College football is moving through a moment that feels familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. We are used to seeing evolution in the game: conference realignment, rankings to BCS to the Playoff system, and other long arcs of change. But this is a moment when foundational elements are shifting at once, in different directions, on different timelines, and with different pressures for each tier of competition:
NIL is reshaping expectations.
Roster volatility is reshaping development.
Compensation markets are reshaping retention.
Donor behavior is reshaping support models.
Institutional constraints are reshaping decision cycles.
Revenue sharing is reshaping responsibility.
Tier separation is reshaping competitive identity.
Each force is meaningful on its own. Together, they create a level of complexity that programs were never designed to absorb this quickly. When I study what leaders are navigating across divisions, the theme that emerges is not confusion or frustration, it is weight. There is a weight to the decisions they make, the expectations they carry, and the pace they are required to operate within.
That weight is what drew me to this landscape.
For most of my career, I have been in environments where performance depends on clarity. Whether it was on the field, inside a business, in ownership circles, or supporting athletes and founders, the same truth showed up: systems under stress do not need louder voices or more noise. They need clearer pathways. They need a way to make sense of what is happening so people can move with purpose instead of reacting to pressure.
College football is in that type of moment.
The conversations around the sport are louder than ever, but many orbit around pieces of the puzzle instead of the whole. They focus on the Power 4 even though most of the strain is being felt elsewhere. They frame problems as coaching issues instead of operational realities. They reduce complex dynamics to simple narratives. And they rarely give administrators the language to articulate the challenges they face in their specific tiers.
The result is a sport moving through one of the biggest transitions in its history without a consistent lens to interpret the change.
I am not a college football insider reporting the next scoop.
I am a strategic problem solver looking through the same lens that has guided me in every performance environment: the belief that clarity, alignment, and system design shape outcomes more than any individual decision.
College programs today are not dealing with isolated challenges. They are dealing with interconnected pressures that cut across operations, finance, development, retention, communication, and institutional governance. And each program is doing it with different resources, different constraints, different donor bases, and different competitive identities.
The goal of the College Program Playbook is simple, create a clearer way for leaders to see the landscape they are already navigating. There are enough prescriptions and short-sighted solutions in circulation telling program leaders what they should be doing.
Program leaders do not need someone to explain the sport to them.
They need someone to articulate the patterns and forces shaping the environment so the work they are already doing can be seen more clearly.
College football will stabilize again. It always does. But until it does, leaders are operating inside a window where the pace of change is outpacing the structures meant to support it.
My goal is to provide a lens that helps them make grounded, realistic decisions inside their own context. If the Program Playbook reduces pressure by providing clarity, it serves its purpose. If it helps leaders communicate more effectively with their stakeholders, it adds value. If it gives programs language to describe what they are experiencing, it strengthens alignment. And if it creates more stability in an unstable period, then the work matters.
That is why I am here.
Not to enter the conversation, but to help interpret the moment.