Up Close In Personnel with Alex Brown

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 [email protected] & 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 [email protected]

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 [email protected] & enjoy the show!

Heading into Week 3 of College Football, we are joined by a repeat visitor in Carina Hargreaves - Director of On-Campus Recruiting for Georgia Tech!

In her last appearance on Up Close In Personnel for Episode 12 - "Inside The Process Of Coordinating Campus Visits", Carina talked through her personal journey in the world of college football, her football background and how she approaches setting up recruiting visits! This week, we briefly touched on her training camp internship with the Cardinals and honed in on what all goes into a GAMEDAY recruiting visit. It was a fun episode to record, we broke down what coaches and recruiters should be paying attention to during the interactions with recruits and their families, and so much more!

Please be sure to like, share, retweet and respond with what you liked from the show, and stay tuned for more from Up Close In Personnel!

Lastly, you can find and follow Carina on Twitter at @CarinaH_GT! 

Week 1 across the country is HERE for college football! This week we're joined by my good friend, Bryan Carrington - Offensive Quality Control Analyst with the USC Fighting Trojans!

Since his last appearance on the show for Episode 1 - "Building Relationships with College Recruiters", Bryan made the move from recruiting at UT to coaching running backs at USC in Los Angeles! We discuss how he made the move, how he's advanced his football knowledge through interning with the Rams and the growth he's experienced along the way! It's a great episode for coaches and recruiters alike, especially when it comes to working cohesively as a staff!

Please be sure to like, share, retweet and respond with what you liked from the show, and stay tuned for more from Up Close In Personnel!

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!

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!

We've all known that NIL rules would be coming into effect for quite some time and now that the time has arrived here in July of 2021, I figured it was time to bring in an expert to weigh in!

For those unfamiliar, NIL (which stands for "name, image and likeness") now allows athletes to capitalize on their name, image and likeness in ways previously not allowed. Players are able to seek marketing representation or advisory, participate in marketing or branding off their own likeness, open a business, start a camp or clinic, or engage in non-profit activity.

It's a big step in the right direction in allowing athletes to prepare themselves for the real world, but there needs to be education to avoid potential pitfalls.

That's where someone like our guest, Luke Fedlam comes in for support. He's had over 15 years of experience working with professional athletes in representing (or protecting as he says throughout the episode) their marketing interests. On the show, Luke brings valuable insight on defining what the rules are today, trends through the first month of NIL and lessons on what to look for in contracts.

The Timeline:

5:00 - "This is what I wanted" & Luke's Passion for NIL

9:15 - Luke's "Aha" Moment for NIL Education

13:00 - "Without using your job title, who are you?"

19:40 - Branding Advice: Character & Authenticity

25:00 - Defining NIL & What It Means

28:50 - Early Trends in the First Month of NIL

35:34 - The Role of Athletic Departments, Compliance and Advisors in NIL Education

41:46 - Lessons Learned from Zion Williamson's Contract

48:36 - Wanting to be President of the US as a kid

To find and follow Luke Fedlam's work, check him out on Twitter at @LukeFedlam! Also, the interview by Columbus CEO that was referenced in this episode can be found at the following link - "In the new world of NIL, Luke Fedlam guides athletes on money, deals and the future"!

Thank you for taking time to listen, please let me know what you thought of the show and don't forget to leave a review after you drop that 5-star rating!

Stepping to the stage this week is one of the most inspiring people you will meet. Jake Langi may appear on the peripheral to just be another recruiting analyst at a blue-blood, power-five program.

That blanket statement could not be further from the truth. Overcoming setbacks after high school, serious health concerns following the birth of his son, to being overlooked while at Texas State, Jake kept his head down and did the lonely work it takes to "make it".

In this episode, you hear how Jake established credibility for himself at Texas State as an undergraduate assistant, working odd jobs throughout his time in school, and how he's navigated the most recent coaching change at the University of Texas.

It's one word - "value". Networking, as he referenced in the interview, is transactional. That is to say, "What can you do for me?"

Without spilling too much of the episode, we talk through the value Jake brings to Texas, to his fellow colleagues, and how important family is to him. Jake truly has a heart of gold and UT is fortunate to have such a genuine person on their front lines of recruiting!

As always, please let me know what you thought of the show and don't forget to leave a review after you drop that 5-star rating!

To find and follow Jake, check him out on Instagram and Twitter at @JakeLangi!

Joined by nobody but yours truly, I decided to take a solo venture for my return episode in recapping a busy, wild and fun month of June recruiting!

Now on episode 50 of the show, eclipsing 10,000 downloads and heading into a brief summer break, this was my way of letting you all inside my mind for once. From talking through the context of how unique and rare this time period has been, to the inner workings of unofficial visits, official visits, camps and more, I hope that this week's edition gives you insight to develop as a coach/-0pppppsewascout/recruiter or learn more about the process as a prospective recruit!

Moving forward, we will return to our traditional format of bringing guests onto the show but this is my way of giving back to you all and I hope you enjoy listening! Send me any and all questions you had while listening, and I look forward to continuing to push out content on evaluation, recruiting and team building topics!!! You can find me on twitter at @alexm_brown or email the show at [email protected]!