CFB analyst breaks down Jim Nagy's role in Oklahoma amid evolving GM position

The Oklahoma Sooners have a new general manager in Jim Nagy. However, his situation might offer a new wrinkle to the GM position in college football as it holds one major difference from the same position at other schools.

Because the head coach is usually responsible for recruiting and filling coaching staff positions, the GM usually responds to him. However, things would work differently in Norman, as Jim Nagy, a former Senior Bowl executive, would report to Joe Castiglione, the athletic director at Oklahoma.

On3 college football analyst Andy Staples explained how that would make his job completely different from that of other new GMs on “Andy and Ari On3."

“It sounds like the Jim Nagy job is much more similar to the traditional NFL GM job where, for example, the (Chicago) Bears, they fired Matt Nagy, no relation, they go hire Ben Johnson as their head coach but Ryan Poles remains the GM, and Ryan Poles had a hand in choosing the new head coach,” Andy Staples said (11:25).

As Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables enters a key year in Norman, reporting to Catiglione would allow Nagy to have independence from Venables' fate. It could also mean that the GM would have a say in personnel decisions, namely allocating resources for adding talent to the roster.

While Staples and co-host Ari Wasserman believe Jim Nagy will reach out to Venables and try to work along with him, the decision puts the head coach in a precarious position.

“The GM is not answering directly to the coach and the GM would be around if the head coach were to be fired almost feels like it’s undermining the position of the head coach to me,” Ari Wasserman said.

By implementing this structure, Oklahoma is doing things differently from what is accustomed to college football, which also means there are some questions surrounding the responsibilities of each position.

Jim Nagy, part of college football’s new experimentation

For Andy Staples, college football is entering a new era regarding personnel decisions and the GM position. With changes like NIL and the transfer portal, schools are scrambling to fit into the new reality of college football.

That also means teams are more likely to experiment trying to find the best model, which should lead to different types of personnel staff hirings, like Jim Nagy.

“I think you are going to see a lot of experimentation about how to handle this. I just talked about Florida hiring somebody. Their model is going to be different than the one Oklahoma is using. But USC just hired somebody. Their model is going to be different too. But, it’s going to be fascinating to watch…

“The thing I like about Jim and this job is Jim is a very curious person by nature and he is not going to come in and say ‘I know how thos job should be, it should look exactly like John Schneider’s job with the Seahawks.’ Now it’s going to be ‘here are all the different experiences I’ve had , Here what I’ve noticed over the past few years dealing with people on both sides of this equation,” Andy Staples said.

Different teams across the country are likely to keep an eye on the Sooners' situation and how it turns out a few years down the road.