Andrew Luck absolutely does not need the job — some would even call it a burden — that he has taken at his alma mater. The four-time Pro Bowler is both a Stanford and College Football Hall of Famer. The former No. 1 overall draft pick threw for almost 30,000 yards in the NFL. He’s got a family, security, even celebrity.
Who needs the aggravation of negotiating the NIL jungle with parents, players and agents? Certainly not Luck. It wasn’t so long ago that his life was simpler as the offensive coordinator for the freshman team at Palo Alto High School.
Now he is about to take over the operational playbook for an intellectual giant fallen on hard football times.
“Football?” Luck said recently. “I’m back in football, baby.”
No, Luck does not need his new position given this point in his life, but he can certainly get the job done. Perhaps he’ll even kill it in reshaping Stanford football as the program’s new general manager.
The GM title has emerged in these transitioning times as second-most important on a college football staff. If the GM job is executed correctly, only the head coach is more substantial and powerful.
Well, at least theoretically. On Stanford’s organizational chart, Luck’s name is above head coach Troy Taylor, according to ESPN. Luck, who was named to the position on Nov. 30, will also work with the coaching staff on personnel decisions.
GMs have become a combination of financial adviser, recruiter, director of player personnel, roster analyst, salary capologist and, well, add any other descriptions you see fit. Luck is among those who continue to build the job description on the fly.
“I do think our position of general manager is substantially different than most GMs in the country because of the needs of Stanford now,” Luck told CBS Sports.
“We do believe in scholar-athletes, still.”
The rise of the college sports GM: As the game goes professional, only the head coach may have more power
Dennis Dodd
Stanford’s ongoing mission should be obvious. But the very nature of GMs is managing a tranche of money that was never there before. The basic GM job may also involve allocating $20.5 million should the House settlement pass. Niceties aside, the money would go directly to athletes in the first sanctioned pay-for-play arrangement in college history.
How best to weave that cash into Stanford’s academic mission is the main challenge for Luck. Former coach David Shaw once said that when he got high school grades for junior prospects in June, there were 75 players in the country Stanford could recruit.
So what’s changed? Luck is at least saying the right things — emphasizing fundraising and having a direct influence on the football operation.
“Part of it is trial by fire,” he said. “Hopping in in the middle of the transfer portal has been as good as an education as anything. I’m fired up for Troy. Part of what I’m doing is taking a lot off his plate. It’s too much for a head coach to do X amount of unique negotiations with players contracts or agents or representatives.”
It can be done. Playing within those familiar academic strictures, Shaw and Jim Harbaugh led the Cardinal to longest run of success in school history from 2010 to 2018. But the program hasn’t been ranked since early in the 2019 season. Stanford hasn’t been to a bowl since 2018.
Lately, the Cardinal lost their conference (Pac-12) and a lot of games. There have been four consecutive 3-9 seasons. The 12 total wins are the fewest in a four-year span since 1960. The program just happened to transition at the same time into the NIL era and away from Shaw, its winningest coach.
A worldwide leader in research, innovation and policy, Stanford must also get Saturdays right, too.
That starts with some of the new world of pay-for-play.
“Football just matters more in this country,” Luck said. “We know perhaps we haven’t been playing enough of the game. And we’re starting to play the game and we’re going to be there.”
While the job description continues to evolve, there is one basic question for Stanford that’s being asked at every program in the country: Will it fully fund that $20.5 million revenue share? If not, that’s potentially a problem in branding, reputation and recruiting.
“That’s a big part of my job right now,” Luck said during a phone interview in December. “I’m seeing a clear path forward and it’s making me optimistic. It has certainly been a point of discussion in 100% negotiations with any transfer player coming in.”
This week, CBS Sports followed up with Luck asking the same question about that $20.5 million.
“We’re working diligently to prepare for the post-House era, and we absolutely intend to be competitive while maintaining the academic rigor and standards that are important to the university,” he said.
Negotiations for a former NFL quarterback? Well, he was a member of a players union (an alternate representative with the Colts), has an undergrad degree in architectural design and is getting master’s in education.
But it’s those negotiations with parents, players and agents that have turned off coaches in the modern era. Some have retired. Others put up with it. Still, others hire game changers like Luck.
“I’m not sure it’s [negotiations] part of the job that lent itself most naturally to my personality, to say the least,” Luck said. “At heart, a part of me is still a player, right? … On principle, I believe in the renumeration of college football players.”
Luck might be the best-known figure in this position that is still largely unknown and undefined. Alabama GM Courtney Morgan set the market last year when he received a raise to more than $800,000. Notre Dame just went hard after Texas Tech GM James Blanchard, one of the top five in the profession. Michigan‘s Sean Magee oversaw the recruiting of No. 1 overall prospect Bryce Underwood, a five-star QB in the 2025 class the Wolverines flipped from LSU with the lure of a reported $10 million deal.
Given those developments, it’s not a stretch to suggest Luck is being brought in to help migrate Stanford athletics into this new NIL age.
House v. NCAA settlement gains preliminary approval, moving college athletics closer to revenue sharing
Shehan Jeyarajah
The school has been slow to embrace its main NIL collective, Lifetime Cardinal. This is the place that cut 11 sports in 2020 citing the COVID-19 impact. The sports were reinstated in 2021 after an outcry.
It’s safe to say any FBS athletic department cutting sports these days would face a legal challenge. Part of that $20.5 million will be used to sustain minor sports. Most athletic departments are distributing that total this way: 75% to football, 15% to men’s basketball, 5% to women’s basketball and 5% to minor sports.
College athletics is watching. Stanford has one of the most broad-based athletic departments in the country. The athletic experience is genuinely considered part of the educational experience.
Stanford alone had 59 Olympians in last year’s Paris Summer Games. One of Luck’s former teammates, Eric Shoji, won a bronze medal in men’s volleyball.
“I think alumni, fans, sort of the community writ large felt like we’d lost a little of that [momentum in football],” Luck said.
“Part of what makes me optimistic is that I know that this place’s ethos — not just Stanford but Silicon Valley, the West Coast — [is] let’s make the problem bigger and let’s go attack it,” he added. “I really, deep in my bones, know that we can carve out relevant space.”
The portal has opened up [from Stanford’s standpoint] to welcome 12 new players. That’s the most at the school since before NIL debuted in 2021. Shaw had pointed out that, in the portal era, he had difficulty bringing transfers in because of Stanford’s high academic standards.
Here is a look at some of those admission requirements.
“We have an incredibly rigorous admissions process,” Luck said. “We expect our guys to apply to school. That will never change. I’m not sure anybody else is doing that. Not only that they have to have the chops to get in and succeed and add value to this intellectual community … I wouldn’t take this job if I thought we were handing free spots out.”
Stanford is increasingly an outlier in trying to find that meaningful mix of athletics and academics. The NCAA has all but abdicated oversight of the academic side.
It’s not the first time Luck has had to explain himself after a career move. When he retired in 2019 after seven NFL seasons, Luck cited the physical wear and tear. That decision is to be admired. He is only 35 now, still able to volunteer coach high school football, be a family man and attempt to save a football program.
“I did have an epiphany … there was a point after retirement,” Luck said. “I thought, ‘My God, I have two-thirds of my life left hopefully. Maybe three-quarters. I’m not going to let myself get stuck in the past.”
