Oklahoma announced the hiring of Washington State's Ben Arbuckle as its new offensive coordinator on Monday, and it might be the second biggest move the football program makes this week.
On Tuesday, OU announced the hiring of former AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson as executive advisor to the president and AD to oversee the university's implementation of the oncoming $20 million House payments to athletes and all that entails.
An Oklahoma City native who earned his Master's of accounting from Oklahoma, Stephenson will take on the role for free. While not all details were explicitly laid out, Stephenson will work with the athletics department and the football program to hammer out how Sooners athletics and Sooner football works in a post-House world.
As AD Joe Castiglione wrote in a letter to supporters announcing the hire:
He will help guide us into restructuring our budget for this new world of college sports and into developing a football structure with elements similar to professional sports teams. This includes building out a more expansive General Manager function and developing a dynamic model that will allow OU Football to become a national gold-standard around talent acquisition, portal management, and player development.
Gabe Ikard, a former Sooners lineman who now works on the OU football radio crew, tweeted this on Tuesday.
Randall Stephenson will essentially serve the role of NFL team president. He’ll oversee the GM, scouting staff, sports medicine, sports science & S&C. It will allow OU’s coaches to focus on football & player development.
— Gabe Ikard (@GabeIkard) December 3, 2024
We’ll go more into detail on Thursday’s @OK_Breakdown.
On the heels of Stanford's hiring of Andrew Luck as general manager, the football program at major universities has become so big that it will ultimately make coaches' list of responsibilities smaller.
AT&T's annual revenue topped out north of $180 billion in Stephenson's tenure. When one operates at that level of business management, re-organizing a $200 million athletics department qualifies as a fun, stress-free retirement gig.