In a week, more than 20 college general managers and directors of player personnel, most of them from Power 4 conferences, will convene in Indianapolis for the Vestible ITL Symposium Presented by Mascot Alliance. They won’t be alone, of course: we’ve also got about a dozen major NIL agencies (some NFLPA-certified, some soon to be), 10-12 NFL scouts, and lots of other members of the sports business community on their way to Room 205-206 of the Indiana Convention Center Friday morning.

We’ll be there to network, of course, but also to talk about the issues. As many benefits as the transfer portal and the NIL era have been for college football — and I strongly believe it’s been a net positive — there have also been a lot of negatives and even abuses. That’s what our panelists will be discussing.

The exact panelists and the schools that will be represented will be in today’s Friday Wrap, as well as the symposium registration link if you’d like to join us (but hurry, because we’re almost at capacity). You can register for the Friday Wrap, if you don’t already receive it, here.

So what will be the topics? There won’t be topics as much as there will be questions. My counterpart for this symposium, C.J. Cavazos of CJ Recruiting and NIL, will co-host the event, alternating asking questions to the panelists.

We’ve got a list of 18 questions we’re going to try to get to during the 90 minutes we’ve got scheduled. Here are five of them.

  • What is the role and job description of the modern college GM?: We’re seeing an avalanche of hirings at the GM level, especially in P4 football. Despite this, there seems to be no consensus on what a college GM actually is. Is he primarily an evaluator? More of a capologist? Does he have the authority to hire and fire, to build a roster?
  • Will the trend of NFL scouts and executives moving from the NFL to the college ranks continue?: What are the people who are running college personnel departments looking for? On the college level, coaches more or less function as the team’s scouts (along with several volunteers who are usually students). Will we see the “professionalization” of player evaluation in college football?
  • One of the most common complaints in portal-related matters is tampering, i.e., open recruiting of another team’s players, often in-season, often by coaches on another team. Is there any way to stop this? : This is the one topic that unites coaches and personnel types, especially when it comes to G5 teams that are often picked over by P4 schools.
  • Should there be any restrictions on the number of times a player can transfer?: I know this could be a controversial idea, but how much is enough? Wouldn’t some reasonable standard improve the game? Is stability a dirty word now?
  • What’s the biggest immediate change in the portal if the House settlement is approved in April?: All I’ve heard is that most teams and agents are trying to front-load their agreements signed in December because of the uncertainty of the portal beyond April. Studying the settlement is part of the job for modern college GMs. What have they found?

If these questions intrigue you, you should see the entire list of 18 we’ve come up with. We’ll publish all of them in the Friday Wrap this evening. Make sure to check it out (register here for our newsletter) , and if you’d like to listen in on experts talking about these matters, I hope you’ll join us in a week. The registration link for Friday’s symposium will also be in the Wrap. See you at the convention center.