Oklahoma football hires Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy as general manager

Oklahoma hired Jim Nagy, longtime executive director of the Senior Bowl, as the Sooners’ new football general manager, the school announced on Wednesday.

Nagy has led the Senior Bowl, the annual college football all-star game that showcases NFL Draft prospects, since 2018. His hiring at Oklahoma continues a recent trend of Power 4 programs installing figures with NFL ties atop their scouting and personnel departments.

At Oklahoma, Nagy will lead the program’s roster management efforts, including identification and evaluation of recruits, managing the transfer portal, retaining players and compensating players through name, image and likeness and future revenue sharing structures set to be put in place by the pending House v. NCAA settlement.

Nagy has extensive experience in talent evaluation, having spent 18 years in NFL front offices, including stints with Seattle, Kansas City, New England and Washington. In his six years with the Senior Bowl, he has been responsible for evaluating and selecting players for the game, which produces more than 100 draft picks each year.

The Sooners join Stanford (which hired Andrew Luck), Cal (Ron Rivera) and North Carolina (Michael Lombardi) who have turned to people with NFL ties as its general manager. The nature of the transfer portal, which is akin to college free agency, and the compensation of players through NIL has made college football roster management more closely resemble the NFL’s processes. Nagy’s resume of scouting college players is the most extensive of any of the recent NFL-adjacent hires within college football.

The school’s announcement indicated Nagy will work “side-by-side” with OU coach Brent Venables in a manner similar to NFL teams. Randall Stephenson, who was hired by the school in December to help oversee budgeting and planning in preparation for revenue sharing with athletes, will become “Chair of Football” and special advisor to the president and AD and provide “day-to-day oversight” of Nagy and Venables, while continuing his original duties.

“Today’s evolving world requires skilled management of player contracts, multiple player acquisition pathways and allocating resources. All of these are new and vital functions within college athletics,” Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione said in a statement. “I am convinced that great college football teams will be set apart by their ability to continually innovate to meet these massive changes. Part of that innovation means providing every tool Coach Venables and his staff need to be successful.

“OU’s willingness to reimagine the traditional structure and reposition the varied responsibilities within football operations will strengthen us going forward. Jim Nagy brings to us great experience, relationships and perspectives that will mesh well with our staff and will complement the program’s continued pursuit of conference and national championships.”

Nagy arrives at a pivotal point in Venables’ tenure. The former Oklahoma and Clemson defensive coordinator is 22-17 in three seasons since taking over in Norman, including two 6-7 seasons. It’s the first time Oklahoma, a program with seven national championships, has finished below .500 twice in a three-year span since the John Blake era, which ended in 1998 after three seasons. Oklahoma finished 2-6 in its first year of SEC play. This winter Venables hired a new offensive coordinator, former Washington State OC Ben Arbuckle, and signed Arbuckle’s former quarterback, John Mateer, who was No. 2 in The Athletic’s transfer portal top 30 quarterback rankings.

What this means for the Senior Bowl

It’s definitely a big deal when the Senior Bowl goes through a leadership change, as was the case when Nagy took over for Phil Savage before the 2019 event. The biggest question here will be about how talent is selected for future Senior Bowl’s. The event’s rival, the Shrine Bowl, prefers a more by-committee approach to its scouting and selection process, while the Senior Bowl often leans more on the final decision of the executive director.

This also comes at a super interesting time for all-star games. The Shrine Bowl vs. Senior Bowl battle has been one of the NFL’s hottest behind-the-scenes rivalries the public really doesn’t know about. There is no law written in stone that says the Senior Bowl — which is held in Mobile, Ala. — has to trump the Shrine Bowl (currently held near Dallas) with regard to being the destination for an upcoming draft’s top talent. The Senior Bowl’s next director, and that person’s approach to prospect selection for the event, will be pretty interesting. — Nick Baumgardner