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field

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  1. 6 minutes ago, Tex-19 said:

    Idk what a college “GM” role really means. LSU has had one (Austin Thomas) and it’s most definitely not higher than the head coach. 

    My guess is that it’s a heavy focus on managing off-field stuff and consults with Sark on managing on-field staff. Or maybe this is the “football only AD” that people have wanted for a while.

    My personal view is that taking low-value shit off Sark’s plate is a big win, but obviously don’t want any Game of Thrones crap. GP needs to be clearly subordinate. Ideally GP manages some off field stuff, supervises the defensive side, and that’s it. 

    GM's in college football are really common

    Organizing the roughly 75 recruits visiting each day last month (primarily on unofficial visits), could have been overwhelming for Georgia Tech coaches. Each recruit needed a tour, face time with coaches and, maybe most importantly in the age of social media, to have their picture taken. But because of the work done by Patrick Suddes and his department, coaches didn't need to worry.

    Everything was organized. Suddes even connected with a local car dealer who loaned them a 1970 Pontiac GTO and a pair of Bentleys, which they parked inside Bobby Dodd Stadium for a music-video-worthy photo shoot.

    Over at Ohio State, the Buckeyes have typically hosted 58 official visitors per year. But last month alone, they hosted 51, something made more manageable by the work of Mark Pantoni and his staff of 10 full-time employees.

    Billy High, Pantoni's counterpart at North Carolina, said the first month of in-person recruiting felt like "organized chaos." He didn't go anywhere without his trusted tablet, keeping track of vast spreadsheets showing where players ranked on their board, what other offers they received and where else they visited.

    And to think, positions like his didn't exist not that long ago. There was no college football equivalent of the NFL front office to oversee recruiting and roster management. No one called themselves a director of player personnel (DPP) until a clever assistant created the title in 2006 and one of the greatest head coaches of all-time noticed what it was and what it could be.

    Now, college football can't function without DPPs like Pantoni. Some have even embraced the broader and more recognizable title of general manager, like High and Suddes.

    In addition to high school recruiting, they oversee another important avenue to acquire talent: the transfer portal, which is college football's version of free agency. It's up to the heads of personnel departments to keep their ears to the ground and their eyes on the portal, pointing coaches toward players they should be targeting.

    LSU didn't sign potential difference-makers like Clemson linebacker Mike Jones Jr. and Georgia safety Major Burns by accident. Austin Thomas, who became the first GM in SEC history, oversees an advanced scouting department in Baton Rouge that provides coaches with in-depth dossiers on players the instant they become available.

    Besides the head coach, there's arguably no one with more influence on a team's future.


    The idea of a personnel department isn't new to the NFL, where it isn't unusual for general managers to wield more authority than the head coach. But for one reason or another, the concept of a formalized unit dedicated to roster management took a while to trickle down to colleges, where coaches handled personnel decisions themselves, tabbing one of nine assistants to take on the role of recruiting coordinator.

    Granted, these were much simpler times -- before social media and Internet-based video services like Hudl created a mountain of information to sort through; before the race to offer freshmen and sophomores more than doubled the number of players who needed to be evaluated; before the advent of the transfer portal, which can give just as quickly as it takes.

    As everything was beginning to change back in 2006, Geoff Collins was searching for an excuse to return to Georgia Tech, where he previously worked as tight ends coach under George O'Leary. Chan Gailey, who had taken over for O'Leary, was interested, but he didn't have a coaching position available, so he instead offered up the director of high school relations post.

    Collins, who was coming off two years as a defensive coordinator at Western Carolina, saw it as a possible dead end and was hesitant -- he wanted a role that would give him flexibility. If he couldn't get back into coaching, he thought he might like to transition to an NFL front office. He had noticed how people at the pro level were being named director of player personnel, so he asked about creating that position instead.

    Gailey didn't care about semantics.

    "Call yourself whatever you want," he told Collins.

    And just like that, Collins became credited as the first DPP in college football. He oversaw recruiting and helped Tech sign arguably its best class ever.

    Meanwhile, Nick Saban was in the process of leaving the Miami Dolphins for Alabama, and one of his top priorities was building an NFL-style personnel department. He believed he could create the biggest impact advantage over other programs in recruiting, so he poured resources into it. He wanted someone in charge who had an understanding of the college game, so he called Collins.

    Collins accepted the job, and began putting together a room of student volunteers, graduate assistants and anonymous support staffers that would serve as the machinery in Alabama's larger recruiting operation. They were young and hungry. They worked, quite literally, in darkness: a windowless office that they staffed around the clock in rotating shifts.

    They'd send hundreds of blank VHS tapes to high school coaches, cursing when they inevitably came back in the wrong format. Highlights were useless. What they really wanted were entire games, which they'd then splice by a process known as "one'ing and two'ing," and is exactly as mindless as it sounds.

    The real intrigue came when evaluating the tape, but even that was formulaic, relying on a predetermined set of critical factors at each position which, taken together, provided every recruit with a grade. And if their grade was good enough, their information was passed up the ladder where coaches would begin the more traditional recruiting process.

    The operation would evolve over time and begin to remove some of the guesswork in recruiting, taking what essentially had been an art form and applying processes to it. Instead of leaving assistant coaches to their own devices and their own thoughts on what made a successful football player, the personnel department would follow strict guidelines determined by the head coach.

    Collins was by Saban's side every day that first season at Alabama, getting what he called a "doctorate" in the how-to's of coaching and roster management - things like how many players to recruit at a position in a given year, which had to be viewed through the lens of the current roster makeup and anticipating future attrition via the NFL draft, graduation or transfers.

    Collins left the following offseason to reunite with O'Leary at UCF, resuming on-field coaching. Twelve years later, he was named head coach at Georgia Tech.

    "So I think I was the first and the second director of player personnel," Collins said. "And I take a lot of pride in it, because I think a lot of people have been able to go on and do some things, and it has become a positive role for college football programs."

    In the ever-expanding tree of directors of player personnel, Collins is the only one to become a head coach. But that's not a negative. It shows there's a place for non-coaches to have meaningful careers in college football, where before those opportunities for advancement were limited to the NFL.

    When Collins returned to Tech as head coach, one of his first calls was to his old co-worker at Alabama, Suddes, who had gone on to work at Texas, Arizona State and Auburn. Suddes had never been a coach and had no aspirations to be. He was the kid who played "NCAA Football" on dynasty mode, simulating the games so he could get to the fun part of tinkering with the roster. When he played "Madden," he'd trade every player, stockpiling draft picks.

    Collins knew that he and Suddes saw the game the same way, that he could trust him to rebuild the roster and help reshape the image of Georgia Tech football. So rather than making him yet another DPP, he switched things up.

    Collins chuckled when asked why he landed on the title of general manager for Suddes. It wasn't arbitrary.

    "It was intentional," Collins said. "I wanted him to have an overarching reach within the organization."


    While Collins is Patient Zero in the DPP experiment in college football, he's not the only one who made the position what it is today. His successor, Ed Marynowitz, took it to another level.

    Suddes called Marynowitz "one of the godfathers" of the profession, building upon and bringing even more sophistication to the systems Collins started. His work was so well regarded that the Philadelphia Eagles hired him in 2012, later promoting him to VP of player personnel. He's now an agent.

    The other so-called godfather is Mark Pantoni.

    Around the time Alabama's recruiting operation got going under Collins and Marynowitz, Pantoni was getting his feet wet under coach Urban Meyer at Florida. In the beginning, it was a way of avoiding the mountain of debt awaiting him on the other side of med school interviews and whatever long road awaited after. He was a football fan who loved recruiting, so he figured why not take a year to intern with the team?

    He got the job and trekked into the office where he'd send out VHS tapes at 6 every morning, splice film in the afternoon and then ask for even more to do before day's end. He grinded for a year, learning the tricks to the trade, before Meyer hired him full time.

    Pantoni never wanted to be a coach, either. He imagined becoming an athletic director, but fell in love with the world of personnel, watching countless hours of film and forming evaluations he'd then pass to the coaching staff.

    Meyer empowered him, allowing for disagreements and healthy debates. Meyer had the final say, of course, but Pantoni said Meyer didn't want a yes man. Though Pantoni was hesitant in the beginning to stand up to veteran coordinators Charlie Strong and Steve Addazio, he gained more confidence in his opinions, and they would listen, trusting that he was watching exponentially more film than they ever could.

    But it wasn't just the evaluations that Pantoni grew to be in charge of. DPPs are largely responsible for compliance and the recruiting budget, which includes money for coaches' travel and official visits, as well as the use of online recruiting services and databases.

    When Meyer retired and popped up again at Ohio State in 2012, he hired Pantoni a second time, and he inherited a department of two.

    Now, Pantoni oversees a group of three full-time employees and one full-time intern dedicated solely to personnel, a director of on-campus recruiting and a five-member creative team. That's to say nothing of the hoard of student volunteers.

    He and Marynowitz started a personnel symposium three years ago in which about 180 people showed up. The next year, that number ballooned to 300.

    While COVID-19 caused them to cancel last year's event, they hope to pick it up again soon.

    So much in the sport is changing. Support staffs have grown exponentially, the transfer portal has finally brought free agency to college football and advanced analytics, which have taken off in professional sports but struggled to gain a foothold in college, are beginning to make strides. What's more, the ability for athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness is a game-changer in terms of helping players build their brands. There's no choice but for personnel departments to keep up with demand.

    "It's going to continue to evolve and parallel the NFL front office," Pantoni said.

    Assistant coaches have to focus on their specific position for advancement, head coaches have to focus on winning immediately in order to keep their jobs, leaving it to DPPs and GMs to manage the long-term picture.

    "You're recruiting so many classes of kids; we have 2025 kids we're offering now. There's just so much that goes into it," Suddes said. "The coaches have so much they have to deal with coaching X's and O's, dealing with players on and off the field, and then contacting these recruits. A coaching staff of 10 and the head coach just can't handle it all."


    The personnel tree grew quickly out of Alabama.

    As Saban's recruiting operation kicked into high gear and started raking among the top three classes every year, whispers circulated about what was going on inside that windowless office. The college football world watched as Saban's former assistants became head coaches, and how like clockwork they'd take someone from that office with them. Georgia's Kirby Smart hired Marshall Malchow, Michigan State's Mel Tucker hired Geoff Martzen, Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin hired Matt Lindsey, and so on.

    Opposing coaches got the bright idea to do the same.

    "They were all cherry-picked by teams trying to do what Nick did," Suddes said.

    He should know. After six years at Alabama, Mack Brown brought Suddes to Texas. And when Brown later resurfaced at UNC, he hired High, who had worked for Suddes at Auburn, picking up the nickname Billy Spreadsheets.

    There's also a lot of cross-pollination that happens. High just so happened to be working at Tennessee at the same time as Thomas. And upon returning to LSU in January, Thomas, who was associate athletic director for football personnel at Texas A&M from 2018 to 2019, was replaced by Malchow.

    Thomas is relatively young, only 36 years old, yet he's already excited to see what the next generation is capable of -- that's how quickly this field is growing. There's plenty of room for those without direct connections to Alabama or Florida.

    Andy Frank, who went to school at Princeton, gave up a career in engineering and climbed his way up from volunteer to DPP at Vanderbilt and now Penn State. Jordan Sorrells left his job as operations manager at Chick-fil-A to become director of football ops at Furman and is now DPP at Clemson.

    When Dabo Swinney spoke to reporters about how Clemson's 2020 class came together, he said, "Jordan Sorrells. You've got to start there."

    What's neat, Thomas said, is not just how many more people there are in his business or how they're starting to receive more recognition; it's how they're starting to see their responsibilities expand beyond recruiting.

    Serving as GM, Thomas acts as a liaison between the administration and the football program, and he is part of the process identifying candidates for assistant coach and other roles within the organization. LSU keeps expanding its ranks, bringing in a director of scouting, a director of personnel research and a director of recruiting.

    Thomas studied NFL front offices a few years ago, leaning on contacts he had with the New York Jets and Houston Texans, and he decided to recreate their advanced scouting departments to suit college football. Their ability to help identify transfers is only one piece of what they do; they also aid in game-planning during the season.

    "You think about it, it's strength staff, training staff, nutrition staff, analysts, recruiting staff, personnel staff ... it's a lot of people," Thomas said. "If a head coach doesn't have help with that stuff to carry his message and implement that on a daily basis, it can go sideways really quick."

    And therein lies the biggest difference between the GM of the NFL and college. It's simple, really. GMs in college have a lot of authority, but they're essentially serving as the right-hand to the head coach, who has the ultimate authority.

    "I work for Coach O," Thomas said. "He doesn't work for me."

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  2. 4 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

    Hard Knocks was with the Cowboys this year....Malik was not with the Cowboys.  Jaylon Smith perhaps?

    HBO is doing an in-season Hard Knocks with the Colts.  It was Malik. 

  3. 8 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

    Anybody had to show proof of vaccine for international travel? Lost my card but have a digital copy from Walmart...I just have no clue if they look at my phone and are happy? It's got a barcode, but I'm traveling from Mexico to Colombia, so I'm assuming whatever system is used for that barcode is not accepted globally? How the fuck does all of this work?

     

    8 hours ago, TexasGrunt said:

    I had to for my Egypt trip in September.  They just looked at card and waved me thru.  I have been travelling a lot this last year.  Cozumel, Roatan, Utilia, Egypt and girlfriend just took me on my first cruise. (Yuck)  Not once did I have issues as all the places just glance at proof of test and the card.

    Has anyone traveled back from Mexico fairly recently?  We were there last spring and I recall the gate agent gave a passing glance at the test results.  Anyone have recent experience?

  4. On 11/26/2021 at 9:09 AM, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

    Anyone get into UT from out of state recently?  

    Career just brought us back to Texas and the kid stayed in the Midwest for her senior year in her specialized cybersecurity program(her high school cyber capture the flag team placed third in the nation with all other teams in the competition being collegiate). She has a 4.0+ plus GPA, a 35 on the ACT, and has over a semester's worth of college credits already.  She wants to study cybersecurity in undergrad at UT as UT is one of the few with cybersecurity undergrad degrees and not because mom and dad are in Texas. ISU and Illinois State are already offering her scholarships that amount to waving out of state tuition. 

    Yes.  My older daughter is now a sophomore.  My younger one has applied and is waiting.  From an out of state perspective, I anecdotally think admissions depends a lot on which college you apply to and who you're competing against from the high school/city/state you apply from.

    Don't expect to get any money from UT.  My daughter was lucky enough to get some Plan II out of state money, but she was really lucky.  If your daughter gets in and you can swing it, look into buying a place for a year.  There's a closet realtor industry that targets out of state families.  I've had several friends do it who have either broken even or made money and got their kid in state tuition starting their sophomore year.  Something to consider.   

  5. 5 minutes ago, Modessit said:
    8 minutes ago, Zhorn96 said:
    I’m going to predict another Horn touchdown followed by a missed 2 point conversion and we lose by 2

    I predict we score, get the 2pt to tie, then give up a long drive where they kick a FG to win after we give up a 3rd and 22 for a first down.

    Which will feel all the better when you loaded up on WVU at -3.5......

  6. 2 hours ago, WinningIsHard said:

    are you saying this based on your own opinion or do you know somebody close to them? Watching your walk on brother earn a scholarship at your family's legacy school then earn a starting position and play a fuck load has to pull on their heart strings just a little bit. If you know them then that sucks, otherwise, I'll keep being optimistic that they come back to the good guys real soon lol. 

    You keep being optimistic about them transferring and I'll keep being optimistic that I'm going to win the lottery.  Neither is going to happen, though.  They are happy where they are and are not transferring.  

  7. 15 minutes ago, Tex-19 said:

    Where did the Jackson and George rumors come from? I know Brocks is pure Surly wishcasting at this point.

    I'm of the opinion that portal OLs is by far the most important thing in recruiting right now. Fix the OL and the offense will be insane next year, which will bring in studly '23/24 classes to make up for any shortcoming in 22.

    The twins are not transferring.  They're happy where they are.  Good lord people should just stop with that.  

  8. 2 hours ago, Tex-19 said:

    Interesting article. Obviously all speculation but just shows how much QB movement there is likely to be. If we don't land Arch, I'd bet we end up with an elite transfer

    https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/College-football-2021-QB-carousel-Quinn-Ewers-Spencer-Rattler-Hudson-Card--173078913/

    Texas quarterback Hudson Card began the year as the starter but lost his job after a road blowout to Arkansas. Casey Thompson has been great since replacing Card and will have to decide after this season if he wants to test the NFL Draft waters or return to school as a preseason Heisman Trophy favorite

    I think Bijan might have something to say about that....?

  9. Fun fact - the National Labor Relations Act does not apply to public-sector employees.  So, the NLRB does not have jurisdiction over employees of the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Alabama etc.  It only has jurisdiction over private employees at colleges like Notre Dame, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, etc.   

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  10. On 9/24/2021 at 9:04 AM, Brisketexan said:

    L&J Cafe -- local institution, El Paso style mexican food, great stuff.  Every local of note has his picture on the wall.

    H&H Car wash has sadly closed its diner.  It was a treasure.

    Hit a Chico's Tacos, and spend $10 on three orders of....whatever you want.  But one of those orders should be the classic crispy rolled tacos.

     

    And dammit, there's one more place just north of downtown that I can't remember....

    I kinda dig El Paso.  Great climate, nice people, totally bilingual culture.  Shit, the courthouse restaurant is a fantastic mexican restaurant.

     

    He asked for upscale restaurants.

    1.  Cafe Central - downtown, as mentioned above, really good.  Classic EP fine dining.  

    2.  Anson11 - downtown, good vibe and food and fits an EP definition of upscale

    3.  Holy Grail - westside, newer place with very good wine selection and good food. Not fancy but leans towards upscale

    4.  Corralitos - upper valley, one of my favorite restaurants in EP.  Not necessarily upscale, but sneaky great Mexican food.  Highly recommend.

    5.  Entrecôte - westside - french bistro type place. 

    6.  1700 in Hotel Paso del Norte - new place and haven't been there yet, but heard good things.  Owned by same folks as Anson11.

     

    L&J is definitely worth a stop and the gorditas at JJ's are very good as well.  Lucy's on Mesa north of UTEP has great machaca.  Chico's Tacos is the most overrated shithole in El Paso, but I digress.  

  11. 9 minutes ago, Richard Kimball said:

    That's the first time I've ever heard Bowlsby referred to as being a good leader. 

    I always thought of him more like this:

    05c0fc95e900a2ce2c0aeb969abf5cc2.jpg

    Seriously, how can anyone call Bowlsby competent? All this conference has done is lose schools and hide under the table.

    You do realize that Bowlsby wasn't hired as Commissioner until after A&M left, right?  

  12. 21 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

    It’s my understanding that the DA made a statement that he wasn’t going to prosecute “at this time” in a press conference. If that’s accurate then I don’t consider that to be a legally binding “promise” to never prosecute.  If the DA had granted him immunity that would be a whole different deal but that’s not what happened. 

    You're missing the whole part about the District Attorney telling Cosby's lawyers that his office would not prosecute Cosby because he, the District Attorney, believed that a civil lawsuit by Constand was her "best option."  He further told Coby's lawyer that, because he was not going to prosecute Cosby, the District Attorney believed Cosby would no longer be able to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.

    As a lawyer, there is no way in the world that isn't a deal.  If the DA had not made those representations to Cosby, his lawyers would not have let him testify in the civil case (read: invoke his Fifth Amendment rights).  Stated another way, the only reason Cosby did not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights was because of the representations the District Attorney made to his lawyers.  

     

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  13. 6 hours ago, TheBryMan81 said:

    https://theathletic.com/news/tottenham-nuno-new-manager-latest/rYICNRsQnRES

    Think this is paywalled and wouldn't let me copy/paste, but headline pretty much says it all, "Tottenham holding talks to finalize appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo"

    TLDR: face to face talks in London today with a deal in principle already agreed upon.

    Whole lot of nothing.

     

    Tottenham holding talks to finalise appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo

    60 Comments

    rYICNRsQnRES_rYICNRsQnRES_vQhEhYLI4O6w_original_1440x960.jpg

    Tottenham Hotspur are holding face-to-face talks in London today to finalise the appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo, having agreed a deal in principle with the former Wolves manager.

    Fabio Paratici, Tottenham’s new managing director of football, arrived in London on Tuesday and is expected to lead the talks with Nuno, who arrived in the city this morning. Paratici officially starts in his new role on Thursday.

    The Athletic understands that Tottenham are confident of striking a deal with Nuno, who left Wolves at the end of last season by mutual agreement. Nuno became Tottenham’s primary target after an executive meeting on Tuesday.

    Spurs have been without a permanent manager since sacking Jose Mourinho in April. The club have held talks with Antonio Conte, Mauricio Pochettino, Hansi Flick, Paulo Fonseca, Gennaro Gattuso and Julen Lopetegui since the end of the Premier League season.

     

    What do I need to know?

    Talks between Nuno and Tottenham are taking place today.

    Paratici arrived in north London on Tuesday with Nuno flying in from his post-season holiday on Wednesday morning.

    Talks between the two parties are at an advanced stage and Tottenham are increasingly confident of hiring Nuno before the start of pre-season on Monday July 5.

    Nuno was initially not a candidate when he left Wolves as Tottenham pursued other targets, but is now the leading contender, with Spurs having exhausted numerous other options.

    How did we get here?

    Tottenham have held discussions with a number of potential managers since sacking Mourinho in April.

    The club have been in talks with Conte, Pochettino and Flick.

    Spurs were also close to hiring Fonseca, only for talks to collapse at a late stage due to their interest in Gattuso. But Spurs then u-turned once again after their supporters made their opposition to the Italian known.

    In a letter to Tottenham fans at the end of the season, the chairman Daniel Levy wrote that the board had “lost sight of some key priorities and what’s truly in our DNA”.

    He added: “We are acutely aware of the need to select someone whose values reflect those of our great club and return to playing football with the style for which we are known — free-flowing, attacking and entertaining — while continuing to embrace our desire to see young players flourish from our academy alongside experienced talent.”

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