During his first two weeks in Virginia-Western in December, rich Rodríguez a little exceeded. The list of responsibilities at the time the main coach led the mountaineers very another of their first one, which began 24 years ago.
While the era of the firm of university football has passed and its open movement portal, Rodríguez without delay to recruit the first of more than 35 new players (not to mention 21 recruits of the Higher School a few days before its arrival). He planned to rent a managing director, the fashion leader of the control operation of the alignment of a program, but did not end this resolution before January.
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Meanwhile, the responsibilities of the control of the agents and the negotiations of the salaries of the players, foreigners for a coach in the early 2000s, fell on Rodríguez’s shoulders.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “I told myself:” That’s why you love other people. »
Through university football, the use of a managing director has table problems for serious systems about talent acquisition. The role of a GM can vary, however, in maximum cases, this user supervises all facets of the alignment structure: the recruitment of the secondary schools, the movement portal, the name, the symbol and the remuneration of the similarity and, once the regulations of the C. NCAA Chamber are approved, a payment by the source of the exchange of income. Some systems have prioritized hiring with the delight of the NFL to the navigation of assistance in a low season that is more professionalized for more days, in specific negotiations with the contractual negotiations and the NFL taste game retained in increasingly public forums.
In 2025, the GM has become one of the maximum athletics departments that a school can do. But university football GMs are not an invention overnight. They are a 20 -year movement of movement in progress, with the maximum roots that have been extracted from some of the maximum mythical systems in sport.
The main regulations replace the evolution of the general managers of the grunts after one of the other maximum influential people in the building. And his profile is only uploading.
“The job of the recruiters and the departments now is less about managing cookie cakes and official visits and much more about managing a $22 million salary cap,” said Matt Dudek, who as an Arizona staffer under Rodriguez in 2016 became the first in college football to hold the GM title.
Three hires in the last six months have helped bring college football GMs closer to household name status.
Stanford took a bold step by giving alumnus Andrew Luck, the former Indianapolis Colts quarterback and Heisman Trophy finalist, something no other college GM has: decision-making power over the entire football program. Luck’s control, which closely mirrors what a typical NFL GM has, became crystal clear when he announced the firing of head coach Troy Taylor last month in the wake of investigations into the coach’s “aggressive and hostile behavior” toward colleagues.
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Michael Lombardi, who arrived at North Carolina alongside Bill Belichick, brought something none of his college peers had: 30 years of experience in NFL front offices, including one as the GM.
Oklahoma made a splash in February by hiring Jim Nagy, the longtime executive director of the Senior Bowl and a former NFL exec. Nagy and the front office he constructs will work “alongside” Venables, the school announced, rather than under the head coach, as most college GMs do.
UNC is paying Lombardi $1.5 million, the highest known salary of any college football GM and more than some Group of 5 head coaches make. Oklahoma will pay Nagy $750,000, which is also on the high end for a GM. USC is believed to be paying Chad Bowden, hired from Notre Dame in January, around seven figures, while Alabama GM Courtney Morgan is getting paid $825,000 and Texas Tech GM James Blanchard surpassed $500,000 with his recent contract extension after an aggressive pursuit by Notre Dame.
Those salaries, and the hiring of Luck and Nagy by somebody other than the head coach, send a message.
“It shows that athletic directors and administrators are valuing the acquirers of talent at the level of coordinators,” said Cody Bellaire, a former recruiting staffer at LSU, Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech who now works at On3. “They see that they are one of the five most important people in those buildings.”
A few forward-thinking coaches opened the door for GMs to gain influence, Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire chief among them.
McGuire made Blanchard his first hire when he took the Texas Tech job three years ago and promised Blanchard autonomy to offer recruits or transfers without prior approval from assistant coaches or even McGuire himself. “I told him, ‘The only person in that building who can tell you “No” is me,’” McGuire said. Blanchard was long believed to be the only GM in college football with that freedom.
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To coaches who are accustomed to having the final word on every detail, it seems like heresy. McGuire shrugs it off, because the two have been together for six years and rarely disagree on evaluations.
“It’s as if I had less power. I only have one type that, I think, 100%,” McGuire said. “This is power and trust. “
It works for Texas Tech, who first signed consecutive recruitment courses of the Top 30 in 2023 and 2024. This low season, using a deep wallet and an organized approach, the Red Raiders have designed one of the main categories of the country’s movement portal. Blanchard refused to offer becoming the managing director of Notre Dame in the component due to those in Lubbock.
“The staff will have to thank McGuare’s coach,” Blanchard said. “Because if he had not expressed” yes, this is how we do, this is what I allow my staff, “I don’t know if many other people in all university’s football would be as far as now. “
But it took years to pass until now.
The first known use of the name “Director of Players” in university football, the precursor of the managing director, is the result of a Geoff Collins and Matt Rhules shared road through Dallas in Culowhee, in North Carolina, in January 2006.
The two Western Carolina attendees returned to the House of the AFCA Convention, where Georgia’s technological coach of the time, Chan Giailey, had presented Collins a task as director of the school school.
Collins sought to be a coach in the field, but also motivated FBS to return to FBS, so he took the homework but asked Gailey if he could have another title. “I don’t care what you call yourself, I just need you to come here and help us recruit,” recalls Collins Giley.
During these 2 p. m. Trip, Collins and Rhles idea about it. They saw that the NFL leaders had titles of director of the Players Workers’ Corps. “I don’t know if I even knew what it meant,” Collins joked, but that’s where DPP landed. A month later, Collins announced as a member of the yellow jackets in the newly created position.
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Collins wrote letters, organized telephone calls, controlled the recruitment and acquired the game of the game band. At that time, the regulations allowed the coaches only in the box officially evaluate and recruit the players, however, the members of the box have played key roles. Collins also helped recruit five perspectives outside the doors The typical imprint of Georgia Tech. The yellow jackets filmed in an elegance of recruitment of the TOP-15 in their first year, after not having more than 50 in the five seasons before his arrival.
Nick Saban hired Collins in Alabama in 2007 to install a non -public NFL flavor device. In Tuscaloosa, Collins went from an organization of a single guy to the Five Leader, which included a DPP assistant, Patrick Suddes (who later directed Texas, Auburn, Arizona State, Georgia Tech and Caroline Du Nord), and a postgraduate assistant, Lanza Taylor (now the main coach of the western Michigan). Collins stood out even after a season for the second coach paintings at the UCF.
In 2009, Ed MaryNowitz has become Alabama DPP at 24 and took the branch to a new level. He built an army of student staff who has prepared a film and leaked through the physical references of the specified customers through Saban. Each post coach was assigned to a student, who worked as an explorer in the region for attendees. MaryNowitz approved staff academics through the “Scout School” and caused the NFL scouts to cross the campus.
While the tide has followed a seven -year series of recruitment classes No. 1, Alabama staff personnel, either at its full time and to attendees academics, began to get work in other programs, hired through opposite coaches, with the hope of having a taste of the secret sauce or through former Saban attendees who seek in secret of Saban. The first time an assistant student won a full -time concert in another place, which paid less than $ 30,000 at that time, is a revelation.
“We told ourselves:” Santa shit, can it be a race for us? “,” Said Oregon Marshall Malchow, former member of Alabama staff. “We didn’t know that it would become anything we can do to make a living. “
Years before being the staff of the state of Ohio, Mark Pantoni has discovered his way in the recruitment workplace of Florida as a voluntary student in 2006. He presented himself every day at 6:30 a. m. and shipments ready for coaches to send to recruits. He cataloged the film and organized recruitment visits.
Pantoni did such an intelligent task that the word, despite everything, returned to Urban Meyer, who presented him with a full -time recruitment task, paying him $ 25,000. Pantoni is a component of a staff of two other people who controlled the entire recruitment operation. His ethics of paintings and his eye on the qualifiability facilitated their movement on the scale. When Meyer took over in the state of Ohio, he hired Pantoni to lead the staff, and Pantoni remains in Columbus as Ryan’s day.
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Without many companions in the industry, MaryNowitz and Pantoni trusted others, exchanging tickets and creating an obligation. In 2018, they directed the first staff and the recruitment symposium in Nashville, an agreement for industry staff. The first edition had around 70 participants, said Pantoni.
Last year, the symposium attracted more than 700 people, NFL scouts.
In order for the body of the workers’ administrators to reach the background of the recruitment personnel behind the scene with frontal frontal people, they needed chief coaches that self -employed. As vital as Saban and Meyer were in the movement of the staff, their autocratic styles meant that no one will rise so high.
Ed Orgeron had another vision. When assuming the position of LSU coach in 2016, he had its strength: recruitment and defense training, in the specific defensive line. For everything else, he is a confidant, and Austin Thomas corresponded to the bill.
“They saw film staff meetings and each coach would spend their opinion and the guy who had the last voice was Austin Thomas,” said Bellaire. “We knew it wasn’t a general array . . . and he was transparent how much it meant for the operation. “
Thomas has noticed its GM name globally, helping to administer the Program for the Contribution to the Contracting of the Operational Budget and the Control of the Alignments.
“The coach or had a vision of understanding the duration of the global university football and the control of an organization had become,” Thomas said. “It allowed to handle the facets outside the box at a higher level. “
Eight years ago, GM’s name in university football would have seemed strange. There is no movement portal or loose agency, players were not paid above the table, and recruitment still referred to the signing of 25 secondary players consisting of the year. But Thomas, Pantoni and MaryNowitz idea bigger.
“I as pioneers,” said Brian Spilbeler, vice president of Scouting Service Tracking Football, who works with the personnel departments. “They did not think it was a flash in the pan. The idea that it was there where university football is going. “
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The movement portal, instant eligibility for movements and reimbursement freedoms of the players caused an explosion in the body of the workers industry. The acquisition of talents is the maximum vital facet of the structure of the equipment.
“If you only had 10 full -time trainers who deserve to handle this, it would be impossible,” said Collins. Nineteen years after his way with Rhle, his reserved area name has become a motion in his own right.
The bets are high that never because players are paid. Ohio State spent 20 million dollars on his national championship list. Texas Tech spent more than $ 10 million in this cycle of the portal. The transfer of the seven trimester of transport is the standard. The source of the income exchange ceiling, if the camera regulations are approved, will be $ 20. 5 million for the school, which will be assigned to football.
“There is a monetary participation to get those players out of their bag,” said Texas A& M Derek Miller’s general manager.
Miller has noticed that everything evolves with the first hand. When it was the Bolera Green DPP in 2018, it was the only full -time recruitment staff in the department. Now supervises an operation of another 35 people in A&M, with a dozen full -time teachers and 23 students. Evaluate and supervise recruitment, but talking to agents and negotiating contracts is your most sensible priority.
“Work is much more avant -garde than ever,” he said. “The role of managing director is all 0 and contractual conversations and the portal (like anything). “
Will we see more other people with the force that Stanford has given luck? His rival program, Cal, has donors who are not easy for Ron Rive, former NFL chief coach that the Bears hired as GM, gave a force, according to Sfgate.
Some are skeptics about the hiring of a GM other than the main coach. Malchow said he and Oregon Dan Lanning’s coach are attached. “I would hate being on a stage where I think I check to replace what it does,” said Malchow. “In university football, the main coach is the king. “
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But Cooper Petagna, a former Washington and Oregon DPP that is now running for 247Sports, said the balance of powers is moving more to the environment. If a training replacement occurs, this does not necessarily mean that the non -public device will replace. “I think it’s intelligent,” he said. “Now he has an insurance and continuity policy when a new coach comes into play. “
Dudek said: “I think it works, it will be the new path. “
Existing and old GM are surprised through the speed with which everything has changed. A decade ago, the players’ staff debate of schools meant providing a general assistance position and giving athletes 3 foods a day. And now, “the children have Lamborghini in the parking lot,” Dudek said.
Although the hiring of a GM may seem like a tendency to the taste of the moment, it is the product of a long -term evolution.
“GM’s rise has been greater for almost a decade,” said Spilbeler. “He just didn’t call that. “
Rodríguez, who led before GMS or even DPPs existed in university football, can no longer believe that running without one. In an evolving sport quickly, they do not go anywhere.
“This genius does not return to the bottle,” he said. “It has one of the key positions and will probably continue to be so. “
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photos: David Madison, Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)