Fresh off a national championship season at Indiana, Director of Player Personnel Mike Ferrara joins the show for his first-ever podcast interview.

Mike's path is the blueprint for breaking into personnel: from selling hats at Tennessee sporting events to working junior days, through Texas A&M and LSU, to helping build a title-winning roster in Bloomington under Coach Curt Cignetti. We go deep on how he did it — and how his department actually runs.

Topics include:

• The "relentless pursuit of innovation" mindset that separates good staffers from great ones
• Why empowering student interns builds championship departments
• What it's like evaluating alongside Cignetti and his production-over-projection philosophy
• How Indiana splits high school and portal responsibilities across a lean staff
• Weekly stock reports, and setting coaches up to win on the road.

Timestamps:

• (0:00) — Welcome + a championship two-year run at Indiana
• (1:34) — Mike's journey: selling hats at Tennessee → junior days with Bob Wilton → breaking into the office → A&M → LSU → Indiana
• (15:00) — The "relentless pursuit of innovation": self-taught Excel/tech skills, finding where you add value, why great students make great departments
• (29:30) — Paying it forward: developing interns who carry the process to new buildings
• (31:00) — Working under Coach Cignetti: production over projection, the Saban recruiting-coordinator roots, learning how a head coach watches tape
• (44:15) — Inside Indiana's personnel structure: HS vs. portal split, stock reports, advance work before the portal opens, and setting up coaches to recruit at full speed
• (55:00) — The NFL-college gap in roster management
• (56:00) — The most important question: where do you take the scouting staff for margaritas? 🌮

Up Close in Personnel is the definitive front office playbook for college football. Send mailbag questions to UpCloseInPersonnelPodcast@gmail.com & thanks for listening to the show!

Texas Tech General Manager James Blanchard was the first member of Joey McGuire's charter staff — and one of the most inspiring self-made stories in college football.

Before the No. 1 transfer class, the Big 12 titles and the CFP berth, Blanchard spent five years grinding for free: a kid from Orange, Texas posting highlight tapes on message boards, trying to get players from his hometown recruited. He never charged a family a dollar. Then Matt Rhule hired him off Twitter, and everything changed.

Topics include:

• The five-year unpaid grind and the Evan Cooper advice that turned it into a career
• Earning his "bachelor's degree in evaluating" under Rhule
• His "master's in scouting" with the Carolina Panthers
• Why the pro-scout seat was the most valuable room he's ever sat in
• The truth about Texas Tech's budget and how he actually allocates the cap by position
• Building relationships with agents in the new economy
• Why he makes his staff produce a Texas Top 100 and a "no offers" list every year
• And how a GM fights complacency after winning.

Timestamps:

• (0:33) Welcome — and why Blanchard is always pushing other people's names
• (4:49) Orange, Texas: helping his hometown get recruited, and getting his cousin offered by Nick Saban as a sophomore
• (9:11) Five years for free — and the Evan Cooper advice that changed it: charge the schools, not the kids
• (11:18) Matt Rhule hires him off Twitter
• (12:43) The Rhule school of evaluation: height, weight, speed, traits, verified times
• (14:07) Leaving Baylor for the Carolina Panthers
• (16:34) What a pro scout actually does — and why Rhule overruled him on the job
• (19:31) Bringing NFL scouting language back into the portal era
• (23:20) Joey McGuire, autonomy, and how one head coach changed the GM role nationally
• (29:01) Why standing on the table matters even when you lose the battle
• (33:34) The Cody Campbell misconception — and how Texas Tech really builds a budget
• (38:49) Agents as partners: "97.5% of those guys are good people"
• (41:24) Fighting complacency as the hunted
• (43:37) The Texas Top 100 and the "no offers" list
• (45:32) Learning to lead a department
• (47:29) Symposium advice: talk to the person to your right and left
• (52:40) Where to eat in Lubbock 🍱

Plus: the best advice he's ever heard about networking — and where to eat in Lubbock when you finally make the trip!

Up Close in Personnel is the definitive front office playbook for college football. Send mailbag questions to UpCloseInPersonnelPodcast@gmail.com

Up Close in Personnel is back after five years — and this time it’s the definitive playbook for front offices across college football.

Host Alex Brown opens Season 5 with the full story: 17 years in football, from volunteering at the bottom at Houston to Director of Recruiting at Rice, GM at SMU, Director of Player Personnel at Ole Miss, and Mid-South area scout for the Atlanta Falcons. Then, the day after the draft, he was told it was time to move on.

This episode covers all of it — the SMU full-circle story (told no as a volunteer in 2014, hired as GM nine years later), replacing eight draft picks at Ole Miss, what an NFL area scout’s calendar actually looks like, and an honest conversation about getting fired: the grief, the reframe, and why he finished every BLESTO report anyway.

Plus: where the show goes from here — leadership, team building, cap strategy, department structure, retention, and how front offices really operate at both levels. Guest #1 will be Texas Tech General Manager James Blanchard.

Time Stamp of the Show:

• (0:00) Mic check — five years later
• (0:21) What this show is, and 17 years in football: Houston → Rice → SMU → Ole Miss → Atlanta
• (3:09) Why now: from a “survival kit” for a first-time director to the definitive front office playbook
• (4:30) Guest hall of fame — where 56 episodes of guests are now: Carrington, Price, Hodges, Crowley, Kovach, Washington, Yray, Cherington, Johnson, Merritt, Thamel
• (7:28) Rice, 2021: the foundation that made everything after it possible
• (8:30) SMU full circle — told no as a volunteer in 2014, GM nine years later
• (10:30) Building a “startup Power Four”: AAC title, the ACC jump, and learning to lead
• (13:00) The Ole Miss call, and the Moneyball problem: replacing nine draft picks
• (15:30) July 4th weekend and a phone call from Shelly Harvey — the NFL dream
• (17:00) Inside the area scout job: the accordion calendar, BLESTO, life on the road
• (19:00) The day after the draft
• (21:00) Marcus Aurelius and the third thing: finishing the reports anyway
• (22:30) Nobody tells you how it feels — grief, denial, and owning it
• (24:00) The reframe: a month without film, a marathon, AI, and building something new
• (26:00) Eric Galko, the Shrine Bowl, and going back to where it started
• (27:30) What’s coming: shorter episodes, mailbag questions, leadership content
• (29:00) “Leave it better than you found it”
• (30:00) Season 5 kicks off with Texas Tech GM James Blanchard

Send any and all mailbag questions to UpCloseInPersonnelPodcast@gmail.com & enjoy the show!