College football season has arrived! Carla Williams and John Freeman have Assistant Athletics Director for Marking, Eric Ward, on the show to discuss the gameday experience inside of Scott Stadium! 

The second episode of Inside Virginia Athletics with Carla Williams features Tyler Jones, UVA's newly appointed General Manager. Jones has served as the department's deputy athletics director for external operations since July of 2023. In his new role will lead Virginia Athletics' Front Office efforts, and be elevated to Chief Strategy Officer, overseeing the department's revenue generation verticals. He will also serve as UVA's CAP Manager for football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and baseball.

Episode Details:

After introductions, Carla explains how she met Tyler and his "recruitment" to Charlottesville (0:00-2:53). The evolution of the GM position at Virginia and the day-to-day of a college GM (2:54-10:31). Tyler and Carla talk about the transformational gifts that enabled the program to land a top-25 transfer portal class and the approach moving forward to acquiring talent (10:32-18:43). Virginia's approach to player evaluation and how the UVA brand is being sold to prospective student athletes (18:44-23:38). Establishing relationships across grounds to aid athletics in the admissions process while not compromising UVA's values (23:39-31:20). The tools used to gather data points on the prospective student-athletes in evaluation process (31:21-36:49). Contracts, what do they look like at UVA (36:50-38:20). What does the path of graduation look like for student-athletes at UVA and how transfers are like any other student at the university just with a different path (38:21-45:53)

The debut episode of the Inside Virginia Athletics Podcast with Athletics Director Carla Williams! Associate Athletics Director for Development, Gerry Capone joins Carla and co-host John Freeman.

Intro and the three reasons why we started the podcast (0:00-3:17). How different are the resources now from when Carla first started in 2017 and when Gerry Started in 1983 (3:17-14:55)? With the opening of the Hardie Center, is Virginia now positioned to be competitive (14:56-22:04)? Why invest in football and what are the consequences if UVA does not invest in football (22:05-24:36). Where does the university come to play in this, what has it been like in the past and the role of academics at UVA (24:37-30:40)? With all the changes in college athletics, how have donors been the past few years and what is the message to them about winning (30:41-33:10). The biggest change in college athletics according to Gerry (33:11-35:36).