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Joe Castiglione helped the Sooners usher in a new era on Monday, when his athletic department officially became members of the Southeastern Conference. It was a move that was, according to Castiglione and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, a decade in the making.
At a press conference Monday afternoon — sandwiched within a day-long celebration of the move — Sankey, Castiglione, and OU president Joseph Harroz Jr. stood in front of a crimson backdrop emblazoned with OU and SEC logos to discuss their new shared world.
Sankey said he presented SEC presidents and chancellors with an analysis of the future of college athletics way back in 2015.
“Two conclusions that we reached that governed all of it — The University of Oklahoma must be in a place to win championships in all the sports,” Harroz said, per The Oklahoman. “Second is we wanted to remain among the handful of athletic departments in the country that weren’t subsidized.”
The financial windfall afforded to SEC members has been well-documented. We don’t need to spend more time there.
On the first point, the Sooners just won a fourth consecutive national championship in softball. That program and the baseball program will be challenged in new ways in the SEC and they’ll both be made better for it. The basketball program will be forced to invest if it wants to remain competitive.
And the football program will be in a conference that delivers national championships in bunches.
The cream rises to the top.
OU went to the CFP 3 straight years under its previous head coach, Lincoln Riley, but it fared worse and worse as the years went on. The Sooners lost to Georgia in the 2017 semis, blowing a 31-17 halftime lead and losing in double-overtime. They fell behind Alabama 28-0 to begin the 2018 semis and eventually lost by 9. And they trailed LSU 49-14 at the half in their 2019 semifinal appearance.
The Sooners haven’t won a national championship since 2000.
In the 12-team College Football Playoff, OU has access to a national championship even if it loses 3 regular-season games. The SEC will regularly put multiple teams into the field, and a consistently challenging schedule will help — not hurt — the Sooners both in terms of program development and in the selection committee’s meeting rooms. Had OU remained in the Big 12, the margin for error wouldn’t have been what it is now.
Forward-thinking leaders — a category Castiglione falls into — saw necessary steps worth taking. And most of Castiglione’s coaches were on board.
Most.
“I will tell you without reservation every coach that we talked to was excited (about the move),” Castiglione said Monday during an appearance on the SEC Network. “And, you know what, the ones that weren’t aren’t here anymore.”
Joe C just went scorched earth on a former #Sooners coach about the SEC move. This via SEC Now on SEC Network. pic.twitter.com/rDfY91HEqC
— Dylan Buckingham (@DylanBuckingham) July 1, 2024
Added Castiglione: “This is Oklahoma. Get with it or get on with it.”
Lincoln Riley got on with it. And we’ve all seen what has happened with his career since.
Riley took over the Sooners’ program after longtime head coach Bob Stoops retired. He went 45-8 over his first 4 seasons with 4 straight conference titles and 3 CFP berths. But close evaluators of the program warned that Riley’s teams were getting worse the further removed from Stoops they became.
In 2021, Riley’s team lost to Oklahoma State in Stillwater on the final day of the regular season — snapping a 6-game winning streak in the Bedlam series and ending the Sooners’ run on Big 12 titles.
After the game, Riley shot down speculation he was leaving OU to take the then-open LSU job and said there were “no concerns” about the administration, the AD, or the president in place at OU. Hours later, Riley accepted the USC job and said in a statement the decision was “solely based on my willingness to go take on a new challenge.”
For years, OU fans have held firm to the belief that Riley left the SEC-bound Sooners for the Pac-12, that he had no interest in coaching in what many believe to be the toughest conference in football and ran for an easier route to the Playoff.
Riley led USC to the Pac-12 Championship Game in his first season in Los Angeles, bolstered by Heisman winner and OU transfer quarterback Caleb Williams. But the Trojans were embarrassed by Utah in the Pac-12 title game and then melted down in a Cotton Bowl loss to Tulane. As was the case in Norman, defensive failures were his undoing.
USC went 8-5 last season, losing 5 of its final 6 regular-season games after a 6-0 start. The defense fell apart and defensive coordinator Alex Grinch was fired.
Meanwhile, Brent Venables led the Sooners to a 10-3 mark in his second year as the program’s head coach.
While Castiglione has been incredibly selective of his words in the years since Riley’s departure, it’s obvious there are still some lingering feelings for all involved. But Oklahoma should feel better now than it did 3 years ago.
Riley’s USC program announced a move to the Big Ten months after he joined the fold. In 2024, the Trojans will face Michigan on the road, Penn State at home, and nonconference games against Notre Dame and LSU. According to Saturday Down South’s Matt Hayes, Riley even tried pulling every lever available to him to get out of the LSU game on Sept. 1.
Vegas expects the same number of wins in 2024 for Oklahoma and USC. The under on USC’s 7.5 regular-season wins at ESPN Bet has -125 odds (56% implied probability) The over on Oklahoma’s 7.5 wins at ESPN Bet has -115 odds (54% implied).
You get an interesting comparison.
USC might win more games in 2024 because it has a more experienced quarterback. OU might win more games because it has a better roster. The more important question for Castiglione is this: Is Oklahoma closer to competing for a title? Even with a younger coach, even with a tougher path year in and year out, the Sooners might have a more enviable trajectory.
The 2 programs have the same odds of winning a national championship in 2024 (+7500, via ESPN Bet). USC (+450) is viewed as more likely to make the Playoff than Oklahoma (+500) but only just.
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(For what it’s worth, ESPN’s FPI ranks the Sooners eighth and the Trojans 18th, giving OU a 37% chance to make the CFP and USC a 13.4% chance. On the latter, that’s a difference of nearly 5 percentage points between the implied odds given by ESPN’s proprietary power rating model and ESPN’s sportsbook.)
Oklahoma ranks 15th in preseason SP+ projections from Bill Connelly. USC ranks 21st. Oklahoma is balanced, with an offense and defense that both rank top-20 in SP+ projections while USC is heavily offense-leaning, ranking fifth in offensive SP+ and 87th in defensive.
If the defense once again proves to be a hindrance to USC’s trophy-lifting ability, little will have changed for Riley in his now 8 years as a head coach.
Venables faces no such criticism. And OU can consider itself better for it.
The Sooners’ 2022 class ranked 10th nationally, including eighth among all high school classes. The 2023 class ranked sixth nationally with the fifth-best high school class. The 2024 cycle brought a third consecutive top-10 high school class to Norman. And Venables is working on a top-5 class in 2025.
Riley has signed just 1 top-15 high school class so far at USC. And 2 of its top 6 members have already left Riley’s program.
These are 2 programs that seem to be moving in opposite directions. Remarkable, really, considering where things stood back in the early days of 2022. But that’s a testament to Venables.
In a moment where Castiglione had to be exactly right with whoever he hired to replace Riley, it seems he was.
“This year is obviously incredibly important. We’ve worked really hard the last couple of years trying to prepare for this moment,” Venables told Paul Finebaum on Monday. “What’s sitting in front of us right now is trying to put together the best roster that we can and have these guys as well-prepared as we can. You’re gonna figure out a lot, you’re gonna learn a lot through this transition. This isn’t as much about where we’re going as it is who we’re going in with, and it’s not as much about proving people wrong as we are trying to prove each other right.”
Venables said the SEC is the “most unforgiving league in America.” That’s something he has reiterated on multiple occasions ahead of the move, that the depth of the league is a challenge unlike what the Sooners knew in the Big 12. The margin between winning and losing is small, but that’ll serve the program in the long run.
“That’s what this program has been about for a long time,” Venables said. “We’re running towards the SEC with great expectations and excitement.”
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
