another level of responsibility for college coaches

They used words like unsustainable and unrealistic, predicting doom for college football and their job of coaching and player development suddenly filled with money and freedom of movement.

Second, this new world for coaches proved to be financially and operationally sustainable. And very realistic.

And now here we are, entering a fourth year of seismic change in player supply in college football, and coaches have a new bogeyman and another level of responsibility.

Because no college president in his right mind is going to put a multi-million dollar budget in the hands of a football coach.

“It’s a new landscape we’re in,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said.

That might be the understatement of the year.

We haven’t started officially paying for the game – with college athletes sharing in media rights revenue from a multi-million salary cap following a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA, and starting with the 2025 season – and already schools are moving forward to complete the training. personnel by adding “general managers,” “vice presidents of operations,” and “executive advisors” to their football programs.

Whatever the title, the job description is clear: manage money. Coaches wanted guidance and help from their universities in this ever-changing world of untold and unintended tentacles.

Now they get it – with an added level of oversight, some may soon regret it.

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More to the point: They have another pair of eyes watching their program, closer than anyone else — including their athletic directors — has ever been. This also manages and controls a salary cap for up to 105 players, nearly double the number of contracts the NFL has per team.

A salary budget that will quickly become the lifeblood of winning football, and a quicker path to unemployment for those who fail to manage it properly. Nothing says it’s time for a new vision for the program quite like a coach who fails to recruit players and costs the university millions.

If you thought NFL owners had quick hooks for their coaches, wait until college presidents become more involved in wins and losses through the hiring of general managers and advisors. There’s no way to avoid it once they decide to add another level of management.

Ohio State boosters and NIL fans spent $20 million this season on the Buckeyes’ roster, an all-in-one moment to try to catch the Big Ten bully and defending national champion (and bitter rival) from Michigan. The school spent more on coach Ryan Day ($10 million annual salary), his assistant coaches and staff ($11 million).

Then he scored all 10 points at home in an ugly loss to Michigan’s worst (non-pandemic) team in a decade. The Buckeyes won 10 games and qualified for the College Football Playoff, a sort of salve for a gaping wound of four straight losses to the Wolverines.

How many more chances will Day have to spend $41 million and lose to Michigan?

Earlier this month, Oklahoma hired former AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson as “executive advisor to the president and athletic director.” Although Stephenson declined to be paid for his role, there is no doubt about the purpose of his work.

Follow the money and make it work.

The Sooners are struggling under third-year coach Brent Venables and have won just two championship games in their first season in the SEC. In July, OU hired a general manager (former player Curtis Lofton) and teamed up with former Philadelphia Eagles vice president of football administration Jake Rosenberg.

You don’t hire a money shark like Stephenson, who successfully ran one of America’s most valuable companies for years, without ceding more power to him – intentionally or not.

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There’s a bit of a jump between coaches hiring hand-picked general managers – a job title used by coaches only in name, as a perk, and which bears no resemblance to the cutthroat NFL gig – all the way down to advisors who end up taking over the hiring process and bringing in legitimate general managers who are salary cap experts.

Legitimate general managers who have direct connections to the athletic director and president and who have the ability to steer coaching evaluations one way or the other.

Case in point: Stanford, which recently hired former Cardinal All-American quarterback Andrew Luck as its general manager, and made it clear that Luck would have a say in coaching and staff moves. Stanford, my friends, is way down the food chain.

How much longer until Blueblood USC, which has lost 11 of its last 18 games under third-year coach Lincoln Riley, contacts former coach Pete Carroll and asks him to become an advisor to President Carol Folt or his successor after his resignation. the end of the academic year? Carroll loved his time at USC and won big, and only left after the 2009 season to challenge himself in the NFL again.

He is currently an advisor for the Seattle Seahawks, having been ousted from the head coaching position following the 2023 season. He would trade one role for another, but that job would be in his beloved Los Angeles.

How much longer until Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne decides he needs a closer, day-to-day look at how first-year coach Kalen DeBoer is running the program? Like all athletic directors, Byrne manages more than 20 athletic programs, each with its unique issues and demands.

Because football is the gateway to all sports programs, because athletic directors can’t know what’s happening day to day, it’s only natural to add another level of oversight. Especially when millions are at stake every year.

Why wouldn’t a major college football team have a general manager or vice president of operations reporting to the athletic director? It is financially unwise to ignore the growing beast and leave everything in the hands of a football coach.

This is unsustainable and unrealistic.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on social media at @MattHayesCFB.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College football general managers follow the money, put more pressure on coaches