Nebraska GM Pat Stewart offers another reminder how much the college game has changed

LINCOLN, Neb. — Pat Stewart, the new general manager of the Nebraska football program, counted one visit to Memorial Stadium in his nearly two decades as a scout in the NFL.

The Huskers hosted Oklahoma State, and he saw Ndamukong Suh and Dez Bryant, future first-round draft picks and NFL All-Pros. Stewart doesn’t recall the year of that matchup.

But there was only one such game — in 2007, the first year of his initial stint of 11 seasons with the New England Patriots. It also happened to rate as one of the darkest days in Nebraska football history. The Cowboys led 38-0 at halftime en route to a 45-14 win. Two days later, Nebraska fired its athletic director. A coaching change came six weeks later.

Here’s hoping that Stewart’s return to the stadium in September unfolds more smoothly for Nebraska.

His introduction Thursday went well, albeit in a kind of morbidly fascinating way. In a 20-minute interview session, Stewart’s first since leaving the NFL last month after two seasons as the Patriots director of pro personnel, one Stewart answer after another seemed to eradicate the innocence of college football.

Of course, the innocence died long ago, even before the end of so-called amateurism.

Never until Thursday, though, has an administrator or coach at Nebraska spoken so plainly about the high-stakes business that is college football. Stewart addressed the football salary cap in the era of revenue sharing — a figure unreleased, for now, but expected to land in the range of $14 million — player acquisition, evaluation, valuation and the untethered landscape on which the sport is conducting business.

“I don’t have a lot of college football experience,” Stewart said, “but I could have been in this business for 15 years, and I’d probably still be on the same plane as everyone else. Because everything’s changing.”

Much like Bill Belichick, the NFL coach under whom Stewart worked longest, he talks about football in unemotional tones. It’s a contrast to Matt Rhule, who worked alongside Stewart from 2020 to 2022 when Rhule coached the Carolina Panthers.

Stewart received a three-year, $2.55 million contract from Nebraska to oversee the acquisition, retention and finance aspects of the Huskers roster. He reports to Rhule, different from some coach-GM dynamics in the NFL.

“I brought Pat in because I think he’s an absolute difference maker,” Rhule said.

Stewart said that he and Rhule see football in a similar light. “What it’s about,” Stewart said, “what kind of players we want, the type of people we want to build a team around.”

Their strengths seemingly complement each other. In assessing a player in this salary-cap system, Rhule said, personal value does not equal player value.

Rhule’s nature is to focus on personal value. The third-year coach doesn’t engage in financial conversations with his players or their families. That’s the job of Stewart.

“Those discussions can get pretty personal,” Stewart said. “When you hear where somebody values your child and it doesn’t match up with what your opinion of it is, there are going to be some feelings. So it’s kind of trying to thread that needle of being considerate to people’s emotions and feelings about how much they’re valued, where we see them falling on the roster as far as role and what we’re going to ask of them. And just trying to balance that out.”

With limited data in college to create a valuation system, Stewart said, he finds that the ask is always going to be higher than the offer.

“Sometimes, exponentially higher,” he said.

The best practice in communication is honesty.

“Tell people exactly where they stand,” Stewart said, “so nothing’s a surprise.”

An Ohio State graduate and former student manager under Jim Tressel, Stewart said he arrives daily at the Osborne Complex prepared to adjust. On Wednesday, for instance, a curveball in the House settlement case prompted Nebraska leaders to consider the likelihood that the 105-player roster limit will not go into effect in 2025.

Stewart took the news in stride. The Huskers will adjust as needed, he said.

Other nuggets from the GM on Thursday:

• Stewart’s work in the NFL exposed him often to the college game. He arrived at Nebraska with a baseline expectation. And the Huskers’ development surprised him.

“A lot of guys on defense playing with their hands at levels I wouldn’t expect,” Stewart said. “Quarterbacks who know how to go through progressions. Receivers who know how to run routes. I’ve been surprised more on the positive side of things, trying to adjust my eyes to watching a different type of football.”

He likes the talent that he saw in 14 spring practices. And that’s not all.

“The effort, the grind, the grit, the toughness of this team has been really impressive,” Stewart said.

College football remains on track to institute some version of a salary cap. Observers often compare the transfer portal in college to free agency in the NFL. But Stewart is quick to note the differences between the college and pro systems.

NFL contracts allow for incentives and deferred payment schedules that generate room for general managers to work creatively. “You really can’t do that under this setup,” he said.

Similarly, in NFL free agency, executives know for months who’s about to come on the market.

“Here, guys become available and you have to pivot right away,” Stewart said.

Transfer portal activity more resembles cutdown periods in NFL training camps when rosters shrink from 90 to 53 in one day, flooding the market with available talent.

Responsibility falls on the general manager and his staff — Stewart wants to hire several scouts — to anticipate who might enter the portal and understand their value to Nebraska in advance.

“You can look around the country every week,” Stewart said, “college and the NFL, and most (games) are decided in a five-play stretch, where a decision has to be made and you have to perform at high speeds and make decisions at a high level.”

Stewart’s job, he said, is to identify, acquire, retain and compensate players with the experience to win those five plays.

“Find good football players,” he said. “That’s pretty much the secret sauce.”

(Photo: Mitch Sherman / The Athletic)