Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione is renowned as one of the best in the business and has been in his position with the Sooners since July 1998.
As one of the longest-tenured athletic directors in the country, there’s not a lot that “Joe C” hasn’t seen in his day. That’ll happen when you’ve been on the job for 26 years.
One of the biggest aspects of an athletic director’s job—particularly at a place like Oklahoma—is hiring the head football coach.
Castiglione’s first hire to lead the Sooners’ program was a young man by the name of Bob Stoops, who was previously the defensive coordinator at Florida under Steve Spurrier.
That hire proved to be one of the most important in Oklahoma football’s legacy. In his second season, Stoops led the Sooners to the 2000 National Championship and went on to lead his team to a 191-48 (.799) record over an 18-year career.
When Stoops stepped down from his post after the 2016 season, Castiglione seemed to strike gold again by promoting Lincoln Riley, a young, talented offensive coordinator for the Sooners.
Riley would go on to lead the Sooners to three consecutive 12-2 seasons, each capped with Big 12 Championships, and over five seasons, a combined 55-10.
However, following a loss to Oklahoma State in the final regular season game of the 2021 season, Riley became the most-hated man in the Sooner State by leaving for the USC job just hours after insisting that he wasn’t going anywhere.
After information started to leak out following the move, it became evident that at least part of Riley’s reason for leaving was the fact that OU was set to enter the SEC, which became official on Monday.
As Oklahoma celebrated its new membership on the SEC Network on Monday afternoon, Castiglione joined the ESPN crew for a live interview on set. While answering a question about the Sooners’ move to the SEC, Castiglione went “scorched earth” on Riley, and while no name was mentioned, it was very clear who he was referring to.
Check it out.
Castiglione, who always maintains a professional attitude, seemed to peel the curtain back just a little bit here and boy did it catch some traction with the OU fan base.
Now, a few years later, the dust has settled, and Oklahoma finds itself under the leadership of Brent Venables — which Sooner Nation couldn’t be more happy with.
