Every high-performance environment, whether it’s a business, a locker room, or an investment platform, has a set of upstream drivers that determine downstream outcomes. People often focus on what happens at the end of the process—the result, the scoreboard, the outcome—because that’s where the impact is most visible.
But the drivers behind those outcomes almost always sit earlier in the system.
College football today is a clear example of this. Wins and losses still matter, but they no longer explain the full picture of what a program is navigating. The variables that shape stability—retention, compensation alignment, NIL maturity, donor reliability, staff bandwidth, institutional decision cycles, and system continuity—sit upstream. And they move faster than most structures were built to manage.
When I look at the sport, I don’t see isolated issues.
I see interconnected systems.
I see how one strain creates another.
I see how the timing of a decision influences three other areas.
I see how pressures build, not because people made mistakes, but because the system shifted underneath them.
This lens comes from my experience across environments where performance depends on alignment. You learn quickly that outcomes are the final expression of how well the model supported the people inside it. Clarity doesn’t guarantee success, but it helps organizations improve their odds. It reduces drift. It keeps pressure from multiplying unnecessarily.
What often makes the college model difficult to talk about is that the sport has outgrown its old scorecards. The environment changed. The incentives changed. The expectations changed. But the language used to discuss performance didn’t change with it.
Coaches get held accountable for forces outside their control.
Administrators feel pressure to react to symptoms instead of causes.
Donors want clarity but receive mixed signals.
Players navigate an experience shaped by variables that shift each semester.
Institutions carry responsibilities they didn’t design their models for.
When I speak with leaders across tiers, it’s clear that everyone sees pieces of these shifts. But each group sees a different part of the picture. Nobody sees the whole unless someone frames the system in a way that connects the dots.
That is the purpose of the lens I bring into this space. It starts with two foundational questions:
What are the true upstream drivers shaping this program’s reality?
How do those drivers interact with the program’s constraints, resources, and identity?
From there, patterns emerge. Not predictions. Not absolutes. Patterns that point to:
why retention feels unpredictable;
why NIL conversations feel heavier than expected;
why staff bandwidth gets stretched thin;
why donors respond the way they do
why programs feel stable one month and unsettled the next;
and how institutional dynamics influence agility and decision cycles.
And once those patterns are visible, the environment becomes easier to navigate—not because it becomes simple, but because the complexity becomes interpretable.
I’m not approaching this space to provide formulas or prescriptive advice. That’s not how complex systems work. I’m here to offer clarity—clarity that helps leaders see their environment more honestly and act more intentionally inside it.
The College Program Playbook will explore the inputs that shape outcomes.
It will examine the forces beneath the surface.
It will articulate the connection points that often go unspoken.
It will provide language that supports alignment and grounded decision-making.
You don’t need someone to tell you how to run your program. But, you may find value in someone who can help interpret the landscape you’re already in.
That is the role this lens plays. And it’s the lens that will guide every article that follows.