Martha Careful
4 months ago
In the New York Times
Managing the chaos - Enter the GM

By Kevin Draper

I’m an investigative reporter, with a focus on sports.

Notre Dame and Ohio State will meet tomorrow in the college football national championship game. After the final whistle, the authors of the victory will be paraded across your television. You will hear from the head coach, the quarterback, maybe the athletic director.

Who you probably won’t hear from, though, is the person who built the winning team: the general manager.

General managers, once purely the domain of professional sports, are taking over college football. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why.

Enter the G.M.

Managing a roster of over 100 players, and a staff of dozens, was always a difficult job for a coach. Now it is impossible.

That’s because the sport has changed drastically in the past few years. Players can be paid — for some, more than they would get in the N.F.L. — without sacrificing eligibility. And they can transfer to different schools between each season.

“The job is too big for a college coach,” said Andrew Luck, the former Stanford quarterback who recently returned to his alma mater as its football general manager. “The role has changed. The system has changed so much and continues to change.”

Luck, like most general managers, is largely responsible for securing money and signing players, many of whom announce they wish to change schools by entering the sport’s so-called transfer portal.

The portal was most recently open from Dec. 9 to 28. Not only was that over the holidays, but it was also when dozens of teams were competing in bowl games. Without a general manager, a coach would have to prepare for a big game while also evaluating thousands of potential players to build next year’s roster.

A close-up image of man wearing glasses, a red cap and a sweatshirt watching a basketball game.
Andrew Luck Josie Lepe/Associated Press
“The transfer portal was intense,” said Luck, a college football optimist who stayed at Stanford to finish his degree in 2011, even when he was projected to be the first pick in the N.F.L. draft. “If I had any romantic notion of the thing, the business side, it was lost there.”

On the field
The influence of general managers will be apparent tomorrow night: Both teams’ starting quarterbacks are transfers. Notre Dame will be led by Riley Leonard, who spent the past three seasons at Duke, and Ohio State will be led by Will Howard, who spent four seasons at Kansas State.

Of course, not all players are transfers. A majority of players on both rosters were recruited straight from high school, as they have always been. One big difference for those players, however, is they were paid to be there.

Ryan Day, Ohio State’s coach, said in 2022 that it would cost $13 million to keep his team together. Four months ago, Ohio State’s athletic director revised that figure upward and said $20 million was being spent on the team’s roster.

Looking to the future
Notre Dame and Ohio State are both powerhouses. But the College Football Playoff — the 12-team tournament that led to the championship game — also included relative upstarts like Boise State, Arizona State and Southern Methodist University.

Will the changes to college football further entrench the dominance of the blue bloods, the few programs that can raise and spend $20 million or more on a roster? Or will they allow less prestigious teams to strategically spend the dollars they do have to poach players that otherwise might have gone to the big teams? Luck, whose Stanford Cardinal program hasn’t had a winning record for seven seasons, hopes it is the latter.

“I still want to believe there is space for a broad college football landscape,” he said, “that if you hit enough of the right notes, every program has a chance to succeed and win championships.”
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Fan Shout
wpr (11h) : Hollywood Henderson said Bradshaw “is so dumb, he couldn't spell 'cat' if you spotted him the C and an A.”
Mucky Tundra (11h) : Cooper stock=BUY BUY BUY
Mucky Tundra (11h) : Also notes he’s playing with more confidence.
Mucky Tundra (11h) : @AndyHermanNFL MLF says there was a time last year where Cooper was at 220 pounds. Now he’s at 240 and still flying around.
Mucky Tundra (11h) : And don't even get me started on Frank Caliendos "impersonations"
Mucky Tundra (11h) : I got tired of them being circle jerks with them overlaughing at each others jokes.
Zero2Cool (12h) : It used to be must watch TV for me. now it's "meh" maybe to hear injury update
Mucky Tundra (12h) : I haven't watched the pregame shows in years and I don't feel like I've missed a thing
Zero2Cool (12h) : Love says knee affected him all season, groin injury didn't help matters.
Zero2Cool (12h) : I used to enjoy him on FOX Pregame. Now it's like a frat party of former Patriots.
Zero2Cool (12h) : LaFleur on Watson: “Christian is doing outstanding. I would say he’s ahead of schedule.”
Martha Careful (12h) : Bradshaw is a dumb ass cracker. I am so tired of his "aw shucks" diatribe. He should shrivel up and go away.
buckeyepackfan (15h) : He wad all butt hurt because Aaron duped the media saying he was immunized.
buckeyepackfan (15h) : Bradshaw needs to retire. He's been ripping on Rodgers ever since the covid crap. He was all hury
Zero2Cool (19h) : Terry Bradshaw doesn't want Rodgers in Pittsburgh lol wow
Zero2Cool (27-May) : one day contract, which he also feels is pointless, but if Packers came to him, he would
packerfanoutwest (27-May) : Aaron Rodgers talks possibility of retiring with Packers, just another rumor
dfosterf (27-May) : Go watch 2001
Zero2Cool (26-May) : 1984
dfosterf (26-May) : That movie sent a chill through many. 1968.
dfosterf (26-May) : "Open the pod bay doors, HAL"
buckeyepackfan (25-May) : Haven't we all seen thus movie? It doesn't end well!! Lol
Zero2Cool (25-May) : lol Anthropic’s new AI model turns to blackmail when engineers try to take it offline
dfosterf (25-May) : Claude Opus 4
dfosterf (25-May) : AI system resorts to blackmail when its developers threaten to take it offline
beast (22-May) : Colts Owner Jim Irsay has passed away
Zero2Cool (21-May) : Well, emailing should work now. After not working for almost a year. Oops.
Zero2Cool (21-May) : Brotherly Shove did not get enough votes.
Zero2Cool (20-May) : lol our email hasn't worked in months. 7 pages of unverified users
Zero2Cool (20-May) : MySpace Screaming Lord Byron ... Brett Favre.
Zero2Cool (19-May) : Packers have signed first-round pick Matthew Golden, leaving second-round tackle Anthony Belton as their only unsigned draft pick
beast (19-May) : Supposedly he has to take his image, and name off of it... but otherwise could keep selling wine if he wanted to.
Zero2Cool (19-May) : he giving up his win business?
beast (19-May) : Speaking of Woodson, sounds like he'll be a minority owner (0.1%) of the Browns
Mucky Tundra (15-May) : Zero, regarding Woodson, that'd why I find the timing with Williams peculiar
dfosterf (15-May) : Ryan Hall y'all does a great job of tracking thesr
Zero2Cool (15-May) : Fear not!! I planned to do 33mi bike ride tomorrow morning, so ... yeah
Zero2Cool (15-May) : We got some dark clouds and nasty winds right bout now.
Zero2Cool (15-May) : Madison they had hail 4pm.
dfosterf (15-May) : Sure looks like these tornadoes are headed towards Green Bay
Zero2Cool (15-May) : Woodson of Charles fame was reluctant and then loved it. that didn't really come out until post career
Mucky Tundra (15-May) : IE "We bought into the Bears and they let us down, we have no choice to seek alternatives"
Mucky Tundra (15-May) : Or that Williams and his family are preparing an exit ramp if they don't like how things are going in a few years
Mucky Tundra (15-May) : Either Williams thought it would make him look good (reluctant but then embraces the city and franchise)
Mucky Tundra (15-May) : I can only assume that the Williams camp agreed to cooperate with that article tells me 2 things
dfosterf (15-May) : Ya. They are in a great mood
Zero2Cool (15-May) : I should visit again
dfosterf (15-May) : ChiCity Sports entering freakout mode due to Caleb and his dad not wanting him to go there
Zero2Cool (15-May) : "He's looking really good out there," Derrick Ansley said of Kalen King. Adds that he's been playing inside and out.
Zero2Cool (15-May) : Him saying he doesn't have one to give haha
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