West Virginia steals from Oklahoma again

Maybe Rich Rodriguez is trying to model West Virginia after Oklahoma.

Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports and 247Sports reported Friday that West Virginia is hiring Oklahoma assistant general manager Chuck Lillie as its general manager.

This is the second time Rodriguez has stolen someone from the Sooners' football staff since becoming the head coach (again) at West Virginia on Dec.12. Rodriguez first hired former OU co-defensive coordinator and linebacker coach Zac Alley on Dec. 28 to be his assistant head coach and defensive coordinator.

Alley and Rodriguez had history, though. Alley was Rodriguez's defensive coordinator at Jacksonville State for two years before going to OU for one season. The two were then reunited after a year apart.

Lillie was also part of OU's football support staff for just one season as assistant general manager. Brent Venables brought Lillie to Norman from Kansas State, where he was a scouting analyst for four years.

Before then, though, Lillie went to college at Clemson, where his career began while Venables was still the Tigers' defensive coordinator. He served as a defensive graduate student under Venables when Clemson won a national title in 2018.

Former Sooner linebacker Curtis Lofton is OU's general manager and who Lillie worked under while at OU. Lofton got the role just last year. According to OU's website, Lofton's duties include "develop and implement comprehensive recruitment strategies, leveraging data-driven insights and industry best practices to identify promising prospects and personnel operations, as well as roster management and scouting initiatives."

Most college football programs now have general managers in the new age of NIL. Former AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson also volunteered to serve as Executive Advisor to the President and the Athletics Director to help OU athletics become more like a pro sports franchise.