Legendary Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione plans to retire, according to a report from ESPN's Pete Thamel, leaving a major void in Norman. Castiglione has been the AD for the Sooners since 1998.
In his tenure in Norman, the Sooners have produced 25 National Championships. He famously hired Bob Stoops as his first major move as the program's AD, and Stoops went on an extremely successful run in Norman, which included the 2000 National Championship.
Castiglione leaves behind big shoes to fill. He was a highly successful and highly respected administrator, and finding someone who can live up to what he built will not be an easy task.
Just like the coaching carousel, we could see an athletic director carousel that gets started following the retirement of Castiglione. Oklahoma is a coveted job in college sports, not just because of a historically good football program, but a history of success in plenty of other sports, most notably a dominant softball program.
The Sooners will attract plenty of suitors, but these three programs should be the most unsettled.
The three programs most likely to lose their AD to Oklahoma
Mississippi State
The leading candidate this early in the process is Mississippi State AD Zac Selmon. Not many administrators in the country have more direct ties to Norman than Selmon, and he'll be at the top of the board as Oklahoma goes through the process to replace Castiglione.
Selmon has spent 13 years as an administrator with the Sooners, serving a variety of roles. He left Oklahoma after five years in 2014 for a job at North Carolina but quickly returned to Norman as the Associate AD in 2015. He was promoted to Deputy Athletic Director in 2021, a position he held until taking the Mississippi State AD job in 2023.
Selmon is an Oklahoma legacy, too. He's the son of former Sooner Dewey Selmon, and the nephew of Lee Roy Selmon, who parlayed a brilliant career in Norman to becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 1976 NFL Draft.
Selmon is the heavy favorite to be Oklahoma's next AD.
West Virginia
West Virginia AD Wren Baker is a native of Oklahoma and could be intrigued by a potential opportunity to return home with the Sooners job open. Baker is a graduate of Southeastern Oklahoma State and earned a Master's degree from Oklahoma State.
Baker is well respected for the job he has done in Morgantown. Baker took over as the West Virginia AD in 2022 after a stint at North Texas. He recently made the biggest move of his tenure to date, firing football coach Neal Brown and luring Rich Rodriguez back to town.
Texas Tech
Kirby Hocutt probably isn't going anywhere, but he's the type of high-profile name that you call and force to say no. Hocutt has been a revelation in Lubbock and has helped lead a seismic shift in Texas Tech's standing nationally in major sports.
Texas Tech's softball program just finished as the National Runner-Up, and there's been a significant monetary investment from boosters to the football and basketball program, which should help the Red Raiders be one of the premier programs in the Big 12.
Hocutt is a Kansas State graduate, but he earned a Master's Degree at Oklahoma and worked under Castiglione from 1999-2005 in Norman. He left to become the AD at Ohio, a position he held for three years until he took over the same job at Miami (FL). He served in that role for three years before taking the Texas Tech job, a position he has held since 2011.
Oklahoma won't be the first major program to try and lure Hocutt away from Lubbock, but they might have the juice to do it.