been satisfied with something they ordered off of Temu?

The discount shopping website makes everything look amazing in the online profile, but then when it gets here, it either breaks right away or it just never works at all.

The Sooners do need help at wide receiver, tight end and could use another capable talent at running back. Also, we know quarterbacks are always on the move, so keep that in mind as John Mateer and Michael Hawkins decide their futures.

But most of what they’ve gotten at those positions over the last couple of years came from Tennessee-Martin, Western Carolina, Mercer, McNeese State, Southern Illinois, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Kennesaw State, Louisiana Tech, Pittsburg State, Southeastern Louisiana or some other small-time football outpost.

We’re thinking OU could use more transfers from schools like Arkansas (Isaiah Sategna), Oklahoma State (Kendal Daniels, Trace Ford), Florida State (Marvin Jones), TCU (Damonic Williams), Purdue (Deion Burks) or Tennessee (DJ Terry). Even Michigan (Andrel Anthony) or Mizzou (J.J. Hester) came through with players, although neither guy went an entire season. But they did make big plays while they were on the field.

Unless they’re kickers. Then Oklahoma will take all the Group of 5, FCS or Division II kickers you have in your bag.

General Manager Jim Nagy (more him below) was hired last February after the winter portal had closed, so hopefully the Sooners can bring in more upper-tier portal prospects and by this time next year will be counting a higher hit percentage.

An Athletic Director

You probably heard: Joe Castiglione said last summer he’s going to retire this year.

You brought Oklahoma such a good athletic director last time, Santa. He really did an amazing job, and he stayed forever, which made everyone else’s jobs much easier.

But Santa, it’s almost 2026.

Oklahoma needs a new kind of AD — someone who continues to keep the focus on the athletes, but also someone who really embraces the business side of things, too.

We live in a cut-throat world now, Santa, where players have the power instead of coaches, and a successful athletic director needs a new way of doing things.

No more golden parachute buyouts for head coaches who lose games and get themselves fired and walk away with generational wealth in their pocket just because they're bad at their job. Just tell all the agents out there sorry, but that’s the old way of doing business. That money needs to go to the athletes now, not underachieving coaches who get fired because they can’t win enough game.

And while we’re on that, no more boneheaded astronomical raises or lengthy contract extensions just for having the kind of season they’re supposed to have. Sign them to a four-year deal, and if they win more than they did last year, they get a raise. If not, they don’t. Win consistently, and you get an extension after year three. Don't like it? Try harder/work smarter next time.

This new AD needs to be able to reel in more than just the same old donors who love their Sooners. He needs to be able to cultivate corporate dollars at an unprecedented level and sell the school’s reputation and the program’s image to companies who want to attach their name to OU’s brand of integrity and purpose.

And hey, Santa, bringing OU just one spicy billionaire like Cody Campbell or Boone Pickens wouldn’t hurt.

If you could give Randall Stephenson a short list, that’d be great.

Special Glasses for Jim Nagy

Santa, OU fans love their new general manager. He’s been on the job less than a year, and he’s done a pretty amazing job overall.

But if you could give Jim Nagy some special glasses, so he can see huge roster mistakes before they happen, that would help avoid the kind of catastrophe that afflicted the 2025 team.

Nagy fell in love early when he scouted Cal running back Jaydn Ott for the Senior Bowl, and when Ott entered the transfer portal last year — a year the Sooners needed a playmaker at running back — Nagy was apparently blinded by that love.

Ott came to OU in the post-spring practice portal (that's gone now) at a great price — figures ranging from $800,000 to $1.5 million have been reported, although we’re not sure — and it was an unmitigated disaster.

Ott got his bag and never made an impact for the OU offense. We don’t know if he was hurt early and simply shut it down (coaches said in August he had a sore shoulder), or if he just wanted an easy payday before heading off to the NFL.

But after racking up 3,333 yards and 30 touchdowns at Cal, Ott accomplished diddly squat in one season in Norman: 21 rushes, 68 yards, two catches, 10 yards and zero touchdowns in seven games. Ott was a terrible blocker, never seemed engaged when he was on the field and became a serious liability. For that kind of money, he left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Sooner Nation wants their GM to operate with a little more clarity and a little more focus when it comes to handing out the big dollars. Or at least not get fleeced on the transfer portal market.

12,000 More Seats

You can put this one on the to-do list for the future, Santa.

But when Oklahoma opens the stadium in 2029 with a major renovation on the west side, anything less than 85,000 seats is going to look extremely ordinary.

When OU announced this year it was downsizing to about 74,000, it did not go over well with the fan base.

You know which SEC teams have less than 85,000 seats, Santa? I bet you do.

Arkansas, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Missouri, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt.

That’s the neighborhood that Castiglione says he wants to live in, rather than Texas, Texas A&M, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn and LSU.

Guess how many national championships have been won by that second group during the last 30 years?

Eighteen.

And guess how many national championships have been won by that first group?

Yeah. Zero.

Size matters. Bigger is better.

That’s it for now, Santa. Thanks for all the incredible gifts you brought in 2025. They were great. Hope Mrs. Claus is well and hope the elves aren’t too much trouble.

PS, One More Thing

If you could bring OU some new alternative uniforms for 2026, that’d be sweet. Pretty much everyone seems to hate the current kits — even more than they hated the previous ones.

As an old sports writer, my only request for those is to put the players’ names on the back and make the numbers easier to see.

(Don’t tell anyone, but I actually like the anthracite. Turns out dark gray has become the most popular color in my closet.)