Not every college football program has a general manager. It’s not clear whether some necessarily want one, either. And the responsibilities of the role vary dramatically from school to school.

But make no mistake, it’s a job that carries a lot of power and a job that is in high demand.

“They see that it is, at the end of the day, the most important title in the building outside of the head coach,” said a Power 4 personnel director who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity so he could speak candidly. “I think a lot of people are enamored with that.”

The combination of the transfer portal and name, image and likeness has turned roster maintenance into an everyday exercise as opposed to one that needs to be addressed seasonally. And as of last Friday, schools can pay student-athletes directly. As a result, running a college football program is an all-encompassing (and overwhelming) task that has increased the need for general managers.

On a national scale, the general manager role is still evolving and largely undefined, but its potential for influence is great and only growing. Who other than a head coach is interacting with donors and alums, the administration, the coaching staff, the current roster, agents, and high school players and their families?

“It’s like what head coaches in college football have been forever,” a second Power 4 personnel director said. “Head coaches have always been the CEO, and now, because of this whole new world, GMs are starting to become that.”

We’re starting to see some general managers’ visions take shape this month as programs continue to rack up commitments. And we’ll get a more complete picture once the transfer portal window opens in December. As general managers and their roles grow in importance, here’s a look at the four types we’re starting to see across the sport.

The celebrity GMs

If you’ve followed college sports closely over the past year, you’ve probably seen some of the headlines. Stephen Curry accepted the role of assistant general manager for the Davidson men’s basketball program. Likewise for Trae Young at Oklahoma. Shaquille O’Neal is the general manager at Sacramento State, where his son Shaqir is a rising senior.

Hiring high-profile names for these positions isn’t limited to basketball. It’s happening in college football, too. Andrew Luck was hired as Stanford’s general manager last fall. Ron Rivera assumed the same role at Stanford’s rival, Cal, in March. On a smaller scale, Las Vegas Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby was hired as the assistant GM at Eastern Michigan.

NEWS: Raiders star edge rusher Maxx Crosby is the new assistant GM of Eastern Michigan football.

Crosby will “assist with evaluating high school and transfer portal prospects and help manage the team’s NIL/revenue share budget,” plus fundraise.

EMU’s field is named after him. pic.twitter.com/oPsQ9mW7Ko

— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) April 14, 2025

Naturally, it raises questions when a program hires someone who hasn’t spent time recently in the college football world or hasn’t been exposed to the nuances of the transfer portal and roster building.

“At the end of the day, are you getting the most out of that position?” the first P4 personnel director said.

The second P4 personnel director added: “If they haven’t been in the space … then you get really concerned about, ‘OK, it sounds good, but can they really function in a college football program?’”

But celebrity hires do bring some positives to the table. They provide a boost for alumni and donor relations, which is critical for raising money. These high-profile figures often generate some excitement in recruiting, too. And there’s a respect they carry in the football building based on past accomplishments. Luck and Rivera were All-Americans at their alma maters, and both played in the NFL.

Though some of the hires might seem more like figureheads, that does not seem to be the case with Luck and Rivera. Luck reports directly to Stanford’s president, Jonathan Levin, and is involved in every facet of the program daily. It was his decision to fire coach Troy Taylor after an investigation into complaints from athletic department employees over the coach’s hostile behavior.

Rivera serves as a conduit between Cal football and the administration to help ensure the program gets the necessary resources and staff help.

Those two are very involved. We’ll see whether more schools go down this path in the future.

“Andrew Luck is a celebrity GM hire who feels like he has a day-to-day responsibility,” one Group of 5 general manager said. “He’s got his job carved out, and there’s value in that. It’s got to be more than a social media push because if it’s a social media push, then it’s a waste of time.”

The NFL hires

College football and the NFL have traditionally been very different worlds — almost different sports. But as the former becomes more professionalized, they’re starting to resemble each other more and more each day.

That’s why we’ve seen some programs go the NFL route to fill their general manager vacancies. Notre Dame recently hired Mike Martin, who was the director of scouting advancement for the Detroit Lions. Nebraska hired Pat Stewart, who was the New England Patriots director of pro personnel for the past two years. North Carolina hired former NFL exec Michael Lombardi, a Bill Belichick confidant, as its GM. And Oklahoma hired Jim Nagy, who was most recently the executive director of the Senior Bowl and held various scouting roles in the NFL for nearly 20 years.

The pros of these hires are obvious. These men have been around organizations that have had to operate within the confines of a salary cap and build rosters with finances in mind. They know contracts — and how they affect a locker room — and how to handle negotiations. And they’ve been exposed to thinking at the highest levels of the sport.

That gives them an advantage in some aspects. But there are those in the college personnel space who are skeptical, to put it mildly, about the transition from the NFL to college.

In the NFL, so much time is spent on evaluation. If you draft a player, the chances of his turning you down are zero. In college football, you’re focused on not only recruiting good players but also players who are good fits for your program and players you can realistically sign.

“At this level, it’s probably 25 percent evaluation and 75 percent, can you recruit to your team?” the second P4 personnel director said.

There are obvious similarities with the actual football part of the job, but there are so many extracurriculars in the college space.

“It’s those other things that you probably don’t think that much about that are actually high-impact areas — donor engagement, university relationships and politics, calendar timeline,” said a Power 4 administrator who recently took part in a search for a GM. “Unless you’re in there, even if you’re not experienced in all these different areas, until you’re able to do that, I think it’s eye-opening.”

In college football, you can’t just be an evaluator as a general manager. You can’t just be a recruiter, either. General managers have to be able to adapt and wear so many different hats.

The transition for these NFL hires will be watched closely across the college football personnel landscape.

The traditional college football risers

It would be a mistake to believe the personnel strategies that worked five years ago in college football will work in this ever-changing climate.

Ohio State’s Mark Pantoni, who has worked alongside Urban Meyer and Ryan Day, is viewed by many as the best general manager in college football. One of his strengths has been his ability to adapt. Ohio State had great rosters before NIL and great rosters early in the NIL era when the program wasn’t viewed as a big spender. Then, Ohio State decided to get aggressive financially to retain its top talent and add select transfers, and it won the national championship with a $20 million roster in 2024.

No matter the strategy, Ohio State has won at an elite level and has had great rosters.

The general managers who will succeed in this era of college football need to be not only in lockstep with the coach but also willing to anticipate changes in the sport.

“Honestly, vision is probably the most important part (of the job),” a third P4 personnel director said. “Enacting the head coach’s vision and having the foresight to be able to project not just for right now but for the future, when so many coaches and staffers are (thinking), ‘What’s going to help us today?’ — not what’s going to help us tomorrow, months and years on.”

Alabama’s Courtney Morgan, Texas Tech’s James Blanchard and USC’s Chad Bowden are among a new wave of prominent general managers to emerge over the past couple of years. And their paths to prominence could be a sign of where the position might be headed.

Except for Branchard’s one season with the Carolina Panthers, all three are essentially college lifers who have risen through the personnel ranks. Morgan was the general manager at Washington when it reached the national championship game in 2023. Bowden was the GM last year at Notre Dame for the Irish’s run to the title game. Blanchard has been the GM at Texas Tech during Joey McGuire’s three-year tenure, and the program’s spending in the transfer portal has been one of the biggest stories of the offseason.

All three have amassed enough influence that they’re viewed as working in tandem with their coaches — not necessarily for them.

“That’s really what the future of the college position is,” the G5 general manager said. “It’s not per se above or under the head coach, but it’s side by side like the NFL is.”

If they are doing their jobs well, those GMs will lighten the load for coaches and allow them to focus more on the actual football part of the job. Morgan, Blanchard and Bowden have been receiving most of the attention in this space lately, but more names will undoubtedly emerge in the future.

The staffer without the GM title who performs GM duties

Nearly 20 of the 68 Power 4 football programs do not have a traditional general manager. And there are more programs than that at the G5 level, where resources are more scarce, that don’t have GMs. That does not mean there isn’t someone in the program performing those duties.

This is where you might find a chief of staff, a director of player personnel, a director of recruiting, a director of roster management. You get the gist.

“It’s like any title in these front-office type roles,” a fourth P4 director of player personnel said. “They can all mean something different. Director of recruiting could be the one managing the roster and overseeing everything, or that’s your director of player personnel, or it’s your GM. They’re so varying and wide-ranging.”

There are programs like Georgia’s that have chosen not to hire a general manager. Kirby Smart is one of the best recruiters in the history of the sport, and he’s built a massive personnel infrastructure at Georgia. And though that staff plays a huge role in the program’s talent acquisition, it would be difficult to envision Smart giving someone the sort of control a general manager might require.

There are likely other examples of this as well.

“The head coach wants too much control of the program, and they’ve got their recruiting guy, personnel guy, but they’re still handling all that stuff,” the second P4 personnel director said.

The “controlling” coach can be successful. So can the coach who works in concert with his GM. Bottom line: There are many ways to run a personnel department in college football. And there are many titles to be claimed. What we don’t know yet, however, is what actually makes a good general manager.

(Photo of Andrew Luck: Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)

DALLAS – Oklahoma State pitcher Harrison Bodendorf has earned 2025 All-America honors from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
 
Bodendorf, a junior southpaw for the Cowboys, was named to the NCBWA All-America Second Team. The honor brings OSU baseball’s total number of All-American selections to 151.
 
In his first season in Stillwater, Bodendorf posted a 10-1 record and 3.30 ERA in 17 appearances, 16 of those as a starter. He was named the Big 12 Co-Newcomer of the Year and an All-Big 12 First Team performer.
 
Bodendorf’s 10 wins ranks ninth nationally and is the most by a Cowboy pitcher since 2019. He racked up 102 strikeouts in 92 2/3 innings of work, becoming the 17^th different Cowboy to record 100 strikeouts in a season; he ranks fifth in the Big 12 and 36^th nationally in strikeouts.
 
A native of Temecula, Calif., Bodendorf ranks second in the Big 12 in opponent batting average at .204 and third in ERA, while he comes in at fifth in the conference in strikeouts.
 
In Big 12 play, Bodendorf recorded a 6-1 record and 2.20 ERA in 11 outings, including 10 starts.
 
One of Bodendorf’s most memorable performances came when he tossed a 10-inning complete game to earn a win at Arizona as he struck out 10 and allowed only one earned run on three hits. It was the longest outing by a Big 12 pitcher since 2009, and he became just the eighth Big 12 pitcher to work 10-plus innings in a game since 2003.
 
Bodendorf is OSU’s eighth hurler to earn All-American honors in 13 seasons under pitching coach Rob Walton, who retired following the season.
 

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SOLON — Sighs of relief swell over the diamond as the late inning attempted comeback is squandered with a fly out. Cheers erupt from the Solon stands. Victory music sings as the Lady Spartans take the field to celebrate their doubleheader victories against the Vinton-Shellsburg Vikings.

Game One

Through the fourth inning, few had been on base and the score was tied at nil. Early hits from the likes of Dillon Ostrander, Laeni Hinkle, and Keegan Kleppe were forgotten when factoring in the Vikings stellar defense.

“It took a while for our offense to get going,” said Spartan head coach Brad Holub. “We were just under everything and popped up a lot of them but, of all the pitchers we’ve faced this year, she [Vikings pitcher] probably gave us the most trouble.”

As the top of the fifth progressed, the Spartans were trailing. One fielding mishap let to another, allowing for Vinton-Shellsburg to hit their way around the diamond, bringing the score to 0-2.

When pitcher Beckitt Kabela, keeping her composure and focus, struck the last Viking out swinging in the fifth, the tension was loosened and you could both hear, and feel, the determination from the Spartans.

“Come on Spartans, let’s do this!” Yelled one Solon parent, followed by an array of motivational applause.

That may have been just the motivation that the Spartans needed as they came out swinging in the bottom of the fifth. A single to left field from Beckett Kruse got the crowd on its feet and opened the flood gates. A successful bunt from Kleppe, a single from Hinkle, and a long double to center from shortstop Izzy Frees followed, scoring three runs to end the inning, putting the Spartans in the lead.

Hinkle came into the game as a reliever and kept the Vikings at bay for the rest of the game. A few more hits and a masterclass of base stealing from Kruse, Kleppe, and Dillon Ostrander put this game in the past, beating Vinton-Shellsburg 5-2.

Game Two

After what felt like an offensive lull in the beginning of game one, the Spartans came out swinging right off the bat in the second game, scoring two in the first, three in the third, and one in the fourth.

The big story of the second game was its lone home run from first baseman Addison Walter in the first at bat of the fourth inning, making it her first of her career. The ball was smacked toward center, hitting the top of the fence and bouncing right over, leaving her teammates jumping for joy around home plate.

“It was great to see,” said Holub, commenting on Walter’s home run. “She really barreled one up and it paid dividends, so I felt really good for her.”

From that point on in game two, there was no stopping the Spartans as they went on to maintain their large lead through a defensive performance. Pitcher Emerson Miller threw the entirety of game two, putting on a show and allowing only one score through seven innings.

“We knew it was going to be a challenge… we messed with the line up a little bit, you know trying to look at matchups and not overusing somebody, but I thought our pitching did really well as a whole tonight,” said Holub.

Final score: 6-1

LUBBOCK, Texas – Looking to bolster its roster ahead of the 2025 season, Texas Tech Soccer has added three incoming transfers in Eleanor Hays (Clemson), Emilie McCartney (Miami) and Chloe Japic (Virginia), head coach Tom Stone announced Wednesday.

“We were fortunate to be able to add three players of the caliber of Eleanor, Emillie and Chole from the May portal,” Stone said. “All three are all wonderful players, with extraordinary character and are great students. They fit our team dynamic and system of play nicely and are ready now to compete in the Big 12 and nationally.”

The Red Raiders first addition, Hayes, joins Tech after spending a pair of seasons at Clemson. A native of Lewisville, Hays played in 15 matches in 2024, making eight starts. Known as a strong box-to-box defender, Hayes tallied one assist and four shots in her 738 minutes of action.

A member of the Tigers 2023 NCAA College Cup Team, Hays assumed a key role for the Tigers in 2024, making the 15 appearances and eight starts including her first career start in the season opener against Auburn. Hayes started the final six matches of the season for the Tigers.

The Red Raiders next addition, McCartney, also hails from Texas. A transfer from the University of Miami, McCartney played in 33 matches and made 31 starts for the Hurricanes including starting all 17 matches in 2024 for the Hurricanes.

Logging over 1500 minutes of action in 2024, McCartney played all 90 minutes in all 17 matches a season ago and has recorded a full 90-minute effort in 25 of her career 33 matches played. In 2023, McCartney started the final 14 matches in-a-row, meaning she concluded her Miami career having started 31 straight matches.

Tech’s third and final addition of the summer portal season, Japic, is no stranger to the Big 12 Conference having spent two seasons at Baylor before transferring to Virginia for the last three seasons.

A veteran of 71 career matches and 34 starts, Japic arrives at Tech having scored four career goals including a pair of goals in just six matches played in 2021. A 2020 Big 12 All-Freshman team selection, Japic made 52 appearances and 16 starts for the Cavaliers during her three years, tallying a goal and two assists in nearly 2200 minutes played.

In addition to her five years of Power Conference soccer experience, Japic also has extensive experience at the youth international level having played for the Bosnia and Herzegovina U15, U17 and U19 National teams throughout her career.

All three student-athletes will enroll at Tech for the Summer session later this month and will join the team ahead of preseason workouts in July.