Oklahoma football announces front office hires ahead of 2025 season

Oklahoma football has announced multiple hires to its staff ahead of the 2025 college football season, including several key additions to the team’s front office. These hires were made as the Sooners “move closer to a professionalized model of college football.”

OU hired Jim Nagy, the former director of then Senior Bowl, as the program’s first General Manager of Football in February. He has now officially added to his front office staff. Pending approval from the OU Board of Regents approval, below is the complete list of newcomers added to the Oklahoma football staff, along with their positions:

Lake Dawson, Senior Assistant General Manager
Taylor Redd, Assistant General Manager
Drew Hill, Director of Scouting
Kale Pearson, Director of High School Scouting
Stacey Ford, Director of Player Personnel and Retainment
Charlie Parkinson, Assistant Director of College Scouting

“This is an exciting time for Oklahoma Football,” said Nagy, via press release. “It has been a deliberate process building the first front office in program history and I couldn’t be happier with how it came together. We have a great blend of diverse backgrounds and complementary skill sets from both the NFL and collegiate levels and we feel the cumulative evaluation experience will give us a competitive advantage moving forward. Going through an incredibly successful first official visit weekend the past few days has only affirmed we have uniquely positioned ourselves to build elite rosters.”

Dawson will serve as Nagy’s right-hand man. He comes to OU with 25 years of experience occupying NFL scouting and front office roles, and most recently served as the assistant director of college scouting for the Buffalo Bills.

Redd most recently served as a senior consultant with The Athlete Group and has experience in the NFL as a scout for the New England Patriots. He also previously held the position of director of player personnel and NFL liaison from 2017-18 at Wake Forest.

For the non-front office hires, Hill will serve in a new role in his 12th season with the program overall. Pearson is an Oklahoma native that formerly held the title of football general manager at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Ford previously served as the director of player personnel at UCLA and Parkinson worked with Nagy as a scouting assistant for the Reese’s Senior Bowl.

In total, this group of hires, including Nagy, has 60 years of combined experience in college football and 67 years of experience at the NFL level. That includes 36 bowl games and five Super Bowl titles.