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!

Joining the show this week, Zach Brandon with the Diamondbacks breaks down his job as the Mental Skills Coordinator and unpacks what his role is in the team building process.

From the selection process in the MLB Draft to on-boarding and player development, Zach explains why mental skills are more important than ever to identify, train and develop. Physical ability sets the bar of what we can achieve, but mental skills are what allow us to reach peak performance and how consistent we are able to do so!

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did recording! Please share from whatever platform you're tuning in from, let us know what you took away from Zach & be sure to follow him on Twitter at @MVP_Mindset!

Having coached at the high school level and now working at the college level in player development, Ed shares his path to Lawrence, KS and advice for recruits taking visits to college campuses. You can follow Ed on Twitter and IG at @Ed_Jones2.

Be sure to visit www.UpClosePersonnel.com for complete show notes, and check back Monday for next week's guest and topic of the week!

It's fall camp for football teams across the country (and games have started for some high school teams as well)! With that being the case, I decided to bring in my first scouting mentor - Russ Lande to talk about his scouting process!

Notes for the next couple of episodes will be sparse due to the business of this time, but this is one episode you'll need a pen and paper nearby! We talk through Russ' approach to teaching the art of scouting, how he evaluates practices, his thoughts on organizational culture, and much more on the evaluation process!

Please be sure to like, share, retweet and hit me back with what you learned from the show!

This is a show I've wanted to record ever since the middle of the pandemic! Due to NCAA rules, I am unable to record with current high school coaches (that are associated with recruits) BUT.... now that Marco Regalado has been named a Recruiting Analyst with Washington State University, we now are graced by his presence!

Jumping on the show after driving nearly 2,000 miles from the DFW to Pullman, Washington, Marco made time this weekend to talk about his amazing path from high school coach to college football recruiter.

In this episode, we cover everything from how Marco makes his viral TikTok videos to his love for the game of football and desire to help other people. What I enjoyed most about the conversation is how genuine Coach Regalado is as a person, how he embraces all of his past experiences and plans to put those lessons to use at the next level!

When giving advice to college football recruiters in dealing with high school coaches, here are two main points made my Marco:

1. Follow up with everyone!

• Good, bad, or indifferent, let the coach know you watched their prospects. Whether or not you sign the player is irrelevant, the coach just needs to be able to provide his player with constructive feedback.

2. Don't Ask Who's Offered!

• First off (we didn't say this on the show), you can easily check 247, Rivals, Twitter or ask the kid. Second, you have to trust your eyes and not your ears as an evaluator. Evaluate the student athlete and then do your investigative work.

As far as presenting yourself on social media as a college recruiter, Marco also gave great advice for how to put your best foot forward:

• Don't be vulgar -it's not attractive and not professional at all
• Be weary of opinions -you're representing more than just yourself
• Be yourself and have fun -don't take yourself too seriously!

I know Marco is going to do great things at the college level and I hope you took something away from this episode! You can follow him on Twitter at @CoachRegalado, and easily find him on TikTok!

For show notes and links, be sure to visit UpCloseInPersonnel.com, and thanks again for tuning in!

In the inaugural episode of 2021, Yahoo Sports' College Football Reporter - Pete Thamel breaks down the craziness that was 2020 and the seismic shifts facing the sport moving forward!

One of the best in the business, Pete shares how he got started in the sports reporting profession, his writing and reporting process, and insights gained from being around the highest performers in college athletics.

When it comes to interviewing, he shared three critical keys to success:

1. It takes time -each interview is a rep and that's the #1 way to improve
2. Build rapport -ask the hard questions last and tease out the information
3. Tell a story -make sure to extract the anecdotes and specifics to draw others in

As far as the State of College Football Recruiting, we touched on:

• The 85-Man Scholarship Hard Cap & challenges produced by the COVID eligibility waiver
• The Implications of no campus visits -both from the lens of colleges & athletes
• The Effects of colleges not being able to evaluate prospects in person for the time being
• And, the reverberations that will be felt across the sport -specifically in the class of 2022

If you're interested in working in sports media, please do yourself a favor and be ready to take notes from Pete. He's one of the very best at building relationships, networking with high performers in the industry and articulating compelling stories to college football fans.

If you're passionate about evaluating, recruiting and the landscape of college football, we have you covered as well! I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it and I look forward to bringing more shows to you all in 2021!

To follow Pete, check him out on Twitter at @PeteThamel, and tune in to his weekly podcast with Dan Wetzel & Pat Forde called the Yahoo Sports College Podcast!

For show notes and links, be sure to visit UpCloseInPersonnel.com, and Happy New Years everyone!