Oklahoma General Manager Jim Nagy Sept. 7 — New Sooner Additions

All right, I'm here to answer any questions on the roster. Nothing Michigan related. No use that to coach. Just with these roster ads, I'll answer any questions you got. But you talked about adding a report guy. Looking for, what does it mean to your program? Yeah, I'll start off by saying a couple of things. One, we did everything by book, OK? So constant contact with the SEC, the administration. You know, when it initially came out three weeks ago, the Colorado ruling, was that a month ago, maybe? You know, just looking for a way to improve the football team. So I'm trying to process what I'm going to say here. Yeah, just looking, you know, constant contact with the SEC, trying to upgrade the football team. We weren't going to ever cut any players, I'll say that. That was never a consideration. And just looking to upgrade the team, you know, it's a violent sport. Excuse me, I need the water. It's a violent sport. It's a long season. And we are happy about what we did. What allowed you to bring on this extra? You know, can you talk at all about the things that are going on behind the scenes that allowed you to bring these guys? Yeah, we had their roster plots. Jim, specifically, what stood out about those two guys, Yeah, like Danny's played in the SEC, we knew that. Strong guy, got better over the course of last season. Played his best game against Texas. Big, strong guy at the point of attack. Good run downs player. He was really the first one, because he's part of that first Colorado court ruling. And yeah, just a guy to add depth. Yeah, Braxton's a slippery guy. Really good with his hands. Disruptive, can get in the backfield. Good scheme fit. You know, one thing I will say with all these guys, like we had a lot of time to vet these guys. With people in the NFL that had scouted them last year, making sure they were really good culture fits, that was really important to us as well. Because we really like where the team's at chemistry wise, culture wise, leadership wise, and didn't want to do anything to disrupt that. So we were very mindful of that through the whole process. And so yeah, we felt good about both those guys. But they're both good scheme fits. And you'll see Braxton when he's out here. He's quick, he's slippery. Jim, going off that, how much of the conversation was just about bringing guys in this late into the process, into the locker room? What were those conversations like with the guys? Yeah, they were with Brent and the position coaches as well. You know, just because that was at the top of mind. Like, what are we going to do with this year's team? Those were the conversations. Like, what are we adding to the room? Just making sure, being clear about that, being sure about that. You know, and then the position coaches, once we made the decision, they felt good about adding guys to the room. They felt like the room was in a good spot first. So yeah, there was a lot of those conversations. Is that like one of those things where you are having to talk a lot more to each other? Because there's so many different things happening. You hear about one team might have an NFL player coming back, and you have a league office saying this about bringing those guys back. I mean, it seems like there would have been constant conversations about what you were going to do. Yeah, a couple of our guys were in rookie minicamps. But that's an injury waiver. That's not a contract. So we were actually talking to a couple of CFL players. And when the SEC put out their statement about no pro contracts, we called those agents immediately, told them we're out. We're never going to do that. But there was a lot of conversations, going all the way back to the initial Colorado ruling. Got to give Coach Venables a lot of praise here. I mean, that was our last weekend off before the season started. And we jumped in that Friday, Saturday, Sunday, working through the weekend, watching tape, sending e-mails back and forth to each other. So yeah, it was, I mean, give him a lot. I don't know how many head coaches would do that on their last weekend off. How much of this? We obviously saw Danny Friday night. Yeah. But with regard to the other three, Yeah, those, yeah, the other guys are probably closer to being ready. And it took Danny a little bit of time, because he showed up really underweight from what he played at at Arkansas. So that's been a little bit of a process. But we're not going to rush them out there. They're going to have to learn and more than anything, be physically ready. But they've got a seven-day acclimation period here during the week. So we'll get them out there when they're ready. How much of that, bringing them in, does it help you special teams-wise, take them kind of off, take them, like just some of the starters that those reps accumulate? Yeah, there's a lot of value there on special teams. So between Southard and another player that we could add, there's over 700 special team snaps coming into this roster. So that's huge. When you get a lot of starters on special teams, you bring in two guys who've played that much, and you know they can do it. Yeah, there's a lot of value there. You mentioned that you guys have been in contact with a number of state health plans up to four days before tomorrow. Is the door open for anything else at that time? No. No, that's it. Jim, you mentioned the flexible. But how receptive was Roger and the administration when that bulletin came down? They were great. No, the administration was great. Again, we're going to be aggressive to upgrade this roster all the time. But no, they were unbelievable to work with. You mentioned the acclimation period. Yeah, just getting them in shape, first of all. Because they've been working out. But it's different than what they're going to be doing here. And then learning the defense and learning the system. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, that's a huge part of it. And then just getting them around the guys, getting them comfortable. But they got up today in front of the team. And again, this is a really player-driven team and veteran team. So they've embraced them. Jim, what has been the team's reaction to adding that assistant coach? It's been great. You know, Danny's been, Danny's been, it feels like Danny's been here for a long time. You know, we would have added these players in the portal if they would have been available. You know, like they just weren't. If they were, we would have been on these guys last December if we knew they were available. But they just weren't because of the, you know, being 2022. Did you have a sense that this kind of ruling might go down with the 5-for-5 coming into play? We did a little bit. Yeah, that's why we had some roster spots. I don't know about that. But no, it does feel weird to add players in September when we've already played a game. So I get that. You know, I don't know what fans think about it. But again, my job is to make this the best roster I can make it. So it's a unique opportunity. Probably won't have it again. I wouldn't think so. But who knows where we are right now in college football. We'll see. But, yeah, we just, we were going to be aggressive with it. You know, I mean, again, violent sport, long season. We never know what's going to happen. Yeah, when we knew, you know, what position groups we were going to target and the possibilities, I went to those leaders and said, you know, what would it look like in your room? Like, what do you think the guys would, you know, how they would take it? It was good, but I wasn't going to answer that. But, yeah, it was awesome. Oh, and roster stuff. Those guys were great. Those tight ends were great. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun seeing those guys. Yeah, I'll give Charlie Parkinson his own credit. You know, he worked his tail off. You know, just from that initial ruling, just getting the list of 2022s and who that might be and then just to whittle that thing down. I mean, there's a lot of players. I don't know what the exact number was, but there's a lot of players. So, and then just getting multiple eyeballs on them and our staff and then getting the coaches once we've whittled it down. Very similar to our high school process, really. You know, just keeping them out of it until we got our list and then got their eyes on it and then ultimately coach.