Kirby Smart pushes back against need for GM, explains role balance

As the NIL era evolves in college sports, so does roster management. Programs across the country are starting to add general manager roles – or something of the like – to help with both player retention and recruiting with revenue-sharing on the horizon.

Georgia is not in that group, though, as Kirby Smart stays involved in all aspects of building the roster. He cited the need for balance between roles as the Bulldogs navigate recruiting, both at the high school level and in the transfer portal, as well as NIL.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Smart took responsibility for the product put on the field each week. That’s why he said he doesn’t plan on hiring a GM at the moment, expressing faith in the staff he has in place.

“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 reorganized and restructured some things in terms of what falls under whose duty and whose aspects. But 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. 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.”

GMs becoming more prominent in college sports

The role of the general manager is becoming more prominent around college athletics, including in the SEC. One of Kalen DeBoer’s first hires at Alabama last year was Courtney Morgan, who left Michigan to become the Crimson Tide’s GM.

More recently, Oklahoma made a splash by hiring Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy as its general manager. He will work hand-in-hand with Brent Venables when it comes to scouting and recruiting.

The rise of GMs coincides with the pending House v. NCAA settlement, which is due for full approval later this year. If it goes through, schools will be able to directly share up to $20.5 million with athletes in 2025.

There’s also the sense a “professionalism” model is making its way to college sports, as North Carolina coach Bill Belichick detailed. He brought in a general manager of his own in Michael Lombardi, who held the same role in the NFL, and he’ll handled the conversations about money.

“It’s a head coach-GM model,” Belichick said on ESPN College GameDay last week. “We obviously work together and formulate our plan, but [Lombardi] handles really the GM side of it, the contracts, the salaries, so forth. But again, it’s what we’ve been doing for 30-some years. We’re used to it.”