Alabama is paying its football general manager a lot of money which leads to the question does UVA football even have a general manager hey Chris gam here so I saw a headline on espn.com uh earlier this week about Alabama giving its football general manager a record contract and that made me think you know I don't know that UVA football has a general manager I have have to ask about this so I did what I do I sent a note to the folks in media relations and got the answer back quick answer no we don't have a general manager for the football program so let me tell you what the issue there might be then uh guy named Courtney Morgan is the general manager for Alabama football uh and the record contract that was referenced in that ESPN story is 825,000 a year for the next three years the background of Morgan is he followed kayin deor I'm not sure how to pronounce that name he's the new Alabama coach and I've not heard the name said out loud he was a coach at Washington last year was in the national championship game I just didn't pay attention uh dbor will go with uh the guy hired to replace Nick Sabin not easy easy job to have there uh he he brought Morgan with him to be his GM he had him as his GM out up at Washington for a couple of years um and this GM job let's let's explain what that is football general manager to what is it it's a roll up of uh recruiting director player Personnel director and budget director let's just you know all three of those roles um he's being credited Morgan is with a in Alabama what is now the second ranked recruiting class for the 2025 recruiting cycle uh and the work he's already done there has gotten him attention USC Southern Cal came a calling uh when um Morgan was originally contracted to Alabama he was making 500,000 a year after southern cal made a run at him Alabama Ed his pay from 500,000 a year to 825,000 a year for context on what that means uh uva's athletic director makes 1.09 million so about 270,000 more she runs the whole Athletics program Eva she does all that work and budgets and you know all that stuff for 27 Sports not one uh and so Alabama is playing pretty seriously here right um now this need we need us a football general manager Trend in the college game is still pretty new uh but more schools are seeing the value of having one person overseeing the increasingly complicated player acquisition part of the business you know it used to be I was explaining to somebody today uh back when George Welsh was coached let's go back to just you know to the good old days um you had to recruit high schools that's what you recruited you know there there was no transfer portal there were guys transferring at the college level but there was no portal and you had a year to sit out transfers were were just an afterthought I mean you might pick up a transfer here and there but you know you you weren't working the transfer route you were focused you had your player Personnel director focused recruiting director focused right there on the on the high school game you didn't have nil you have to worry about budgets uh and so you you you had a recruiting coordinator he's probably also your one of your assistant coaches and all he did was he oversaw what the other assistant coaches did each assistant coach on the staff is assigned a region uh to be responsible for in recruiting and uh you know the the Coordinator would just make sure everybody was doing their job right and and he probably had his own area to cover as well well you know in this day and age now you've got high school recruiting you've got the transfer portal which is a 247 365 everybody's a free agent every year um until until the powers that be in the NCAA figure out a way to to change that situation it's pretty easy to do just require schools to or allow schools to sign guys contracts uh whether they be one two three or four years um but all you know all those pieces uh being disperate as they are uh it's it's just wise to have someone in charge of uh over making sure that there there's cohesion to everything that you do there right um and it's the model is the NFL general manager you know and the NFL the head coach isn't responsible for recruiting the players signing the players drafting the players he's part of that process but it's just a part you've got other people doing you know other parts of that job college game is now evolving to that stage more schools like Alabama are doing this Texas Tech has a guy making 800,000 a year doing this job uh and they're not the only other school doing it so uh people who read our coverage of EV Athletics often ask me to you know identify areas where UVA athletics is coming up short this is one of them it's another area where UVA athletics is behind its peers