Blatant Homerism: Offseason Progress Report - Coaches
With spring practice right around the corner, now seems like a good opportunity to take stock of developments for the Oklahoma Sooners since their season ended in December. We’ll break things down along two dimensions – coaches and personnel – with an eye towards how the program has performed relative to expectations.
Let’s start off with the changes to the coaching staff.
Tight ends
Heading into the offseason, OU clearly needed to address the woeful management and development of its tight ends. Joe Jon Finley received his walking papers after five years on the staff as a result. (He landed last month as an offensive assistant at Texas State.) That cleared a spot for one of the more intriguing assistant additions in all of college football during the latest cycle with the Sooners hiring future NFL Hall of Famer Jason Witten.
No one can question Witten’s bonafides when it comes to playing TE. Will that translate over to his coaching acumen? Witten has a stint as a high school head coach in Texas on his resume, but he’s a blank slate as a position coach. To be determined, in other words.
Despite the lack of a track record, the name of the former Dallas Cowboys star at least carries weight on the recruiting trail. The Sooners landed a commitment over the weekend from possibly the best TE prospect in the 2027 recruiting cycle, Seneca Driver. OU has lacked that kind of juice at TE for the better part of a decade.
Evaluation: Meets expectations.
The TE position almost has to get better by default in 2026 – Finley set the bar that low. OU should expect more than mere improvement, however, at the position. Given that we have nothing to go on, getting an idea for the TEs’ floor with Witten’s tutelage is impossible. The early returns in recruiting suggest the ceiling has grown significantly, on the other hand.
The bet here is that Witten will ultimately prove to be a strong addition to the staff, but we’ll temper our assessment in the meantime.
Running backs
While few would question the need for a change in the TE room at OU, the status of the running backs coach was trickier.
A star in his own right as an RB for the Sooners and in the NFL, everything about DeMarco Murray looked the part of an elite position coach. His first three seasons on the staff saw OU produce two thousand-yard rushers in Kennedy Brooks and Eric Gray, but performance at the position dropped off dramatically deeper into his tenure. Despite landing top-tier recruiting hauls every year, Murray’s prowess in the talent-acquisition game wasn’t translating to the actual games.
Interestingly, Murray remained a hot name in coaching circles, and none of the chatter coming out of OU indicated the program wanted to move on from him this year. Murray made that call for the Sooners earlier this year when his annual flirtations with other teams turned into a new job with the Kansas City Chiefs.
OU made the best of the situation in landing Deland McCullough as Murray’s replacement. Although McCullough lacks his predecessor’s name recognition, he has pro experience and can point to a track record of developing college stars into NFL draft picks. He’ll add to that list in April when Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love hears his name called during the first round.
Evaluation: Exceeds expectations.
An unanticipated opening on the coaching staff usually implies the replacement will be a downgrade. Not so here. McCullough‘s history of evaluating and developing RBs on the college level makes him an instant upgrade over Murray.
Happy accident for OU.
Cornerbacks
Not so long ago, some members of Sooner Nation would have helped Jay Valai pack his bags to leave OU for the Buffalo Bills. This now feels like a tough loss after witnessing the upward trajectory of the CBs currently on the roster.
Valai started his tenure at OU coaching a hodgepodge of transfers from the bargain bin and underdeveloped prospects from the previous regime. Things started to click for the unit in 2024, and the corners blossomed into standouts last year. Junior Eli Bowen and sophomore Courtland Guillory played key roles in giving the Sooners one of the more effective pass defenses in the country. They will now make up one of the better duos at CB in the country in ‘26.
It is up to new CBs coach LaMar Morgan to help them continue that ascent. More importantly, Morgan will need to manage a room that doesn’t have much depth. With nearly 15 years under his belt as a college assistant, Morgan isn’t hurting for experience as a coach in such a situation. Experience and accomplishment aren’t the same thing, though.
Evaluation: Below expectations.
Compared with the other two newcomers to OU’s staff, Morgan doesn’t offer much flash: Fourteen years of bouncing around the coaching ranks – primarily at mediocre programs like Vanderbilt and Louisiana-Lafayette – won’t bowl anyone over. Most recently, Morgan served as defensive backs coach and defensive pass game coordinator at Michigan in 2024 and 2025. Given Michigan’s reputation as a defensive powerhouse, that sounds like a big deal. The reality is that the Wolverines had some shaky moments on the back end in the last two years.
On the plus side, Morgan does have a couple years as a defensive coordinator at Louisiana-Lafayette in 2022 and 2023 under his belt. Experience looking at how the pieces of a defense should all fit together can help make a position coach more effective in terms of carrying out his responsibilities. Morgan also locked up some solid recruits for the Wolverines, which provides some hope that he can do the same at OU.
Brent Venables has shown a good eye for coaching talent on the defensive side of the ball so far at OU. Let’s hope that bears out with Morgan.
Kevin Wilson
The assistant head coach for offense merits a special section of his own. While new blood has been a theme with the changes to OU’s staff this year, Wilson’s promotion from analyst to a more senior role represents a case of Venables continuing to lean on the familiar.
In light of his track record as an offensive coordinator at OU, there’s little doubt about Wilson’s acumen in terms of Xs and Os. Clearly, he has something to offer when it comes to drawing up an offense. However, his reputation as a relic of bygone era in relations between players and coaches has made him a questionable fit for a senior position on this staff.
In theory, giving Wilson more responsibility seems like a no-brainer, especially if he’s working on overhauling OU’s running game. So long as personality clashes don’t arise, it should work well. But let’s acknowledge this move comes with risks.