Sources tell CBS Sports and 247Sports that Florida will conduct interviews for its general manager role this week. The question about the job is how the role will function at Florida. To oversimplify a rapidly evolving position in college football front offices, the GM title can take a few different forms functionally.
The first is essentially the associate AD of football, a job that in the estimation of one Power 4 AD will one day report directly to the AD at a lot of different schools. The archetype for this role is Austin Thomas at LSU or Marshall Malcow at Oregon (chief of staff), or Mark Pantoni at Ohio State, who was connected to the Florida GM opening back in the summer when Mark Robinson vacated it to go to Georgia. On Ohio State’s website, Pantoni’s bio reads: “In this position, Pantoni supervises all aspects of the program’s administrative duties for recruiting, including film evaluations, on-campus official and unofficial visits, the social media/creative team, travel and roster management.”
The second is a dialed-in roster management aficionado who is more of a straight up director of player personnel. His main role is to manage the salary cap and NIL compensation structure with a scouting background who is keyed into high school and portal scouting. He may have autonomy with personnel like being able to unilaterally offer scholarship offers like Texas Tech’s James Blanchard. Another GM like this is Billy Glasscock at Ole Miss.
And the third is the GM who has deep ties who is deeply connected in the locker room, he has the chops to go on in-home visits to help seal the deal. They can also make the most money in some spots like Alabama’s Courtney Morgan or be a former player themselves like Texas’ Brandon Harris. This is essentially a recruiting coordinator title (which used to be given to an assistant coach on the staff) on steroids.
Conversations around the industry think Florida is hiring someone who’s a little closer to column No. 1. Florida had the most public NIL saga in the young history of that type of player compensation with the Jaden Rashada mess. Expect the job to pay well, upwards of $700,000 a hint at how much power the role will entail.
Open jobs
Let’s take a look at some open gigs and what we’re hearing. This is not an all-encompassing list – we’re coming up dry on Tulsa scoop – but it’s a good primer before the final weekend begins. Matt Zenitz contributed to this report.
North Carolina
The Tar Heels have the best job open by orders of magnitude after firing Mack Brown before the final game of the regular season. With Florida and Baylor declining to fire their coaches due to headwinds in the industry of an uncertain December, the Heels took the plunge and now get their pick of the litter. Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith addressed interest Thursday with reporters. It mirrors Texas A&M kicking the tires on Lions head coach Dan Campbell last year (Smith is a UNC grad and Campbell played at Texas A&M). Of course, Campbell is now coaching the NFL’s best team while Smith is back as an offensive coordinator after being fired as Falcons coach last year.
“I appreciate it, love that place,” Smith said of UNC, via ESPN. “But that’s not my focus. I mean, I’ve got one of the best jobs in football right now. There’s a lot to be said too about [how you] can’t put a price on personal and professional happiness, which I have here.”
