TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama has given one of Kalen DeBoer’s key behind-the-scenes staffers, general manager Courtney Morgan, a three-year contract worth nearly $2.5 million — a notable investment by one of the top football programs in the country at a time when colleges teams are increasingly operating like professional franchises.
The compensation committee of the university system’s board of trustees approved the deal on Tuesday for Morgan, who was DeBoer’s first hire in Tuscaloosa going into his first season as head coach. It’s worth an average of $825,000 annually for a total of $2.475 million.
The deal could set the market for what colleges pay to those who lead personnel departments, a job that coaches expect to grow in importance when players are being more directly compensated by schools. A number of programs have already hired GMs to specifically manage name, image and likeness compensation for their athletes or prospective athletes they want to land. Growth in GMs Athletic departments have been placing more emphasis in their personnel departments and most schools in the last five or six years, especially in the power conferences, have added someone whose job is to oversee talent acquisition given the growth in transfers and money available to land them.
Now there are lots of general managers in college football. Some were once called director of player personnel. The difference is what started as a position almost solely focused on high school recruiting .