Joined by my good friend and mentor, Bob Merritt - Assistant GM for the Edmonton Eskimos, this week's edition of Up Close In Personnel is basically a tutorial on how to successfully assemble a recruiting department and construct a roster in college football!

Having coached, scouted, and recruited at all levels of football, Bobby details his career path and lessons he's learned along the way.

We really dialed in on the roster management and construction aspect of personnel, so this week I decided to drop all of the notes I took away from the conversation in bullet form below!

Topics Covered:

• Bobby's Current Role in the CFL
  • Assistant General Manager

• Diverse Experiences in Football
  • Success comes down to the ability to communicate and collaborate at a high level with the various personalities involved in the profession

• The Impact of the Air Force and Military

• Making the move from Coaching to Personnel

• Roster Construction 101
  • Identifying MUSTS, NEEDS and WANTS

• The Head Coach-General Manager Relationship

• Advice for Interviewing and Hiring Interns

• Building and Growing a pro-styled Personnel Department
  • 3 Core Values
    • Be a great teammate

• Evaluating speed without verified times
  • Assess the player's play speed on game film
    • 3 key components to look for:
      • Stride length (gait)

• Predicting the draft vs projecting the player
  • Remember to always define the role a player will play on your team prior to him joining the program; if you don't, then there's no way of reviewing the success or failure of the acquisition.

Let me know what you took away from the show and be sure to give Bobby a follow on Twitter at @BobbyMerritt8!

For listening links and notes from previous shows, please visit the show's official website UpCloseInPersonnel.com and comment with whatever notes and takeaways you had from our conversation! Thanks again and see you all next week!