The Hiring of Roger Denny Provides Insight in Oklahoma's Evolving Philosophy Change

The University of Oklahoma has lived in the new era of Name, Image and Likeness like the rest of college football since its inception in 2021. Yet every move the program has made to adapt to this new frontier feels like the latest first step toward going all in.

That latest shift is now personified in Friday's hire of University of Illinois deputy athletic director and chief operating officer, Roger Denny, to replace outgoing athletic director Joe Castiglione.

Denny, with just four years of college athletics administration experience at Illinois, is a reflection of how the business of college sports continues to evolve.

Back in 1998, when Oklahoma last made an athletic director hire, the Sooners targeted Castiglione from Missouri for his rising profile in the collegiate administrative ranks. In the previous era, fundraising in the arms race of securing bigger facilities to attract the top talent across the country was the special sauce for sports leadership.

Joe Castiglione, Oklahoma Sooner — Oklahoma Sooners athletic director Joe Castiglione prior to the game against the Missouri Tigers at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium | Matthew Emmons-Imagn Images

But this is 2026 — NIL, revenue sharing, wages, pay scales and other contract verbiage have integrated themselves into college sports. Denny's résumé screams a familiarity with those business-side realities.

Now, there's no way of knowing if Oklahoma's decision to go more to a business-savvy individual with a legal background will work. But it is certainly a path to go, and it appears to be the direction OU has chosen.

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Denny spent over a decade practicing law as a partner at Spencer Fane LLP, specializing in corporate, finance and sports industry clients. His background in tax, mergers, and intellectual property paints him as less of a previous-era "stadium building" athletic director and more of a sort-of "sports business czar."

He may be relatively new to the world of college athletics administration, but Denny's Illinois tenure offers a strong blueprint for what’s ahead. He helped establish the ICON for Illini collective — Illinois’ equivalent to OU's 1Oklahoma — and in Friday's press release was called "pivotal" in landing a $100 million gift, the largest donation in school history.

This experience marks a shift toward transparent, integrated athlete-business strategies — all for the sake of attempting to adapt to a more professional sports environment.

In addition, former AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who has served as Chair and Special Advisor to the President for OU Athletics, will remain in his current position. Stephenson, along with Castiglione, helped in identifying Denny.

Oklahoma Sooners Joe Harroz Randall Stephenson — University of Oklahoma president Joe Harroz (left) and football chair Randall Stephenson | Joe Harroz via Twitter/X

Coupled with Oklahoma's decision to carve out a professional football-style front office led by Jim Nagy, it appears that OU is choosing a business and legal infrastructure from which to navigate the world of college sports.

Time will tell if the philosophy bears fruit. While there have been some on-paper successes for Nagy, the impact of a general manager on a football program has yet to truly show itself, similar to how followers of college football could look at a roster next to recruiting rankings to identify championship contenders.

But one thing is for sure: this is the first time in a long time that Oklahoma, as a program, appears to be in lockstep from the top down. If the Sooners are going to succeed in the future, it will be in large part due to their steps to secure a new athletic director.

The same goes for if they fail.