Oklahoma makes new strength staff hire

The Oklahoma Sooners have had a relatively quiet offseason when it comes to coaching change, but there have been a plethora of changes around the core group of OU assistant and position coaches, another one of which Sooner Nation learned about on Tuesday.

In a meeting agenda published for the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents meeting later this week, there were plenty of OU Football items to be discussed, recommended by university president Joseph Harroz Jr. One of those was officially appointing new coaches, which of course includes Jason Witten as the new tight ends coach, who was hired after OU fired Joe Jon Finley.

The other is an addition to Oklahoma's strength and conditioning staff that comes after a shakeup last week. When Director of Sports Enhancement and Strength and Conditioning Jerry Schmidt moves to his new role as Elite Performance Liaison and Associate Director of Sports Performance James Dobson takes on Schmidt's role, the Sooners will be adding Matt Manninger to the staff as the Senior Strength and Conditioning Trainer.

Manninger has been at Illinois since 2021, but he worked under Dobson at Vanderbilt from 2015 to 2020. He'll be joining a strength and conditioning staff that also includes Assistant Directors of Sports Performance Scott Kolok, Josue Matias, and Reggie McGrew, all led by Dobson.

There were many more Sooner Football items on the agenda, including the appointment of Roger Denny as the university's new Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics and Director of Athletics. He'll be working closely with Chair and Special Advisor to the President for OU Athletics Randall Stephenson, who lead the 12-person search committee that chose Denny for the AD role. That committee also got help from The Athlete Group’s Jake Rosenberg. However, with all of the new faces coming in, there were also agenda items for familiar faces as well.

Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics and Director of Athletics Joe Castiglione's impending retirement from the role means that he'll see his title change to Emeritus Athletics Director. Executive Deputy Athletics Director Larry Naifeh is also seeing his title change to Special Assistant to Athletic Director. Former head coach Bob Stoops is retiring from his role as Athletics Senior Administrative Manager Senior. Chief of Staff Woody Glass is stepping away from the program. Senior Associate Athletics Director Greg Tipton is being promoted to Operations Deputy Athletics Director.

Oklahoma Football is also scheduling new contract consideration for a number of assistant coaches on Brent Venables' staff, including Witten, Emmett Jones, Bill Bedenbaugh, Todd Bates, Miguel Chavis, Nate Dreiling, Jay Valai, Brandon Hall, and Doug Deakin. The trio of Ben Arbuckle, DeMarco Murray and Wes Goodwin are currently not under consideration for new deals. Additionally, analysts John Kuceyeski and Kevin Wilson are both also expected to receive contracts extensions and pay increases. This also applies to some members of Jim Nagy's front office staff in Lake Dawson, Taylor Redd, and Stacey Ford.

Oklahoma is also announcing 29 “principal gifts” to the university that are larger than one million dollars. Twenty of the 29 gifts (a full sum of $122.5 million) are for the athletics department, for a total of $94.108 million.

As the offseason continues to churn along in Norman, the Sooners believe that the additions of Denny, Witten, and Manninger, a shakeup of the strength and conditioning leadership, and the retention or reshuffling of many other key names will help them have an even better season in 2026, as the program hopes to make a return trip to the College Football Playoff.

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This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Oklahoma adding new member to strength staff this offseason