OP/ED
Texas State is set to hire Justin Owens as the program’s first ever general manager.
The news was first reported by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football.
Owens was previously the Director of Recruiting at North Texas since 2023 after having an extensive high school coaching career in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. While the hiring has not been officially announced by Texas State, several people including Owens, Head Football Coach G.J. Kinne and President Kelly Damphousse have confirmed the hiring.
The creation of the general manager role marks a step for Texas State into the future of what college football is becoming for better or worse.
While the word general manager may seem different for college football – or even scary for Dallas Cowboys fans – the role in the NCAA context may look a little different compared to its professional counterpart.
The job of a college football head coach continues to become more difficult with each passing year. With the introduction of the transfer portal, players are allowed to transfer multiple times over multiple years without the threat of sitting out a year, which used to be a bit of a deterrent to multiple moves in a college career. NIL has changed the game of college football and how it is conducted.
The increased workload on college head coaches has them focusing more on off-field than on-field.
By having a general manager, the head coach and assistants can focus more time on the field and lessen the work burden for themselves. Comparing the role to an NFL general manager, where the position is over the head coach, a college general manager at the Group of Five level works in tandem with the head coach on offfield situations. Just like an NFL general manager, roster management will be a large part of the job duties, which includes the use of scholarships as well as recruiting. Often the position also involves developing the financial aspects of college athletics related to the development of NIL.
The creation of the general manager role has also shown how serious Texas State is taking football. They aren’t just trying to become a quality Group of Five program but a top tier mid-major team in the same vein as TCU, Houston or SMU.
The past two years have seen the Texas State administration take major steps in improving the quality of the program from the expansion of the new endzone complex, signing a naming rights deal with UFCU, extending G.J. Kinne’s contract and allowing NIL to flourish.
The results are back-toback eight win seasons and two straight bowl wins that have allowed Texas State to gain more notoriety as both a football program and a university.
The willingness to move forward with the times as college football evolves continues to show Texas State’s serious commitment to the sport.
cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc
