The Rising role of a GM for Universities

It's great. My son is in school getting a business degree with a minor in Sports Management to try to go this route. I wish this was an option when I was in college. Now there are exponentially more GM jobs than just in pro sports.

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TBH I’m not 100% clear on what role college GM’s play right now.

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Its not an easy role, very complex, seems to be a lot of everything.

ChatGPT answer:

A General Manager (GM) for a university football program is essentially the program’s chief operations and personnel strategist, similar to—but not identical to—a GM in professional sports. This role has become common in major Division I programs as college football has become more complex, competitive, and business-like.

Here’s a clear breakdown of what a GM typically does:

Core Responsibilities of a University Football GM
1. Roster Management & Personnel Strategy

Oversees the overall roster plan: scholarships, positional needs, depth charts, redshirting strategy.

Tracks roster numbers with the head coach to ensure balance and long-term sustainability.

Works closely with coaches on recruiting priorities.

2. Recruiting Oversight

Leads or coordinates the recruiting department (recruiting staff, scouting, analysts).

Develops recruiting board and grading systems for evaluating prospects.

Determines recruiting regions, position priorities, and annual recruiting class strategy.

Oversees campus visits, player evaluation, and communication plans.

3. NIL & Transfer Portal Strategy

(Varies by school policy — the GM cannot negotiate NIL deals directly but coordinates the strategy)

Helps manage transfer-portal recruiting strategy and timing.

Coordinates with compliance staff on NIL rules and roster impact.

Advises head coach on competitive roster building under NIL realities.

4. Scouting & Analytics

Oversees opponent scouting and internal self-scout processes.

Uses data tools to evaluate recruits, transfers, and team performance.

Provides analytical support for in-season decisions and off-season planning.

5. Administrative & Operational Oversight

Manages logistics for key parts of the program—recruiting weekends, camps, evaluations.

Works with compliance to ensure all recruiting actions follow NCAA rules.

Helps manage staff organization and communication between departments.

6. Budget & Resource Management

Helps allocate budgets for recruiting, travel, technology, and scouting.

Advises athletic department leaders and head coach on cost-effective strategies.

7. Liaison Between Head Coach & Program Departments

Bridges communication between:

Strength & conditioning

Sports medicine

Recruiting

Academics

Support staff

Compliance

Keeps the head coach informed while reducing their administrative load.

In Short

The GM is the architect and manager of the football program’s operational and roster strategy.
The head coach sets the vision and culture; the GM ensures the entire machine runs efficiently and stays built for long-term success.

Yeah Andrew Luck (GM at Stanford) is obviously doing a very different job than a Michael Lombardi (GM at UNC).

The role is probably very different for every school & depends on relationship between AD, GM, & HC

Yeah I suppose that’s about what I expected.

I imagine a huge part of the job is really just managing the money - both in terms of revenue share dollars and coordination with 3rd party NIL. That has to be an enormous amount of work (ant least this time of year) and I’m sure coaches don’t really want anything to do with it if they can help it.

My big question is how much responsibility college GM’s have for true evaluation/roster building compared to the NFL. My gut says that we haven’t reached the point yet where the GM build the roster and the coaching staff coaches them. It seems like some of the recruiting rules would need to change for it to really turn into the NFL role.

But I know we’re still in the infant stages of this arrangement. Didn’t Florida just hire an ex-NFL GM? Idk, it’s interesting.

basically, work NIL, player agents, in the recruitment process.


Key responsibilities

Roster management:
Overseeing the construction of the roster, including both high school recruiting and managing player movement through the transfer portal.

Day-to-day operations:
Managing the daily operations of the program, working with the head coach on staffing, budget, and overall efficiency.

Personnel and scouting: Focusing on player acquisition, scouting, and managing the scouting department.

Strategic coordination:
Playing a key role in the strategy around Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals and coordinating with agents.

Financial management:
Handling aspects of finances, including managing a potential salary cap as the role evolves with revenue sharing in college sports.

Compliance:
Working with the team to ensure compliance with NCAA regulations.

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What I'd be curious about is how each team determines "value" - the algorithms they use to deduce how much money a player is worth. I'm sure depending upon the system, that value calculation is very different for speed vs. size vs. smarts and instincts, etc.

Which is what makes this so interesting to me. that is why this could be very different from school to school and team to team in pro sports because of what they value.

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It’s probably the Wild West right now. And it has to be harder to some extent to completely buy into the moneyball approach because unlike the NFL, the quality of data in college recruiting is all over the place. How do you account for the difference between LA vs. MS vs. TX competition in high school, or 1A vs. 5A? You’re also dealing with less quality, standardization, and availability of film, stats, measurables, etc.

And then there’s the character aspect. While NFL GM’s certainly deal with it as well, surely the average free agent or draft prospect has way fewer character unknowns than a kid out of high school.

I know there’s a lot of work being done on using AI for various football applications right now, especially at the NFL level. Seems like scouting is an obvious area where AI/ML should be able to make a big impact. But you’re still dealing with the data problem for HS recruits.

I think the end result is that it’s probably at least a little harder to go all-in on the analytical approach in college, at least when it comes to high school recruiting. But I’d love to be a fly on the wall in some of those buildings to see how they’re working through it.

The way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if the GM role eventually eclipses the head coach in scope and even value. Assuming NIL, portal, mega-conferences, TV money et al continue to grow, assembling and managing the “program” will be much more involved than preparing the team to play. It will also require a different skill set from most coaches - especially at the big football powers. Pay GMs like the top tier coaches are now, and pay coaches much less to specialize in X’s & O’s.