Former quarterback Andrew Luck has been hired as the general manager of Stanford football.
Luck has been given full authority over the program, including personnel decisions, fundraising, and player procurement.
The role of a college football general manager varies widely by school, with no standard job description or salary structure.
Luck aims to rebuild the program by blending Stanford’s academic ideals with the new realities of NIL and the transfer portal.

Right there on the wall in his office is a poster of the Vow Boys from the 1930s. Over there, the Thunder Chickens from the 1970s. And there’s a ball from the 2011 Orange Bowl, where Andrew Luck led a Stanford team that declared it would win with character and cruelty.

Luck is proud to tell you about his relics of those brief but beautiful pockets of winning at Stanford, players and coaches who believed you could win at a high level for one of college football’s greatest academic institutions. Then did it.

The pre-war freshman class that vowed to never lose to USC, and didn’t — and broke USC’s 27-game winning streak in the process. The gutty, overachieving defensive line, those Thunder Chickens (named after a Montana motorcycle gang) that showed Stanford could play mean defense during quarterback Jim Plunkett’s 1970 Heisman Trophy season and beyond. 

Now comes the most recent iteration of defiant dedication to winning the right way (with character and cruelty, no less) that those currently running Stanford athletics believe can be replicate past success despite college football’s current state of individualistic hedonism.

So yeah, that’s Luck’s new job as general manager of Stanford football. 

“We want to write our own story,” Luck said. “But it’s going to require a bit of a different flavor to succeed in this.”

He stops for a moment, the ghosts of the past hovering in his office and the weight of this heavy lift in his voice.

“We’ve been given a blank canvas here,” he continues. “How cool is that to be able to create the job and the structure with your vision?”

Make no mistake, Luck is Stanford football. He has a mandate from Stanford president Jonathan Levin to do what must be done at all levels of the program. From player procurement, to personnel (hiring/firing coaches), to fundraising and all the way down to the nitty-gritty of working with campus partners so that everyone on The Farm is aligned and on the same page. 

This is a college football general manager. Hands on everything and up to his elbows in change.

Not a GM who was given a job because he knows the head coach and was rewarded with a seven-figure parachute paycheck. Or a GM who was hired because he’s a helluva recruiter and the head coach is tired of begging teenagers and transfer-portal egos to play for State U — and doesn’t want to deal with the salary cap, anyway.

Or a former CEO of a worldwide company hired to oversee all things athletics, who then hires a GM to run football and, the next thing you know, the longtime respected and wildly successful athletics director announces his retirement.

There are power struggles everywhere in this road of the unknown, a job whose boundaries and goals aren’t specific but unique to each school. Power and titles and booming salaries awarded out of annoyance with the ever-evolving system, not earned.

Of the 49 Power Four conference schools for which USA TODAY Sports could determine a compensation amount, salaries for general managers this season are all over the board, with no clear delineation of value.   

So, to recap: no clear value structure or common job description. 

College football has become a sport racing to mimic all things NFL — reluctantly or enthusiastically, depending on which school. That includes mimicking the NFL’s personnel department hierarchy. It has even borrowed the term “general manager,” although the duties of people holding that title vary from program to program.

“It’s different things for different people,” says LSU coach Brian Kelly, whose general manager Austin Thomas is at the high end of GM salaries ($800,000 annually), and who in 2016 became the first high-profile person in college football to hold the title during his first stint in Baton Rouge.

Thomas now carries the title of senior associate athletics director/football administration. LSU’s front office, for lack of a better term, also includes people with the following titles: senior associate AD/assistant general manager, director of player retention, director of player personnel, associate director of player personnel, assistant director of player personnel, player personnel analyst and director of scouting/personnel strategy.

College football general managers come at a cost, and that cost varies widely from school to school.

At the top of the GM pay list from data obtained by USA TODAY is Michael Lombardi, a former NFL general manager who new Tar Heels coach Bill Belichick brought with him to Chapel Hill for a whopping $1.5 million annually. Insert your player evaluation joke here. 

At the bottom is Billy High, Tennessee’s executive director of football management, who does essentially what every general manager does ― but doesn’t have the official title because coach Josh Heupel still runs the show. High makes a paltry $150,000.

Then there’s Luck’s position at Stanford: a legitimate action manager who oversees all things football and takes necessary steps throughout the program to change what isn’t working. He’s Stanford’s version of John Lynch, another former Cardinal who has been wildly successful as San Francisco 49ers general manager.

And that’s where this story begins and ends. 

“College football started changing and Stanford wasn’t accepting it,” Luck said. “We’re not only going to accept it, we’re going to change the whole organizational structure.”  

So Luck — not Stanford’s traditional athletics administration — fired coach Troy Taylor this offseason and hired Frank Reich, Luck’s former offensive coordinator in the NFL, to run the show as interim coach until he gets a firm foothold on where this thing is headed.

No other general manager in college football has that power. They’d be lucky to override a coach on a high school recruit or a player from the transfer portal.

But Luck, whose salary has not been disclosed because he works for a private university, has personnel power and is deep into recruiting and player procurement — the heart of any buildout in team sports. Players win games and coaches put players in position to win games. General managers stock the roster.

The foundation is strong at Stanford, built on the ideal of what the university stands for and what it means to play college football. It got stronger recently when former Stanford player Bradford Freeman donated $50 million to the football program.

Luck believes there’s a group of elite high school players (and portal players) who still want the academic experience and the ability to earn off their name, image and likeness. It’s his job as general manager to find those players and convince them Stanford is the best move for their futures.

Or as the former blue-chip recruit from Houston matter-of-factly says, “I signed with Stanford after a 1-11 season.”

It doesn’t look much better now. Stanford hasn’t had a winning season since 2018 and only receives a 30% media rights revenue share from the ACC. In the past three years alone, the Cardinal has lost numerous elite players to the transfer portal because it couldn’t compete with the sport’s new salary structure. 

But understand this: From 2010 (Luck’s last season) to 2018, Stanford won 94 games in nine seasons. There were six double-digit win seasons, two nine-win seasons and an eight-win season. 

Players who signed with Stanford over that decade are the same players Luck is recruiting now. Those who want the Stanford experience and the money — not the other way around.

“That’s the fun part of this job, selling this fantastic university,” Luck said. “My job is to create the conditions that allow our players to create their own legacies.”

Not long after he was hired last November, after the congratulatory calls and carefully picking the brains of those he trusts, Luck sat in his office at Stanford and reality washed over him. 

This is his first job. That’s right, his first official job.

If you don’t count playing in the NFL a job, that is. Because playing at Stanford never was, and never will be, a job.

“I know our student-athlete model can exist in the NIL era. I know it,” Luck said. “We will stay firmly rooted in the non-negotiable. We will keep doubling and tripling down on things that you know matter, while also embracing what’s new and different.”

That’s not just writing your own story. That’s a best seller if you can pull it off.

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

Leanne Wong made sure the U.S. women’s all-around medal streak remains intact.

Wong won the silver medal at the world gymnastics championships Thursday, finishing just 0.10 behind Angelina Melnikova. It’s Wong’s second all-around silver at worlds – she was runner-up to Melnikova in 2021, also – and extended the U.S. women’s streak of winning an all-around medal at every worlds and Olympics since 2003.

It also is the fifth world medal for Wong, who claimed a bronze on floor exercise in 2021 and was part of the U.S. teams that won gold in 2022 and 2023.

Fellow American Dulcy Caylor, who is making her worlds debut, finished 13th after falls on uneven bars and balance beam. Caylor still has a chance to win an individual medal, having qualified for the beam and floor exercise finals.

Wong came very close to pulling off the upset over Melnikova, who was competing at her first major international event since 2021 because of Russia’s ban from most sports following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Melnikova had taken a solid lead after the first two events, only to fall on balance beam. That opened the door for Wong, who was steady all night.

Trailing by more than a point going into the final rotation, Wong needed a big score on vault to give herself a realistic shot at gold, and she got it. Her Cheng – a roundoff onto the takeoff board followed by a half-twist onto the vaulting table and then a somersault with 1½ twists – had great height and power, and her only real flaw was the two steps she took to secure her landing.

Wong’s score of 14.466 moved her into first place and put pressure on Melnikova, who was finishing on floor as the last competitor of the event.

Melnikova went out of bounds on her first tumbling pass, and it appeared from some camera angles as if both of her feet were over the line, which would mean a larger deduction. Going out of bounds with one foot is a 0.1 deduction. Going out with two feet is a 0.3 deduction.

The rest of Melnikova’s routine was solid, with lovely leaps and turns. When she finished, it was clear it was going to be close, with the out-of-bounds deduction likely to be the determining factor.

It was.

Melnikova got the smaller deduction, 0.10 points. That gave her an overall score of 55.066 points, 0.10 points better than Wong.

The U.S. women can add to their medal count in the event finals. In addition to Caylor on beam and floor, Josc Roberson qualified on vault and Skye Blakely made the uneven bars final.

Following comments by Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Kansas’ Bill Self on G-League players in college basketball, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson became the latest coach to call out leaders of the sport, with the transfer portal at the center of his rant.

‘At some point, someone has to step up and say this is wrong,’ Sampson told reporters on Wednesday, Oct. 22. ‘This is not what we signed up for. This is not what they signed up for. It’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to their parents. We’re still an educational institution, but there is nothing educational about college basketball right now. It’s all transactional. And we all put our heads in the sand, thinking that it will change eventually.

‘This is going to outlast all of us. That toothpaste is out of the tube, and you ain’t putting it back in.’

Sampson continued, even offering up a solution to the transfer portal:

‘You can control that transfer portal, and I am adamant that we are positively impacting lives if we tell a kid he has to sit out for a year,’ Sampson said. ‘You get one transfer, anywhere you want, with no penalties. Transfer and play right away. But you cannot do that every year. We’ve made a mockery of college basketball, to some degree.’

Izzo and Self called out the NCAA’s recent changes to player eligibility guidelines, which allow two G-League players to commit to college programs. This includes Louisville landing a commitment from guard London Johnson.

The Pack’s visit to Pittsburgh is clearly the marquee game on a light Week 8 slate.
Six teams will be on their bye this weekend.
Another potentially fun matchup? Cowboys at Broncos, pitting Dallas’ explosive offense against Denver’s elite D.

The NFL’s upcoming slate of Week 8 games is a light one. Six teams (Cardinals, Lions, Jaguars, Raiders, Rams, Seahawks) will be on bye, that mass absence dovetailing at a point of the season when the league is pausing its International Series and moving away from its recent Monday night doubleheaders.

None of that is to say it won’t be an eventful weekend.

Thursday night kicks off with a pair of 2024 playoff teams struggling to get back to the postseason, the Minnesota Vikings visiting the Los Angeles Chargers at a time when both teams are working through significant injury setbacks.

What projects as a fairly ho-hum Sunday afternoon slate will feature the Denver Broncos hosting another NFC East team, the Dallas Cowboys, in what’s hopefully as entertaining a contest as last Sunday’s Broncos-Giants affair.

But Week 8’s pièce de resistance involves Pittsburgh Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers facing his original team, the Green Bay Packers − they famously chose the eventual four-time MVP late in Round 1 of the 2005 draft − for the first time Sunday night at Acrisure Stadium. No revenge required.

Does Rodgers win? What about everyone else? USA TODAY’s consortium of NFL experts weighs in:

(Odds provided by BetMGM)

NFL Week 8 picks, predictions and odds

Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Chargers
Miami Dolphins at Atlanta Falcons
Chicago Bears at Baltimore Ravens
Cleveland Browns at New England Patriots
New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles
San Francisco 49ers at Houston Texans
Buffalo Bills at Carolina Panthers
New York Jets at Cincinnati Bengals
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints
Tennessee Titans at Indianapolis Colts
Dallas Cowboys at Denver Broncos
Green Bay Packers at Pittsburgh Steelers
Washington Commanders at Kansas City Chiefs

College football programs are increasingly hiring general managers to navigate the new era of NIL and revenue sharing.
Schools are bringing in executives from the NFL, business world, and other sports to build out their front offices.
Virginia Tech initially considered hiring a general manager before a head coach but ultimately reversed course.
Some coaches, like Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, prefer to act as both head coach and general manager.

Bruce Arians, the former NFL coach advising Virginia Tech since it fired former coach Brent Pry last month, went on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ and suggested the school had a plan that would have been seen as radical just a few years ago.

The Hokies would hire a general manager before conducting their head coaching search, Arians said, because ‘the whole thing has changed. It’s all business now and you’ve got to find a businessman.’

Only 10 days later, current Virginia Tech athletics director Whit Babcock announced the university had switched course and would take the more traditional approach of forming a search committee to help identify a new coach first. Virginia Tech had found having a general manager in place first could limit the school’s head coach candidate pool, according to Babcock.

‘We want to be cutting edge, but not leading edge,’ Babcock explained on a Virginia Tech athletics department podcast.

Neither idea resembles the more unconventional response another public school and in-state ACC rival implemented over the past year to confront the financial and competitive complexities introduced to college sports in recent years by NIL and revenue sharing.

Virginia football is back in the national polls for the first time since 2019 with the help of Tyler Jones, an athletic department administrator elevated into the role of general manager for football and women’s basketball. Once a potential player is identified by coaches as an option for either roster, it’s Jones who serves as a recruiter, ‘just explaining to folks what UVA is about, our roster situation and detailing out what our financial package could look like,’ he said on the Inside Virginia Athletics podcast with athletics director Carla Williams in July.

The Virginia athletic department also hired former New England Patriots executive Scott Pioli to help construct its new model, and he remains a paid consultant for the department with an 11-month contract worth $330,000 through June 30, 2026, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY Sports via open records request.

“We didn’t want to be the first school to just jump out there and hire people,’ Williams said on the podcast.

College football is still very much in the feeling-out process of how to best capitalize on the strange, new world born from the once-forbidden concept of having to pay players. It’s perhaps best reflected in the lack of consensus to this point about the best way to build out a front office equipped to handle this professionalized version of the sport.

As part of its annual survey of college football coaches compensation, USA TODAY Sports also obtained contracts and 2025 salary information for Power Four conference general managers at public schools this year — or in lieu of that exact title, the staff member identified as the top front-office member at each school. The growing range in salary, structure and responsibilities revealed in these documents offer a glimpse into the resources and rapid evolution transpiring behind the scenes.

Many schools are bringing in personnel from the NFL, business world and beyond to spearhead a program transformation off the field. Here’s a look at some of the most elaborate and interesting front-office structures in college football during the 2025 season:

California turns to Ron Rivera

After Cal football’s first season in the ACC, and four months following rival Stanford’s splashy hiring of Andrew Luck as its football general manager, Cal chancellor Rich Lyons lured alum Ron Rivera back to campus as the Bears’ first general manager last March. The former Washington Commanders and Carolina Panthers coach took on a wide-ranging role with personnel responsibilities and hiring power within the football program similar to an NFL general manager, as well as more traditional fundraising duties tied to the university’s NIL and revenue-sharing programs.

Rivera’s job also includes, it appears, the ability to determine the future of current Cal coach Justin Wilcox. The school’s announcement of Rivera’s hiring noted he reported only to the university chancellor. When asked who had ‘ultimate authority’ within the football program, Rivera told reporters last April, ‘I do have that, other than the chancellor.’

‘One thing everybody has to understand,’ Rivera explained, ‘is I do have the opportunity working with the chancellor to make decisions on what is best for Cal football, because my hands are in every facet of Cal football.’

Oklahoma calls on former AT&T, Senior Bowl executives

Oklahoma made significant changes to its football infrastructure over the past year in an effort to fuse some of the best practices from the NFL, college football and corporate world together within the dynamic landscape created by the implementation of NIL and revenue sharing. The university’s unorthodox move was to hire former AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson as a special advisor to the president and athletics director. His role has expanded since the Sooners made an intriguing general manager hire to spearhead their front office build-out.

Stephenson currently carries the title chair of football and provides day-to-day oversight of new Oklahoma general manager Jim Nagy and Sooners football coach Brent Venables. Stephenson also offers ‘oversight and expertise of the budgeting, strategic planning and business planning functions during this unique time of change in college athletics,’ according to the university.

Nagy is the former executive director of the Senior Bowl and a longtime NFL scout who now leads Oklahoma’s roster management and player acquisition. He also manages issues related to NIL, the transfer portal, revenue sharing, scholarship limits and eligibility requirements. The Sooners also previously created a partnership with former Philadelphia Eagles vice president of football administration Jake Rosenberg when it elected to change the structure of its football program.

Washington consults sports agent, former NFL GM

Washington football doesn’t have anyone with the title of general manager on coach Jedd Fisch’s 2025 staff, and Matt Doherty serves as the program’s senior director of player personnel. But the athletic department has been aggressive trying to address its NIL and revenue-sharing needs.

Last February, athletics director Pat Chun hired Cameron Foster as the school’s senior director of contracts and cap management. Foster, a longtime sports agent primarily focused on NFL clients, serves as Washington’s lead negotiator on revenue-share agreements, according to the university. He is also still actively working for Reign Sports Management and signed a one-year contract with Washington through February 2026. The employment agreement includes a salary of $150,000 and a clause that states his ‘primary obligations lie with the University and its students.’

Fisch also previously brought in The 33rd Team, an NFL think tank led by former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum, as an outside consultant. Washington has paid Tannenbaum’s company more than $155,000 since Sept. 1, 2024, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY Sports, but the current contract expires at the end of October.

‘We wanted to bring in somebody that had no real motives, nobody really connected to our program substantially,’ Fisch said in December 2024, ‘but also somebody that can help guide (Doherty) and myself in making some critical financial decisions as we’re now budgeting close to $15 million or more to take care of players.’

Matt Rhule brings familiar GM to Nebraska

Matt Rhule came to Nebraska in 2023 after an unsuccessful stint as Carolina Panthers coach, but those NFL ties are coming in handy with the annual negotiations necessary in player acquisition and retention in college football.

Rhule made Pat Stewart one of the highest-paid public school general managers in a P4 conference when he hired Stewart last March at Nebraska, according to USA TODAY’s compensation survey. He was the vice president of player personnel for the Panthers under Rhule and has been dubbed ‘a key part of a re-organization of the Huskers’ front-office staff’ by Nebraska officials.

Stewart signed a three-year deal and will earn a base salary of $800,000 in 2025, with the opportunity to make an additional $200,000 in performance incentives according to a copy of his contract obtained through an open records request.

Louisville poaches from in-state rival

Vince Marrow made waves last June when he left his job as an assistant coach at Kentucky after 12 years to become Louisville’s executive director of football personnel and recruiting under coach Jeff Brohm, his friend and former XFL teammate. Marrow’s new bosses got a little creative in order to lure him away and make the money work.

Marrow signed a three-year, $2.4 million contract with Louisville that begins with a $700,000 base salary this season and includes an annual $100,000 salary increase. But the agreement also stipulates he ‘is entitled to receive additional compensation from private entities outside the University.’ Marrow told The Louisville Courier Journal the outside income would come from one entity, which he declined to name, and increases his annual financial package to more than $1 million. He was set to earn $1.3 million had he remained at Kentucky this season.

Marrow left an on-field role after 20 years as a coach to become Louisville’s de facto general manager, overseeing roster construction through high school recruiting and the transfer portal. Louisville is also paying $150,000 to former NFL executive and sports agent Andrew Brandt to help the athletic department develop and negotiate revenue share contracts for its student-athletes as part of a consulting contract with the school through the end of 2025.

‘I really believe this is where college football is going,” Marrow said at his introductory news conference. ‘You don’t have enough time to really find out what’s the background of these guys. … I really believe the time now that I don’t have to spend in coaching, I can just spend a lot of time evaluating guys and then getting that background stuff.”

Arkansas football leans on NBA scouting director

Though Arkansas is the midst of a coaching change after firing Sam Pittman last month, athletics director Hunter Yurachek had already made an unorthodox hire last March that will factor into the hiring process. Arkansas tabbed Boston Celtics executive and director of scouting Remy Cofield as a deputy athletics director and its general manager for Razorbacks athletics. He serves as lead negotiator for revenue-share agreements and collaborates with coaches to develop strategic roster plans, with the goal to eventually hire a football-specific assistant general manager as part of the athletic department’s front office.

Cofield’s contract includes a provision in which he can earn up to $100,000 per year in bonus compensation based on the performance of the football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball and gymnastics programs at Arkansas.

Curt Cignetti is ‘GM and head coach’ at Indiana

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti made it clear at Big Ten football media days this year the Hoosiers will not be changing their approach to roster-building simply because others are building out more elaborate front offices. Cignetti declared ‘I’m the GM and head coach’ when asked in July about how Indiana planned to handle revenue sharing moving forward.

‘I’m a control freak,’ Cignetti added. ‘I’m organized, I’m good with numbers. My name is on this. I spent a lot of years getting to this point, I’m the best one to do it.’

Louisville Courier Journal sports reporter Payton Titus contributed to this story

The NFL trade deadline is approaching, but there could be a shortage of sellers as well as stars on the trade block.
Chris Olave and Jakobi Meyers rank among the most intriguing options if made available, as the receivers could significantly boost a passing attack.
Jaelan Phillips and Jermaine Johnson could jolt a pass rush, but it’s unclear whether either the struggling Dolphins or Jets would part with a key defensive piece.

With 12 days left until the 2025 NFL trade deadline, the league’s annual cutoff might be defined more by the players that aren’t available than those who are on the market.

A steady early churn of moves has come to a standstill, with no swaps completed in the last two weeks. The action figures to pick back up at some point, but the biggest rumor of the past few days – in which Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby was linked to the Dallas Cowboys – was summarily shot down by multiple reports. Meanwhile, the resurgent Cincinnati Bengals are shaping up to be a long shot to move reigning NFL sack king Trey Hendrickson, while there appears to be little momentum for marquee figures like Kirk Cousins, Alvin Kamara and Mark Andrews to be sent packing by their respective teams.

So, amid a potential shortage of sellers, which players actually remain in the conversation to be dealt?

Here’s USA TODAY Sports’ ranking of the best players who realistically could be moved ahead of the Nov. 4 trade deadline.

Ranking NFL 2025 trade candidates

1. Chris Olave, WR, New Orleans Saints

He’s peaking at the right time with his first multi-touchdown game in a 98-yard outing against the Chicago Bears. Now, it’s up to the Saints to decide whether they want to focus on locking him down as a key asset for a rebuild or flipping him for draft capital that could accelerate that process. Olave confirmed Sunday that he and the team had been engaged in extension talks since ‘the beginning of the year,’ and it might be a difficult move to deprive first-year coach Kellen Moore of a legitimate weapon at a time when the future of the offense looks to be in flux. Yet even with his four documented concussions in his NFL career, he’s one of just a handful of obtainable players at the deadline capable of altering a team’s offensive fortunes.

2. Jaelan Phillips, DE/OLB, Miami Dolphins

Miami has resisted hitting the panic button despite plenty of early turbulence, and the organization’s steady hand might hold at the trade deadline. But there’s probably a decision to be made here in the coming weeks, and two more losses should prompt some serious self-reflection for a team with vanishingly small odds of reclaiming any relevance this season. While veteran pass rusher Bradley Chubb and speedy wideout Jaylen Waddle might drive some interest, the simplest move for the Dolphins is to open the bidding for Phillips, who’s set to be a free agent in 2026. Even though season-ending injuries in each of the last two campaigns have taken a toll on him, the 6-foot-5, 263-pounder has come on strong in October, notching two sacks and 13 pressures in his last three games.

3. Jermaine Johnson, DE/OLB, New York Jets

His return from an ankle injury that sidelined him for three games coincided with the Jets defense pulling out of a tailspin. It stands to reason that it would be difficult to pry one of the unit’s top performers and established leaders from a regime desperate to grab some sort of toehold amid an 0-7 start. Yet selling off Johnson would give Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey their best chance before this offseason to reshape Gang Green’s long-term future. Signed at a reasonable rate through 2026, he’d carry special appeal as an impact player at a critical position who would be more than a mere rental.

4. Breece Hall, RB, New York Jets

Glenn last week dismissed rumblings about the Jets potentially shipping out their lead ball carrier, whose importance to a moribund offense is only growing with backup Braelon Allen out for the foreseeable future. Still, that might not mean much in the way of a firm commitment given the way Gang Green’s season is trending. Hall had said he wanted to stick around but seemed more ambivalent last week when he gave something of a non-answer regarding his future. The fourth-year ball carrier is averaging the most yards per game (64) since he became the team’s regular starter in 2023, and he could be an every-down contributor to an offense that has actual hopes of playing deep into January.

5. Jakobi Meyers, WR, Las Vegas Raiders

Before the start of the season, the seventh-year receiver succinctly summed up how his trade request was received by the Raiders: ‘I asked. They said no.’ With Las Vegas stalling out at 2-5 and showing no signs of being even somewhat competitive in the AFC West, it might be time to revisit that stance. Meyers on Tuesday said he ‘for sure’ still wants to be dealt, and the Raiders have plenty of reason to move on from a player in the final year of his deal, with rookies Dont’e Thornton Jr. and Jack Bech figuring to be the future of the receiving corps anyway. Meyers might not be the leading target for a playoff-caliber team in the way he is for the Silver and Black, but he can still help an offense chug along.

6. Riq Woolen, CB, Seattle Seahawks

He’s long been an outlier as a trade block candidate, with the Seahawks standing alone as the only winning team with a player on this list. But there’s no denying that he’s been a bit of an oil-and-water fit in coach Mike Macdonald’s defense. Seattle might not be inclined to toy with a unit that had 12 passes defensed in Monday’s win over the Houston Texans. But the demand for a 6-foot-4, 210-pound playmaker figures to be high, with a number of teams that lean on man coverage sure to be interested.

7. David Njoku, TE, Cleveland Browns

The Browns emerged as a major player on the trade front early in the season, bringing aboard Cam Robinson before dealing away Joe Flacco and executing a cornerback swap with Tyson Campbell coming in for Greg Newsome II. Kevin Stefanski has been a big backer of his ninth-year tight end, saying last week that Njoku ‘is a big part of this football team on and off the field, and the energy that he brings.’ But plans shifted quickly with Flacco once a suitable offer emerged, and who’s to say a similar outcome won’t materialize with Njoku? Cleveland has lived in two-tight-end sets, so breaking up the veteran and standout rookie Harold Fannin Jr. would require a bit of an adjustment. But the Browns have essentially turned the offense over to the rookie class, and Njoku could be an intriguing piece for a more prolific passing attack.

8. Cam Taylor-Britt, CB, Cincinnati Bengals

Even after the cornerback was a surprise healthy scratch in last Thursday’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, parting with Taylor-Britt would be a decidedly uncharacteristic move for a franchise known for dragging out conflicts with players rather than seeking clean breaks. Coach Zac Taylor later said he needs to see more consistency from the fourth-year veteran, but both sides might benefit from seeking a different solution. If Cincinnati is amenable to a move, it shouldn’t have trouble drumming up interest in a talented cover man with the straight-line speed and ball skills to deter deep balls.

9. Rashid Shaheed, WR, New Orleans Saints

If the Saints retain Olave, might they part with another speedy receiver in Shaheed? Doing so would certainly align more with the organization’s intent to split the difference between a full-scale teardown and staying the course in the way it did in previous years. The fourth-year pass catcher has a legitimate calling card in his ability to pull away from defenders downfield, so any passing attack in search of a midseason pick-me-up might gravitate toward him.

10. Chig Okonkwo, TE, Tennessee Titans

The reset is on in Tennessee, with Brian Callahan’s firing setting the table for the team to part with other potential figures not deemed essential to the organization’s future. Calvin Ridley is the more high-profile figure in the receiving corps who has been floated as a possibility to be moved, but the potential financial commitment for a player who will turn 31 could tank his market. Okonkwo, who leads the Titans in receptions with 23, would be a more straightforward acquisition as a tight end who can create matchup problems and rack up yards after the catch.

11. Roger McCreary, CB, Tennessee Titans

The former second-round pick has been a mostly reliable coverage presence, albeit not a particularly dynamic one. That profile might be sufficient to catch the eye of a buyer, however, as several contenders have leaks on the back end that need plugging. McCreary, 25, should have broad appeal thanks to his versatility and sure tackling. Tennessee has reason to be active here given that the pending free agent’s place with the team hardly seems settled beyond this year.

12. Arden Key, DE/OLB, Tennessee Titans

Demand always outpaces supply when it comes to edge rushers. That dynamic might be even more heightened at the trade deadline if the likes of Hendrickson, Phillips and Johnson prove untouchable. Key would serve as a possible consolation prize for a contender that would settle for rounding out its pass rush rather than revolutionizing it. He was inactive for the Week 7 loss to the New England Patriots with a thigh injury, but the 6-foot-5, 240-pound pass rusher has shown impressive flashes with his athleticism, even though it hasn’t translated into any form of consistency.

Nine coaches have been fired since start of 2025 season, most notably Penn State’s James Franklin.
Nick Saban raises idea that pay-to-play is influencing coach firings. Interesting theory, but it lacks support.
The surest way for a coach to be fired is the same as it ever was: Lose repeatedly.

ESPN hosted a pity party for James Franklin on “College GameDay,” and none other than NickSabandelivered the main address.

Saban, forever a great sympathizer for the plight of mega-millionaire coaches, called Franklin’s firing at Penn State “unfair as hell” and a byproduct of Penn State not showing “enough appreciation and gratitude” for Franklin’s achievements.

Penn State’s apparently inadequate gratitude includes a $49 million buyout for Franklin.

Saban later was quoted by ESPN as saying he believes donors paying for players has given those financial backers more authority to influence coach firings.

“Everybody’s raising money to pay players. So, the people that are giving the money think they have a voice, and they’re just like a bunch of fans,” Saban told ESPN. “When they get frustrated and disappointed, they put pressure on the (athletic directors) to take action.”

Already, nine Bowl Subdivision coaches have been fired this season. Several more roast on a hot seat.

Is Saban right that these coach firings are an attributable byproduct of pay-for-play and ADs are more susceptible than ever to the whims of donors?

In theory, that makes sense. Upon examination, though, there’s insufficient evidence to support Saban’s idea.

Consider that 13 coaches were fired during or shortly after the 2020 season, the final season before NIL arrived. Those firings occurred in the midst of a cash-strapping pandemic some industry insiders had incorrectly theorized would encourage athletic departments to operate with more financial caution toward coaching changes.

A year ago, inside the nation’s top two conferences, only one Big Ten coach was fired, and no SEC coaches got the boot. Conventional wisdom says that after a quiet year of firings comes a bloodletting the following season. That’s now unfolding in real time.

Losses more to blame for firings than donors

Let’s examine the six Power Four coaches fired this season and see if we detect pay-to-play is to blame:

Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State): Don’t blame pay-for-play. Gundy went 3-9 last season, then lost by 66 points to Oregon this September and got toppled by Tulsa. Gundy’s 4-11 record in his final 15 games would have been enough to oust him in the pre-NIL era.

DeShaun Foster (UCLA): Don’t blame pay-for-play. Blame Foster’s 5-10 record, including losses this season to UNLV and New Mexico. The Bruins have surged under interim coach Tim Skipper, providing support for UCLA’s decision to make a change.

Brent Pry (Virginia Tech): Don’t blame pay-for-play. Virginia Tech gave Pry more than three seasons to figure it out. He couldn’t. His 16-24 record marked the worst Hokies tenure since Charlie Coffey coached in the early 1970s. Standard firing.

Sam Pittman (Arkansas): Don’t blame pay-for-play. Pin this on Pittman’s momentum regressing in a conference where that’s not tolerated. Pittman went 20-23 in the final four seasons of his six-year tenure. Yep, that’s a textbook firing.

Billy Napier (Florida): Don’t blame pay-for-play. In fact, pay-for-play helped buy Napier an extra season. Boosters raised the funds to fire him last year but held off and opted to give it one more go while choosing to invest in the roster. Napier’s performance rates him as Florida’s worst coach since Raymond Wolf in the late 1940s. Napier lasted too long.

James Franklin (Penn State): Here, finally, we detect perhaps some influence of pay-for-play on the outcome after Franklin delivered inadequate return on donors’ investment.

After Penn State reached the playoff semifinals last season, it pushed its chips in on what was supposed to be a run at the program’s first national championship since 1986. The Nittany Lions plundered Jim Knowles from Ohio State by making him the nation’s top-paid defensive coordinator. Penn State didn’t cheap out on its roster, either.

Between players and staff, Franklin called this “the best combined personnel” he’d had in 12 seasons at Penn State, and a No. 3 preseason ranking in the US LBM Coaches Poll followed. The team flopped, and Franklin was out in a flash after consecutive losses to Oregon, UCLA and Northwestern.

The mood soured quickly on Franklin and not just within the donor ranks. In Penn State’s home loss to Northwestern, chants of “Fire Franklin!” reached a fever pitch. Athletic directors are susceptible to vibes, and the vibes were in the toilet, just nine months after Franklin’s peak moment.

Saban’s opinion that pay-for-play likely influenced Franklin’s fate isn’t out of bounds, but he also got derailed by the time-honored tradition of a coach elevating the standard and then failing to meet his own bar.

I think back to Auburn firing Gus Malzahn in 2020. Malzahn delivered eight consecutive winning seasons on the Plains, and he beat Saban three times. But, Malzahn delivered a national runner-up finish in his first season and never replicated that success. He got fired despite a .660 Auburn winning percentage that compares to Franklin’s at Penn State (.698).

LSU fired Ed Orgeron two seasons after he won a national championship. Auburn did the same to Gene Chizik, years before (permitted) pay-for-play.

More college football firings are coming

Auburn’s Hugh Freeze, Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell and Florida State’s Mike Norvell sit on three of the hottest seats. Don’t blame the donors in these cases.

Freeze has lost four straight and has never delivered a winning season. Fickell’s Badgers, in his third season, have lost five straight. They’re perhaps the worst team in the 18-team Big Ten. Norvell joins Freeze with a four-game losing streak. He’s 1-11 in his past 12 ACC games.

Job security hinges on performance.

It’s fair to say the voice of donors and fans carries as far as ever. Within an ecosystem where their dollars help fund the roster and the operation, they function almost like a company’s shareholders.

But, there’s insufficient proof pay-for-play makes coaches more vulnerable. The surest way for a coach to be fired is the same as it ever was: By losing repeatedly, coaches invite the hot seat.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.