By Dan Zealley
Many schools are heading to an NFL model for the structure of their program, not the Georgia
Bulldogs, according to On3 NIL.
Kirby Smart pushed back on the need for a GM at Georgia:
"At the end of the day, I’m not ready to run off and go hire somebody that’s just going to make all the decisions for what goes on on the football field. I think I’ve got to stay involved in that heavily."… pic.twitter.com/RGWNpMhLtk
— On3 NIL (@On3NIL) March 12, 2025
The landscape of college sports has changed dramatically over the past few years. We have
seen conference realignment, changes to the transfer portal, and most importantly, name,
image, and likeness (NIL).
Many schools are turning to a GM to take over the player negotiation and NIL opportunities.
Alabama, Oklahoma, and North Carolina are some examples of schools that recently brought in
GMs.
“It’s a head coach-GM model,” North Carolina’s Bill Belichick said on ESPN. “We obviously work
together and formulate our plan, but [Lombardi] handles really the GM side of it, the contracts,
the salaries, so forth.”
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Georgia’s Kirby Smart is on the other side of the argument. He has decided not to bring in a GM
and is counting on his current staff to handle the duties.
“Not specifically,” Smart said when asked about whether Georgia could change its
organizational structure. “We’ve got a lot of people in charge of roster management – including
myself, including our football ops staff is involved, our operations/player development, player
personnel staff. Everybody gets involved in that. It’s a team effort.”
“We’ve got the capacity and the quality of people in the areas that I think we need. So, I think
we’ll be fine in that world as it changes,” Smart went on to say.
Whether or not Georgia has someone on the staff with the title of general manager, there are
people in place to take care of the player personnel side of things. As we move toward
revenue-sharing on college football, we may see things change in Athens.
