OU general manager Jim Nagy details recruiting process with coaching staff

NORMAN — The 2026 recruiting cycle involved a brand-new process for Oklahoma.

And for OU general manager Jim Nagy, a lot of it was learning on the fly.

The focus for Nagy continues to be taking the recruiting workload off Brent Venables and the coaching staff, helping them to focus more on the field. Nagy spearheads a new front office structure with people who boast NFL experience, and the primary focus has been on scouting and breaking down tape on potential prospects.

The Sooners inked 24 signees on Wednesday to the 2026 class, which ranks 16th nationally. Nagy detailed the process between the front office and the coaching staff.

“We are trimming the fat essentially for our coaches,” Nagy said. “… We’ve got a lot of experienced evaluators, great people at what they do, so with our scouting staff it’ll start at the lower levels of the scouting staff. Everyone’s got states and regions, and then we cross-check by positions. So rather than just a coach or two having their eyeballs on a player…we have seven or eight grades on a particular player, so it won’t get kicked to the coaching staff until it makes its way up our scouting staff and then it’ll get to Lake and Taylor and myself and Coach V and the position coaches.

“If we don’t see eye to eye — we want coaches to coach guys that they want to coach, right? You’re going to undermine a guy’s career if the coaches aren’t on board, so that’s the process. If the player’s kicked to the coaches with the certain grades and they don’t see it that way, we have meetings every week, we call them discrepancy meetings, and we’ll watch the player and if we still can’t get on the same page then we move on. I said that to Brent the day I came to interview. There’s a million high school players out there and if we don’t see eye to eye, we’ll move on, find a new guy.”

A big priority for Nagy has been earning the respect of the coaching staff. That came into play early in the 2026 recruiting process. When Nagy arrived last spring, the new front office and the coaching staff differed in their evaluations on certain prospects. Instead of forcing the issue, Nagy pivoted to other potential prospects.

“I just think big picture with our staff — and (we) added guys on the staff incrementally — every conversation was put your head down and go to work,” Nagy said. “We have to earn the respect of this coaching staff. This is foreign for them. This has never been done. We need to come in and earn the respect.

“That’s what we’ve done. Hopefully, moving forward, there will be less and less of those conversations because we’ll be on the same page moving forward.”

It’s definitely been a learning experience for Venables, too. But as the Sooners found late momentum in the 2026 class, the OU head coach is confident they have found a good structure to put in place.

“It’s been a lot of fun and it’s been an educational experience for everybody,” Venables said. “We’ve learned from each other and we’ve worked really hard to try and expeditiously bridge this gap from where a good part of our staff is mostly from the NFL and what does it look like from a high school perspective and a locker room perspective, things of that nature. There’s a lot of layers to it and I know I’ve talked about a lot of that before in the past, but it’s been fantastic.

“You’ve got a bunch of excellent people and are excellent at what they do, they’ve been in this business for a long time from evaluation, building rosters and salary caps and all of those types of things that go with it. Short-term, long-term version, then this collegiate model. It’s not the NFL, it’s the new college model and our vision is to be best in class and in order to do that we’ve got to work together.”

There was definitely a learning curve in the process, but it’s hard to argue with the results. The Sooners finished strong with their 2026 class, and the 2027 class currently ranks second nationally. The team finished the regular season with a 10-2 record and likely a spot in the College Football Playoff, improving significantly on last year’s 6-7 record.

The process will continue to be developed, as the coaching staff and the front office make decisions on prospects that fit the Sooners on the field and in the locker room.

“When I interviewed for the job and they were 6-7 and I’m in here in March, that did not feel like a 6-7 building to me at all,” Nagy said. “I could tell the culture had been set. Coach Venables has done an unbelievable job, and coaches have done an unbelievable job with their relationships with these players. Where our staff comes into play there again, we’re watching all the tape, we’re doing the heavy lift on the eval side, we’re trimming the fat so these guys spend so much time with their position coaches.

“… This is a really well-connected team and there’s a reason why this team is 10-2 right now, and to me it’s because of the brotherhood. That’s been a really cool part of having this ’26 class up here as much as they were, they saw it. They saw how important it is.”

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