Baylor University has announced several promotions and acquisitions ahead of the 2025 college football season, all in preparation for a more professionalized model of college sports.
Like many other schools, Baylor is building out a pro-style front office to stay ahead in a quickly changing landscape.
To solidify their front-office operations, the Bears have elevated Aaron Hunt to general manager.
Last season, Hunt served as Baylor’s Associate Athletics Director of Player Personnel. Hunt has worked within head coach Dave Aranda’s staff since 2021 and brings extensive experience as an All-American linebacker at Texas Tech, which preceded a 10-year professional career.
In a university press release, Baylor Deputy Athletic Director Jovan Overshow emphatically spoke about the Bears’ professionalization, stating, “We’re not just adapting; we’re forging a new path for Baylor Football… this new model, a collaborative vision with Dave [Aranda] and Mack [Rhoades], empowers us to construct, maintain, and recruit talent with unprecedented efficiency.”
Baylor is not alone in implementing professionalized concepts in its structuring.
Schools across the FBS football landscape have been rushing to hire general managers to adapt to massive NCAA policy changes that will professionalize college sports next season.
As outlined in the preliminarily approved House v. NCAA settlement, schools can now provide athletes with direct NIL revenue-sharing payments, removing player compensation from NIL collectives’ and into the athletics department’s purview.
If the settlement receives final approval this month, a $20.5 million NIL revenue-sharing cap across all sports will be implemented for the 2025-26 season.
Top football programs are anticipated to spend between $16 – $17.5 million in rev-share payroll.
With NIL guardrails in place, success will no longer be predicated on who can fundraise the most NIL but on who can spend their NIL budget most efficiently.
Until very recently, this skill set was not necessary for college sports.
Before NIL, player compensation was binary: athletes were either worthy of a scholarship or weren’t.
Now, teams must assess players in dollars, not scholarships.
Apt valuation of an athlete’s impact on the field is a skill set that will differentiate between top programs. With a talent pool that includes high school and transfer targets, identifying and pricing players is becoming both an art and a cold calculated science.
Helping Hunt with this undertaking are two new additions to Baylor Football: Anthony Mauro, who will serve as Assistant General Manager, and Joe Reynolds, who joins the staff as Assistant Director of Player Personnel.
Mauro joins Baylor after holding the title of Player Personnel Coordinator at Georgia last season. Reynolds joins the staff from Oklahoma State, where he was a Prospect Analyst –– his role with the Bears will focus on transfer portal management.
College football won’t look much different on the field next season, but behind the curtain, the decision-making will resemble the Dallas Cowboys more closely than the Baylor Bears of old.
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