Oklaoma football: Chip Viney hire a homerun for OU
Oklahoma’s recent hiring of Chip Viney as a 10th assistant coach and recruiting analyst is nothing short of a homerun.
Viney has experience on the Oklahoma staff as a graduate assistant and former quality control coach and meshes perfectly with Riley’s young, hungry and dynamic coaching staff.
Everyone loved Viney’s predecessor in the role Eric Striker. He approached the role with the same vigor and intensity that made him an overachieving all-time Sooner great at his position (his voice over work on Oklahoma athletic department videos was also pretty spectacular). His departure to play football in the CFL left a significant hole in the OU coaching staff, but Viney fills that role with aplomb.
A homecoming
In a press release from the University of Oklahoma, Viney mentions the word “home” and “family”.
“It means a lot to me to come back to family,” Viney said in the release, “I mean from the head ball coach to the Sooner faithful. Being away for a year and a half and gaining the experience that I did, I’d never trade that. But this is home. We are excited to come back and rejoin the family.”
Viney wasn’t an OU player or even an undergraduate at Oklahoma, but he did develop as a coach and recruiter there. He was under the learning tree of guys like Riley, Cale Gundy, Kerry Cooks and Jay Norvell – who thought enough of Viney to make him one of his first hires when he became head coach at Nevada.
Bob Stoops – who originally brought him on as a graduate assistant – had rave reviews for Viney’s prospects, according to the Daily Oklahoman. Clearly not a bad endorsement. Viney has OU DNA.
The Cali connection
Oklahoma has become a major recruiting player in California and Viney – a former cornerback at UCLA – will only make that better. Viney grew up in Fresno, which also happens to be where former five-star recruit and current Oklahoma linebacker Caleb Kelly is from, something also mentioned by the Daily Oklahoman.
Just as Shane Beamer’s recent hire increased Oklahoma’s brand recognition to the east, Viney does the same to the west. In this age of the internet and virtually every college football game being broadcast across the country, a program must be a national recruiting brand to be successful. Viney’s increases that brand.