How Oklahoma AD Roger Denny Will Use the Summer to Plan for the Year Ahead

The coming months will be crucial for Roger Denny and his staff to set the table for the coming year.

Oklahoma athletic director Roger Denny speaks after K.J. Kindler won another women's gymnastics national title. | BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Roger Denny has enjoyed a whirlwind start to his time at Oklahoma. 

The new OU athletic director was hired in time to see K.J. Kindler add another women’s gymnastics national title, and the Denny watched on throughout Skip Johnson’s masterful run through the College World Series in Omaha that saw the baseball program notch its first national title since 1994.

Denny got to see firsthand what it looks like when things fire on all cylinders in Norman, and though sports will pause for the summer, the next few months will play a crucial role in shaping the next year at Oklahoma. 

“The summer is really the time for us to kind of set the plan for next year,” Denny said during an interview on The Franchise Morning Show on Friday. 

He said personally, he’s excited to get his family fully moved in and settled into life in Norman, but that he’ll be hard at work throughout the next few months. 

“Spent these first few months really kind of running around and trying to meet and get to know as many people as possible,” Denny said. “So haven’t had a ton of time to sit down and kind of plot out our road map. And so we’ll get to do that a little bit over the summer.”

Collegiate athletics is an ever-evolving landscape. 

The entire enterprise continues to wrestle with the structural changes brought by Name, Image and Likeness, the transfer portal and revenue sharing. 

For Oklahoma, it will begin to fully realize the benefits of joining the SEC over the next few years. 

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The transition period for the Sooners and the Texas Longhorns to leave the Big 12 early and join the Southeastern Conference is a thing of the past, meaning both programs will be getting their full shares of the SEC revenue distribution. 

Denny and the entire athletics department will work toward stretching every dollar as far as possible to support programs across campus, a task that he will be able to truly sink his teeth into over the coming weeks. 

“[I’ll] get to spend a little more time with the staff, just understanding what the roles and expectations are,” Denny said. “And really, once we get to the fall, put that stake in the ground and run as hard and fast as we can.”