The modern landscape of college athletics will further distance itself from an amateurism model on April 7. That’s when the final approval hearing for the House v. NCAA settlement is scheduled, a legal battle set to pay out Big Ten and SEC programs $20.5 million annually in revenue sharing at its conclusion. Soon enough, college football will look quite like the NFL.
And many college football programs have already prepped their staffs for the impending shift in the way money is distributed to players. That is by hiring general managers. But Penn State is an outlier in this regard. James Franklin has publicized his interest in hiring such a staff member, but a hire has not yet taken place.
When, if ever, will the Nittany Lions hire a general manager and what exactly could that look like? Pat Kraft, the university’s athletic director, provided some insight on Monday.
“I’m 100% supportive, let me say that,” Kraft said. “We have people in the building that are doing that job right now.
“A lot of these general managers that you’re seeing hired have full roster discretion. I’ll leave that out there. You know that’s hard in college sports, meaning they’re choosing the players, much like the pros. I don’t I don’t agree with that. I do not think that’s right. They’re coming here because they’re going to play for the coaches and James Franklin’s football program.”
Kraft and Franklin aren’t looking for someone to entirely oversee Penn State’s recruiting department and transfer portal endeavors. Instead, they’re interested in bringing in a staff member who can handle the impending roster limits, set to rise to 105 scholarship players with the approval of the settlement, and the distribution of revenue-sharing money.
“What we’re looking a little bit for in this next generation of college football, with revenue sharing and those things coming, really is trying to get a specific contract, money guy, accountant,” Franklin said on the Penn State Coaches Show on Sept. 19. “Someone who maybe has a background working in the NFL as maybe a No. 2 or No. 3 in the NFL to the general manager that maybe has a Penn State connection or a Pennsylvania connection that would love to be working in this role.”
The search has been ongoing. Andy Frank, the program’s general manager for personnel and recruitment, told reporters on Dec. 5 that the Nittany Lions would be moving forward on their search over the “next several months.” And that they were looking for someone with an in-depth understanding of contract negotiations and in dealing with agents.
Alan Zemaitis, Penn State’s recruiting coordinator for personnel and recruitment, said that same day that “you feel like in some recruiting situations, you talk to them more than you talk to the actual parents,” amplifying the necessity for a staff member in this role. But there’s a balance between roster oversight and financial analytics that Kraft and Franklin are looking for.
“It’s not like we just actively have, like, not hired one. We continue to talk to a lot of people, but as this is evolving, a lot of work in the building has been done, I think, really well. But I would not put it past James and us to have a GM at some point,” Kraft said. “We’re hiring more data analytics folks in the office, because we’ve got to, I have to manage the entire $20.5 (million) and the fair market value and NIL, and we’ve got to make sure that we’re all aligned.”
