Monday morning, the world of the Oklahoma Sooners was rocked by the sudden retirement announcement of longtime athletic director Joe Castiglione. Castiglione, 67, will serve his tenure for the rest of the upcoming academic year, before officially stepping down.

These next few months will be a crucial search for his replacement. The success Castiglione brought to Oklahoma athletics is completely unprecedented in Sooners' history, and finding someone who can manage to match that will be difficult, but needed, as Oklahoma begins its future in the SEC.

After speaking to some sources, here's a way-too-early look at potential candidates to replace Castiglione as the Sooners' next athletic director. 

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Zac Selmon, Mississippi State Athletic Director

While I don't want to ever say there is something like an "early favorite" for a job that should be a deliberate search…Selmon does feel like the early favorite. 

Selmon had been a longtime member of Oklahoma Athletics under Castiglione, rising up the ranks from a graduate assistant all the way to deputy athletics director in less than ten years. After serving with the Sooners for over a decade, Selmon was hired as the athletic director at Mississippi State in 2023.

He quickly got to work. 

Throughout Selmon’s first 20 months leading the department, Mississippi State’s athletics programs have achieved tremendous success. Eight of the Bulldogs’ sport programs earned national rankings during the 2023-24 athletic year. Women’s golf won the 2024 SEC Championship, men’s basketball secured a second straight NCAA bid, softball earned its highest ranking in program history at No. 11, soccer made history by reaching the Sweet Sixteen for the first time, men’s tennis reached the Sweet Sixteen for the fourth time in the last five years, baseball finished top-five in the SEC and reached the NCAA Tournament, while men’s and women’s golf won NCAA Regionals to make MSU one of only two schools in the country last season to accomplish that mark. 

Selmon also led a new facilities investment chapter, which has already seen volleyball, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball transform their locker room and recovery spaces. Selmon built Mississippi State’s first-ever Student-Athlete Brand Services and Business Development team to bolster the Bulldogs' NIL efforts on a national level. Most recently, Selmon helped land an $8 million gift toward the newly launched State Excellence Fund, the Mississippi State Athletics fund of the future. 

He was groomed for success under Castiglione for years, and is intimately familiar with the Sooners. While the search should be a long and comprehensive one, it's hard not to think of it as Selmon's job until it isn't.

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Wren Baker, West Virginia Vice President and Director of Athletics

If there is a strong challenger to Selmon, Wren Baker's name has popped up as a strong contender for this job. 

An Oklahoma native from Valliant, Baker cut his teeth across schools in the region, working at Rogers State University, Northwest Missouri State, Memphis, and Missouri before being named North Texas's athletic director in 2016. Under his leadership, the Mean Green won 17 conference or division championships. In 2019, every Mean Green team achieved a winning season for the first time in school history.

Baker led record fundraising years at North Texas as the school registered its four best fundraising years in its history, and the overall top five largest gifts ever at UNT came under Baker’s leadership. He guided North Texas athletics to a school record for fundraising in a single year, nearly doubling the previous department record.

North Texas's ticket revenue increased by 125% under Baker, and football attendance grew by 71%, while mens' and womens' basketball crowds grew by more than 60%. At North Texas, he also created new 20-year facilities master plan and deals for multimedia rights, licensing, apparel, and equipment. As an athletic director, he led 16 head coaching searches, and his hires had a combined 70% winning percentage. 

Baker also led the charge to renovate eight different UNT athletic facilities, while spearheading the design and fundraising for three new facilities including a track and field/soccer stadium, golf practice facility and an indoor practice building. 

One of the biggest moments in the history of North Texas Athletics came under his watch, when UNT was invited to join the American Athletic Conference beginning in July 2023.

At West Virginia, Baker's success has continued. He's already hired five new head coaches and begun the steps to renovate each facility for the Mountaineers. Praised for his energy and work ethic, Baker led West Virginia's second-best fundraising numbers ever last year. 

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Kirby Hocutt, Texas Tech Athletic Director

Hocutt might be more of a distant third here, but it's important to take note of his connections to Oklahoma. 

Hocutt worked under Castiglione from 1999 to 2005 as the associate athletics director for external operations and sports administration. At Oklahoma, he led the athletics fundraising to a then all-time high with both the Capital and Annual Giving campaigns. Oklahoma's annual giving went from $3.4 million to more than $17 million, making it the highest percent increase in intercollegiate athletics history.

A $100 million capital campaign for Oklahoma Athletics was led by the leadership of Hocutt. The campaign focused on facility construction and improvements to Oklahoma's 20 intercollegiate sport programs.

After his tenure at Oklahoma, Hocutt took over as the athletic director at Ohio University. Hocutt increased fundraising by more than 75 percent and also secured the second-largest gift to athletics in school history. During his three-year tenure, the athletics department won 11 team championships, and four head coaches were honored as coaches of the year. The football team played in its first bowl game in 38 years, and season ticket sales increased by 112%. Additionally, basketball season ticket sales increased by 50%.

In 2008, Hocutt took the same job at Miami, where he oversaw plenty of facility renovations before resigning after troubling accusations involving a potential Ponzi Scheme at Miami. 

Since then, he has served as the athletic director at Texas Tech, making waves in recent years with NIL success, highlighted by their most recent national championship appearance in softball and some unprecedented recruiting success for football over the past several months.

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Marcus Bowman, Oklahoma Deputy Athletic Director

If the Sooners are aiming for an internal hire, Bowman's name makes a ton of sense. 

Bowman joined the Sooners in 2020 and serves as their deputy athletic director for business development and revenue generation. 

In this role, Bowman is responsible for driving strategy for business and financial operations, including revenue generation and expenses monitoring. He has executive oversight over business and finance, ticket sales and operations, NIL, Sooner Sports Properties (OU’s multimedia rightsholder), analytics and information technology, and is the department’s liaison to the OU Foundation. He is the primary sport administrator for the men’s basketball program and served as the department lead on a proposed $1 billion publicly and privately funded entertainment district. 

Prior to OU, Bowman was the senior associate athletics director and chief financial officer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Bowman played a key role in the Rebels' fiscal coordination and formed part of the team that worked with the Las Vegas Raiders to move UNLV into Allegiant Stadium. 

While he doesn't quite have the same degree of success as others on this list do, he's a hot rising name at Oklahoma, and he's been in lockstep with Joe Castiglione over the last few years.