This morning, we welcomed 11 Power 4 GMs as panelists for the 2025 Vestible ITL Symposium Presented by Mascot Alliance and Powered by Dropback. Before an audience of about 300 members of the college and pro football community, they provided insights on the industry over a 90-minute period.

However, there was one thing missing — the thoughts of an equivalent member from a school competing in the Group of Five conferences. For that, we enlisted Jose Jefferson, who’s not only the co-founder of the College Gridiron Showcase but also the newly minted GM at Florida International University in Miami.

Here’s what Jose provided earlier this week regarding some of the hot topics in the college football business.

• What is the role and job description of the college GM?: “I think that varies with every GM role.   Everyone does it differently. I think it is based on your relationship with the head coach.  It involves managing the roster, managing NIL revenue, managing the recruiting process and evaluating the current roster vs incoming players. In short, if your team is good, it is your job to make the team better.  If you are great, it is your job to make the team exceptional. If you are exceptional, it is your job to keep the team exceptional and in front of the curve.”
• There’s been a trend of NFL scouts moving to executive roles in the college ranks.  Will this continue? “I think as the position evolves, there will be a trend of making college football front offices like NFL front offices. I think there is a learning curve; the evaluation process may differ as most of these players are not developed. There have been several players who are Hall Of Famers who weren’t recruited out of high school or who weren’t three-star prospects. I think if you are organized, flexible, and creative with your process, yes, NFL scouts would be great candidates for GM roles.”
• Do you see a day when colleges have NFL-style scouting staffs, or will coaches remain as the chief evaluators? “Coaches want to be scouts and scouts want to be coaches (ha ha). In the college game, I feel coaches will still be the main evaluators. Until they create an NFL-style draft, college is all about relationships. Now it is getting less that way as ‘bags’ are being dropped off and things seem more transactional. However, the relationship has to start with who the player will be working with; who he will be mentored by; and who he’s developing with. So yes, I feel coaches are still the front line. It is the GM’s job to take a deeper dive with their selections and make sure a player is a ‘fit’ with the team, the culture, and scheme.” 

For a closer look at today’s event in Indianapolis, make sure to check out the Friday Wrap this week, in which we recap all the award winners from Wednesday and the panelists’ responses this morning. Not registered? Fix that here.

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.

When a new GM takes over, we try to get a feel for his personality and leadership style by asking those who know him, anonymously, to give us their respective takes. We’ve done that previously this cycle with Tennessee’s Mike Borgonzi, and in previous years with other hires. This week, our focus turns to new Raiders chief John Spytek, and despite perhaps the busiest week of the year when it comes to all-star play, we had several responses.

Before we get started, my own experience with John has been A+. I dealt with him when his Bucs won the 2020 Best Draft Award (the Wirfs/Winfield draft), and it seemed to me like Bucs GM Jason Licht wanted John to handle much of it, mainly because Jason believed in his work. Both Jason and John were professional and humbled, even though we had to work with really weird conditions (that year, the combine was canceled, so it was the only online ITL Seminar we’ve ever conducted). Check it out here, if you’re interested. You’ll hear John discuss the vagaries of having a draft from home, which I think is pretty interesting. 

But that’s enough from me. One source I reached in Mobile said the Raiders made a great choice because he’s “a hands-off manager” who “never micromanages” and “trusts them to do their jobs.” He also truly values what his scouts tell him, my friend told me.

Here are some other comments from people who’ve worked alongside John.

• “Unique, avant-garde leadership approach. Not a micro manager. Will build through the draft and collect pieces in free agency.”
• “He’s a very good listener. His door is always open to come in and talk about any concerns you may have. He does a good job stepping back and looking at the big picture. He’s strong in his convictions. He does a good job articulating what he sees.”
• “John is a really good overall person and you know what you are getting with him each day, as he always has the same positive demeanor. He’s very appreciative and loyal to those around him. A very good evaluator who sees the big picture for players and what roles they can bring.”  

Given the nature of his leadership, based on what we were told about him, we’d expect him to make sure the Raiders staff has plenty of strong evaluators who can do their jobs without a lot of oversight. Generally speaking, that sounds like he’ll value veterans over the youth-is-king trend currently in fashion with a lot of teams. The Raiders did pretty good last April (they narrowly missed being a finalist for the Best Draft Award) and have plenty of holdovers from the previous regime that have lots of seasoning. That gives Spytek a real boost as he takes over and learns his staff. 

For more about front offices, hiring and the NFL offseason, make sure to read the Friday Wrap, which comes out this evening. You can register for it here.

 

 

I’m really excited about our 14-man class at the CGSU, the scout school we hold annually at the College Gridiron Showcase. The class is the brainchild of CGS co-founder Jose Jefferson, and this is our fourth class (here’s our first).

The participants come from all around and have had excellent attitudes, which is extremely impressive given the travel challenges everyone faced getting here (as well as the scheduling challenges since they arrived). Here are a few notes on what’s happened so far, and what’s ahead. 

• Last night, co-founder Jose Jefferson welcomed everyone with 15 minutes on the game, where they fit in, and how they could achieve their goals. When Jose speaks, I listen, and part of the reason is because it’s always entertaining. If you don’t believe me, listen (again?) to the Scouting the League Podcast when he was a guest.
• After that, former Chiefs scout and current and current CFL scout John Bonaventura, who leads the program, gave a detailed discussion on the life of a scout, from travel to building relationships to getting your foot in the door. John had some good stories from his time in both leagues. 
• Today, some of the 15 CGSU participants (two are still in transit as I write this) will head across town to assist with our workout for street free agents. They’ll be recording times and helping out as we conduct testing in Carrollton, about a half-hour from here. We had no problem getting volunteers, which speaks to their attitudes. 
• By the way, we have participants from as far away as Buffalo, NY; Salt Lake City; Newark, Del.; Nashville; Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; and even the state of Washington. These are not people who drove over from somewhere in the Metroplex. Again, that impresses me.
• Among our success stories: Browns scouting assistants Hajriz Aliu and Tyler Habursky, Air Force Director of Football Operations Joe Caulfield, Memphis DPP Blake Moore, Michigan State Assistant Director of Scouting Syrus Amirian, Georgia personnel analyst Sales Pinckney and many others.
• Another thing about this week: they’re already knitting together, feeling comfortable with everyone and learning each others’ names. That’s one of the cool things about this. They’re making friends that will help them in their careers. 
• We’ve got 164 scouts registered to join us here this weekend. Are all of them NFL scouts? No (though the overwhelming majority are). Will some scouts stay home, given the cold, wet conditions in Fort Worth today? Maybe. Still, we’ve got football happening in a big way this weekend, and there will be dozens of helpful (and perhaps career-making) connections made over the next 72 hours. If you want to work in football, you simply have to go where it’s being played. Everyone at CGSU bet on themselves, and I think it’s gonna pay off.
• There are 190 players inbound to Fort Worth today. Our guys will be ready. The big opportunity will come Saturday afternoon, when we have our (kinda famous) interview session from 3:30-10:30 p.m. tomorrow night. It will look a little like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as our CGSU members facilitate interviews and serve as runners for NFL teams. It is, without question, the best way to get face time (and prove your value) to NFL scouts without actually working for a team. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of with respect to what we do here.

If you aspire to be a scout someday, put it on your calendar for next year. I assure you it’s worth it.