Joe Castiglione was a guest on the KREF 94.7 radio show with Toby Rowland on Thursday morning.
The Oklahoma athletics director, in his first public comments since his school’s announcement of a 2024 move to the Southeastern Conference, discussed details surrounding the move.
Here are some of the highlights from Castiglione’s 20-minute interview with Rowland:
Transition plans had started
Castiglione said that the initial plan for a 2025 departure to the SEC now will be accelerated.
The OU administrator said there were already internal groups looking at scheduling, travel and facility and staffing comparisons. It’s not just the big items. It was also under-the-radar items like studying graphics at facilities where logos will have to be changed.
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“It’s a pretty wide-ranging group of topics that our staff and subcommittees have been studying, comparing and analyzing over the past year-plus,” Castiglione said. “There are certain things that will obviously we will be very ready for. There are some that we will use this next year to accelerate.”
Castiglione was quick to point out that the Big 12 still remains important next season.
“We also have to keep a focus on how we’re playing in the Big 12. We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves in the wrong way. And we have to respect the conference, the quality of opponents that we’re going to face, we have some new places we’re going to travel.
“And at the end of it all, we want to put our student-athletes and our coaches and everybody in a position to be as successful as possible, including winning Big 12 championships.”
Last week, OU football coach Brent Venables talked about improving the team’s Big 12 status was first and foremost before thinking about the SEC.
Coming to 2024 agreement
The OU athletics director said the move was a very complicated process that included six different parties — Oklahoma, Texas, the Big 12, the SEC, ESPN and Fox.
From the 2021 announcement, Castiglione said OU was going to stay and honor all of the contracts, which initially ran through to August 1, 2025,
“We were in the process of doing that, but the world around us, the college athletics ecosystem, if you will, has been changing in dramatic ways and continues to change,” he said. “And we thought there very well might be a reason develop that the conference might have its own goals and objectives that they may want to have a conversation. That’s how it got initiated.
“The other two parties that were involved are those that we have contracts with. That was our major TV networks of ESPN and Fox. You try to work through a multi-layer, multi-party, sort of break-the-mold kind of process because we were unlike a lot of other schools. We were staying through our contracts instead of trying to get out immediately.
“It just took a lot of effort by a lot of people. That’s really the testament of how you get something like that done. Everybody working together. Our administration, President (Joe) Harroz, a lot of the folks at the Big 12 including Commissioner (Brett) Yormark, President (Jay) Hartzell and (athletics director) Chris Del Conte at the University of Texas and, of course, the leaders at ESPN and Fox. Everybody worked together to thread those needles that had to be addressed to make it palatable for all and I think it’s a fair resolution for all.”
Kyler Murray statue unveiling
Castiglione confirmed that former quarterback Kyler Murray will have his statue unveiled during the April 22 spring football game.
Last year, Baker Mayfield’s statue was placed at Heisman Park.
The game drew 75,000 fans last April and the program is aiming to have another large crowd.
“I think everybody surprised themselves last year and they got there and realized ‘this is awesome,’” Castiglione said. “We had more former players come back than ever before and I’ve heard from so many of them either during that weekend or since that they had a great time.
“We expect another big turnout and, of course, we’re planning to unveil Kyler Murray’s Heisman statue.”
OU-Texas in afternoon?
Del Conte, during an interview earlier this week, mentioned that he wanted a 2:30 p.m. time slot for the annual OU-Texas game.
The game has had an 11 a.m. start dating back to the 2018 season.
“If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it thousands and thousands of times how much our fans love the Red River game at 2:30,” Castiglione said. “That’s what they got used to for decades … that’s what everyone loves and that’s what gives them a chance to make a weekend out of it. We think that would be a great time slot.
“That being said, I don’t know that it will stay in that time slot permanently. I’m still learning more and more about the new television agreements inside the SEC and, with ESPN as their full partner, there’s going to be a number of exciting things develop.
“Now the one thing that we have said forever is we won’t move that game to prime time … that’s just not going to happen. There’s too much going on around the state fair to play that game at night. So it has to be either 11 or 2:30. But I do agree that 2:30 would be the ideal thing depending on how things work out.”
Future SEC schedules
Castiglione understands there’s a lot of chatter about whether there will be a nine SEC conference game added once OU and Texas enter the league.
“This is a very tedious and important process,” he said. “So I don’t want to speculate as to where it’s going to land. It will land where it’s supposed to land to strengthen all the members’ teams as best as they can and give the membership the best chance to have great seasons and pursue a spot in the College Football Playoff.”