The advent of NIL and the transfer portal has brought about the creation of several new jobs in college sports. And former coach Urban Meyer had a hilarious reaction when discussing one of them on The Triple Option podcast this week.

The long-time head man, with stops at Florida and Ohio State, among others, was discussing general manager positions. The show had on Jim Nagy, who recently left an executive position with the Senior Bowl to become the general manager at Oklahoma.

Turns out Urban Meyer has also been approached about being a general manager. His interest level? Well…

“I don’t know if I even told (co-hosts) Rob (Stone) and Mark (Ingram) this, but I had a school come see me this year and ask if I wanted to be the GM,” Meyer said on the air. “And a couple other phone calls. And you start to think, ‘OK, they actually came to see me,’ so I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll meet and I’ll sit down with you guys.’ I said, ‘OK, what is the job description?’ They said, ‘Well, basically you meet with all the agents of the 17-, 18-year-olds.’

“And I thought, ‘I’d rather step on a rusty nail and pull it out myself.’”

So count Urban Meyer out on that one. Long regarded as one of the nation’s best recruiters, he doesn’t seem overly keen on keeping up with everything it takes to land players and keep them these days.

But while he may not be interested in a general manager position, others have proven to be. Nagy, for one.

“If that’s what you’ve got to do, Jim, God bless you,” Urban Meyer said. The whole panel on the podcast had a hearty laugh.

The truth of the matter is Nagy wasn’t the first and won’t be the last. Several big names have joined the ranks in the general manager category in recent months.

Stanford tapped Andrew Luck. Cal hired Ron Rivera. North Carolina snagged Michael Lombardi. All come with various expertise and knowledge levels of the game, but all have impressive resumes.

As the sport continues to move toward the new order with more regulated NIL and updated transfer portal restrictions, general managers will be needed. Urban Meyer just won’t be one of them.

It’s pointless to shut the barn gate once the horses have already bolted—and that’s exactly what happened with the NCAA. After losing its court case, the governing body had no choice but to allow colleges to pay their student-athletes, ushering in the era of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). Since then, the landscape of college sports has changed drastically, with schools scrambling to find new revenue streams to keep up with rising player compensation. And, as usual, LSU appears to be leading the charge.

LSU is now planning to sell jersey patches to sponsors—essentially turning their uniforms into advertising space. LSU plans to feature sponsor patches across all sports, from cross country to football, expecting to generate millions of dollars annually. The school is tapping into a previously unexplored revenue stream in college athletics—one that may soon become the norm.

Pat McAfee weighed in on the development, comparing LSU’s move to what’s already common in soccer. There, sponsor logos dominate the front of the jersey, while the team crest is often pushed off to the side. He noted, however, that this still doesn’t go as far as NASCAR, where sponsor logos cover almost every inch of uniforms—even on practice gear.

” I think obviously this is inevitable, I assume. I don’t think football will ever get to the point of like soccer, where soccer’s jerseys just become the company basically in the big thing, and then the team’s crest is just kind of small there. But the patch on practice jerseys, the patch of the actual jerseys, it’s only a matter of time before they NASCARed that. LSU obviously is the first. As soon as LSU gets this done, I assume every other school will do the exact same thing.”

McAfee believes LSU’s bold move could open the floodgates. If they get the green light, it’s not a question of if other programs will follow suit, but when. Still, he doesn’t think every school will jump on board. The former Colts punter argued that more traditional, legacy-driven programs like Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame might resist the shift, valuing tradition and aesthetics over commercialization.

Soccer teams have been earning millions each season through sponsorship patches, though the exact revenue depends on the length of the sponsorship deal and the popularity of the club. Endorsing more prominent brands brings greater payouts—a model that could greatly benefit smaller schools in college athletics.

Programs in the SEC and traditional powerhouses in the Big Ten have long operated with significant financial backing, often finding ways to compensate players even before NIL was legalized. The courts simply formalized this practice by legalizing payments under the NIL framework, removing previous restrictions and allowing schools to spend freely to secure top talent. The promise of earning millions before even going pro has become an irresistible draw for many college athletes.

Smaller schools, however, can’t compete with the financial might of these giants. Historically, they’ve relied on offering development opportunities and playing time to attract recruits. But now, they’re exploring new ways to generate revenue, not just to land better talent, but also to retain the talent they already have.

LSU’s decision to enter uncharted territory by monetizing jersey space could set a precedent. If the new governing body allows the Tigers to move forward with this plan, it may open the door for smaller programs to follow suit, offering them a fighting chance to stay competitive in the NIL era.

Figuring out which
offensive line transfers will be the most impactful isn’t always
easy, but here are a few key ones for 2025.

In college football’s transfer portal era, offensive linemen are
the hardest players to sort out.

All transfers involve risk because what works at one school has
no guarantee of working at another. But offensive line play is
so schematically variable across schools and so
dependent on each unit’s cohesiveness that coaches and personnel
staffers are often shooting in the dark when they identify transfer
targets.

“You can’t portal an offensive line” is approaching “they could
call holding on every play” levels of cliché. 

Indeed, it’s hard. But every year, teams try and a few are even
successful. Teams that find one or two good transfers and plug them
into an already-functional system have the best chance of success,
but not every team has that luxury. The 2025 season, from the
playoff race to the coach carousel, will hinge on how well a
handful of teams manage to move pieces around a very finicky
chessboard. 

With that in mind, there are four offensive linemen in
particular with a lot on their plates. Their performances will help
figure out who contends for the national championship and who might
be looking for a new coach. 

C Luke
Petitbon, Florida State 

• How FSU got him: Transfer from Wake Forest
  (2025) 
• What he might do: Prevent his coach from
  getting fired 

The 2024 Seminoles had many disastrous qualities, but a lot of
them flowed from having one of the worst offensive lines a
blue-blood program has ever put on the field. Ideally, a program of
FSU’s stature would not allow 49 sacks – third-most out of 134 FBS
teams. And yet that’s exactly what the Seminoles did.

Sometimes things don’t work out how you envision. 

With his career on the line, Mike Norvell is doing the one thing
he’s proven he can do: find help in the transfer portal. That
worked out great in 2023 when FSU went undefeated and was robbed of
a playoff spot. It worked out horribly in last year’s 2-10 encore.
In 2025, FSU may field a starting offensive line with five
transfers from various classes. It’s debatable which one is most
important, but let’s focus on Petitbon, who arrives from Wake
Forest and will be the de facto captain in the middle of the
line. 

Petitbon was an honorable mention All-ACC player for the Demon
Deacons last year and probably deserved more than that. His 2.8%

pressure rate allowed was the best among ACC centers who played
at least 300 snaps, and his 4.0%
run disruption rate allowed was just a whisker off the top
spot.

He allowed exactly two quarterback knockdowns on 286 pass
protection reps. Though a center can only help pass protection so
much, Petitbon’s solid play as a run blocker and pass protector
bodes well. 

If Petitbon is one of the best centers in the country, FSU will
have a critical building block for a rebound. If not, the chances
of a Norvell firing go way up. 

OT Isaiah
World, Oregon 

• How Oregon got him: Transfer from Nevada
  (2025) 
• What he might do: Keep a playoff offense
  humming 

World was a developmental project who was ranked the 138th-best
player in California in high school and then spent four seasons at
Nevada. By the end of last year, he was one of the most
sought-after players in the country. Most evaluators thought he was
the best offensive lineman in the portal. 

After the season, Oregon had both one of the most powerful
NIL operations in college football and a spot at left tackle
vacated by All-American Josh Conerly Jr., whom the Washington
Commanders picked 29th in the NFL Draft.

Anyway, World now plays for Oregon. The Ducks had a few iffy
line games early last season, particularly when they shuffled
players around and struggled with Idaho and Boise State, but the
position group has generally been a great strength under Dan
Lanning and coordinator Will Stein.

Top-quality protection has allowed the Ducks to churn out a
succession of prolific quarterbacks and running backs. Dante Moore
and Makhi Hughes will get most of the attention among high-impact
Oregon offensive transfers, but World will be foundational to
whatever the Ducks do in 2025.

His 3.3% pressure rate allowed was second-best in the Mountain
West, and his 3.0% run disruption rate allowed was
fourth. 

OT Pat
McMurtrie, James Madison 

• How JMU got him: Transfer from FCS Holy Cross
  (2024) 
• What he might do: Change the Group of Five
  (G5) playoff race 

It’s June, but if you asked me to pick the best challenger to
Boise State for the Group of Five’s spot in the College Football
Playoff, I’d lean toward James Madison. 

The Dukes took a very slight step back in 2024 after losing
coach Curt Cignetti and most of their great players to Indiana. But
JMU still won nine games, dropped 70 points on North Carolina, and
looked like the best team in the Sun Belt for much of the season.
Much of that success stemmed from the line: JMU’s 30.8% run
disruption rate allowed was fourth-best in the G5, and its 26.2%
pressure rate allowed was four points better than average.

The Dukes had two first-team All-Sun Belt linemen. One of them,
program starts leader Cole Potts, ran out of eligibility. But the
other, McMurtrie, is back. The right tackle came with coach Bob
Chesney from Holy Cross and did not leave after his first FBS
season. 

In 2024, McMurtrie allowed just two adjusted sacks (plays in
which a defender achieves a pressure on a sack play, even if that
defender does not record the sack), and his 4.6% pressure rate
allowed was second-best among Sun Belt tackles playing at least 300
snaps. His 3.1% run disruption rate was fifth.

He’s a complete lineman, and with Potts, the star right guard,
gone, McMurtrie’s elite play will be all the more critical to JMU’s
efforts to conquer the Sun Belt and push for a playoff
spot. 

OT Derek Simmons,
Oklahoma 

• How Oklahoma got him: Transfer from FCS
  Western Carolina (2025) 
• What he might do: Help determine a coach’s
  fate and a team’s playoff viability 

Brent Venables is the season’s most obvious put-up-or-shut-up
coach. He’s had three seasons in Norman, and two of them have been
mediocre. The Sooners did not come to the SEC to be average, and
this offseason, they’ve showered resources and players upon
Venables.

The Sooners got one of the most desired offensive coordinators
in Ben Arbuckle. They got several of the best transfers available,
including quarterback John Mateer (who comes with ready-made
experience in Arbuckle’s offense at Washington State) and running
back Jaydn Ott. They put a whole new front office infrastructure
around Venables, too, to help him manage the massive project that
is Oklahoma football. 

None of it will work if Oklahoma’s offensive line continues to
stink. The Sooners tied for last in the FBS with 50 sacks ceded,
even more than the dreadful FSU offense. All of their peripheral
numbers were bad. The line’s poor play had to be a personal insult
to line coach Bill Bedenbaugh, who has decades of experience as one
of the best and most respected people doing his job. 

But Oklahoma has responded by grabbing a handful of
reinforcements ahead of the season.

I’m intrigued by Simmons, a potential left or right tackle who’s
had a three-level, four-school career. He began his career
in 2020 as a backup at Division II Tusculum. He spent one year at
FCS
Abilene Christian, then three more at that level at Western
Carolina. Now in his sixth season, he’s playing in the SEC and
might be one of the handful of players who determine if Oklahoma
will pay tens of millions of dollars to fire its coach.

College football, everyone. 

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The transfer portal wheels are still spinning in the college baseball world. Programs across the landscape are still very much in roster-building mode. A former Kentucky infielder has found a new home in the Big 12.

Kyuss Gargett now rides with the hypnotoad. The transfer committed to TCU on Thursday.