Tulane Football Hires Rising Ole Miss Personnel Staffer for Recruiting Role
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The Tulane Green Wave football team has landed an up-and-coming player personnel graduate assistant from the Ole Miss Rebels on their staff.
As reported by Matt Zenitz of 247Sports, Colton Leggett is leaving the Rebels to take a recruiting specialist position under head coach Jon Sumrall with Tulane.
It's a strong hire for Sumrall as the college football landscape inches closer to an NFL model with the need for personnel staff growing in tandem.
The LSU Tigers graduate, regarded as a rising star in the player personnel world, started his career as a personnel student assistant under Brian Kelly for three years.
Leggett spent about 10 months in Oxford as a graduate assistant while completing a master's degree in sports analytics. He will now start his first staff role with the Green Wave football team.
He brings a wealth of knowledge from the personnel space in the SEC and, importantly, perhaps some intel on the upcoming opponent with Tulane heading to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium to face Lane Kiffin's squad in non-conference play during the 2025 season.
Sumrall discussed the evolution of college football moving closer to the business model of the NFL earlier this month in an interview with Fox 8 Sports.
"I think our game is mimicking that game a lot more in regards to how the business side of football is run," Sumrall said. "We played Florida in the bowl game, and I talked to Billy Napier there. They have essentially a director of college scouting and a director of high school scouting. You're scouting other people's rosters; they're scouting ours. You have to know what the players who are out there that could be moving look like."
With that perspective in mind, Leggett's hire grows stronger with his knowledge of scouting the Rebels roster for the last year.
Outside of that specific matchup, there's real value in a player personnel and recruiting assistant who has worked for two teams in the SEC. Ole Miss has been adding staff to account for personnel needs and likely operates even closer to a professional model.
It's not clear if Leggett will be an offensive or defensive assistant.
The Green Wave are in need of some additions on the defensive side of recruiting.
Sumrall lost his director of defensive recruiting, Hunter Sims, to a general manager position at Old Dominion.
Recently, defensive graduate assistant Rodney Saulsberry took a job at his alma mater, Austin Peay University, as their new cornerbacks coach.
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Maddy Hudak is the deputy editor for Tulane on Sports Illustrated and the radio sideline reporter for their football team. Maddy is an alumnus of Tulane University, and graduated in 2016 with a degree in psychology. She went on to obtain a Master of Legal Studies while working as a research coordinator at the VA Hospital, and in jury consulting. During this time, Maddy began covering the New Orleans Saints with SB Nation, and USA Today. She moved to New Orleans in 2021 to pursue a career in sports and became Tulane's sideline reporter that season. She enters her fourth year with the team now covering the program on Sports Illustrated, and will use insights from features and interviews in the live radio broadcast. You can follow her on X at @MaddyHudak_94, or if you have any questions or comments, she can be reached via email at maddy.hudak1@gmail.com