CHAPEL HILL - One of the biggest moves that North Carolina Coach Mack Brown made in the offseason was hiring Patrick Suddes as the General Manager for his football program. Suddes held the same position at ACC rival Georgia Tech for three years.
Suddes, who also holds the title as Assistant Athletic Director, has worked under Brown before at Texas and has had worked with the Miami Dolphins, LSU, Alabama, Arizona State, Auburn, and most recently Georgia Tech.
He met with the media last week to field questions about his job responsibilities, the biggest challenges in recruiting, and many more things. Above is the full video of his Q&A session, and before is the full transcript of what he had to say:
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*Suddes has a very important role as the General Manager of Carolina Football, and he describes the day-to-day duties he has in the Kenan Football Center.
“Let’s just put out fires. I obviously oversee all of the recruiting that’s from on campus visits. I’ve got a great staff that works under me that do an unbelievable job on campus visits, the evaluation process, the marketing aspect.
"The roster management with Coach Brown and all the assistant coaches trying to figure out how many we’re going to take. Obviously, each coach wants to take the maximum number. Me and Coach Brown say no guys you can’t take that many. Now with the transfer portal how heavy that is involved. Obviously with that and where we need help as far as transfers versus high school kids, trying to project who’s going to be on your team which is a nightmare for every person across college football.
"So, that’s mainly the day in and day out and obviously throughout the year depending on if it’s contact period, eval period, recruits on campus that changes, so that’s the good thing about the job. It’s never the same day out.”
*Suddes took over for Billy High and has done some things differently since he has been hired.
“You know Billy before me, worked for me at Auburn, so very similar, but me and Billy are different. We have different personalities and things like that so change a little bit, but I was fortunate enough obviously to work with Mack before, so I know what he is looking for. I worked with Coach (Larry) Porter before. I’ve known Coach (Gene) Chizik for a long time, so I know what these guys were expecting coming into the job. I kind of made it my own but having built it before me and working for Mack definitely helped in that.”
*Being a head coach at a major Power 5 football coach can be demanding, so the General Manager's duties are to help take some of those responsibilities off the head coach.
“I think it’s a huge responsibility because knows everything the head coach has to deal with unless you’re a head coach, right. That’s the good thing about having Coach Chizik here. He understands that. Coach Bicknell has been a head coach before. So, our job is to keep stuff off his plate, but also communicate with them as much as possible.
"I think the one thing working with a lot of head coaches is their biggest pet peeve is when they don’t know something. So, over communicate with them, with Coach Brown, and make sure he is up-to-date on everything. He never sleeps so he usually knows it before I do. Most of the time when you guys post something or an article out there Jeremy (Sharpe) knows that.
"So, that’s why I love working for him because nobody is going to work as hard as him. I’m trying to catch up to him to do that. But yeah the job of my role, Jeremy’s role, Corey Holliday and all those guys is to keep stuff off his plate because being a head coach and all the stuff you have to deal with day-in and day-out is a lot to take on.”
*The General Manager term is a recent term in college football, but those duties have been around for years under different titles.
“I think they were. It was just titled differently. Back when Coach Saban was kind of a trendsetter and then it kind of grew from there and that’s kind of where the tree came into play of guys branching out, but also recruiting has changed a whole lot.
"I mean there’s the photo shoots you know back 10 to 15 years ago they barely put on the jersey. Now, it’s a full production. You are doing a video for them. Now, you are taking a picture with cars. You are doing street wear; I mean it’s just change so with that you need a bigger staff to handle those recruiting pieces because the coaching staff doesn’t want to do that. So, I think as the rules have changed and evolved obviously, you’ve seen the staff sizes the roles like mine change along with it.”
*What are some differences in the recruiting now compared to the past and how do you feel being one of the first General Managers?
“From a timeline perspective like 2007, 2008 you know somewhere in there, most recruiting departments have one guy or maybe two full-time people in their recruiting departments and then it’s obviously grown from there.
"Also in the past, it wasn’t as sped up as it is now. I mean we are talking about this June feels like 48 hours before signing day you know with the 23 class. And you’re recruiting the 24 class and 25 class and in the past, you’re recruiting one class. Once you get through signing day in February, then you move on to the next class. I mean you might have offered a couple of guys, but that part of it is probably the reason it’s changed so much from earlier in the 2000s and why it’s that way today.
"I think it’s tremendous. I take pride in being one of the first ones to kind of start this thing off because I think it’s a great role. My ambitions were always to get to the NFL, but I love college football so much and now it’s really the NFL model. Now players are getting paid with NIL and all that kind of stuff, so it’s becoming more and more like the NF, so it needs to be structured as such.”
*Suddes thinks there needs to be some major changes in the recruiting landscape.
“I think the main things are there’s inconsistencies in the contact. Just to give you an example, a 2024 can come in and he wants a photo shoot. We give him the photo shoot, but you can’t give him the pictures. They have to take their own pictures. Right now a 24 texts you, you can’t text them back. A 24 calls you and you miss it, you can’t call back. So, those are the inconsistencies I think would struggle. So either don’t let them come on campus or let them come on campus, but you got to be able to contact them.
"Those are probably the biggest pet peeve if you talk to my position and coaches across college football. We talk about the photo shoot thing a little bit and it’s got a little out of control, but it is what it is. That’s the first thing they want to do when they come on a visit is put on the uniform and everything on so I don’t see that changing.
"But I got a laundry list of stuff and those are probably the main thing is the contact with players and how you cannot have contact with them when they’re trying to contact you.”
*What are some things that make UNC an easy sell to recruit?
“I mean Coach Brown has hit this a lot but there’s not many places that you can win all your games, compete for championships, and get the education you are going to get here in a college town, in a great town. It’s safe, it’s clean. The people here are unbelievable and that’s just for me being here a couple of months.
"I think that’s the main thing and then you get to work and come play for a hall of fame coach like Coach Brown. And you know that’s the reason I came. It’s the reason most of these players came, but the brand of UNC is so strong.
"I’ve talked about this before, but just growing up you know when you see that Carolina blue there’s one team you’re talking about.”
*The biggest challenge for a General Manager is roster management between the duties of recruiting high school players, monitoring the transfer portal, and keeping in touch with players on the current roster who may enter the draft or transfer.
“I think the main thing is roster management and hopefully they can get their hands on when you can hit the portal. Don’t let kids hit the portal during the season and give them a window after the season to hit the portal. But, that’s the biggest thing and that’s why if you look across college football with the 85, most people are short going into the season and whether they put on the walk-ons or save it for the next class.
"It’s hard to get enough to figure out exactly how many high school kids you got to take versus the portal and then you never know who’s going to leave your team. You don’t know who’s going to test the NFL waters because that’s always been the case with the guys leaving early. We educate as much as possible. Having Darryl Moody on the staff is huge being a former scout and all that.
"So, you can kind of get a grasp of that a little bit but it’s the guys that are transferring. You never know if the kid’s not playing or whatever, but it goes back to the point of the degree here so strong. Most kids want to stay and get their degree, but they’re on the fast track with three and with the Covid year now they got two to three years they can be graduated and transfer out and have plenty of time left. So, that the biggest stress I think across college football right now.”
