Tulane Green Wave Coach Sees Parallels to NFL in Evolution of College Football
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The Tulane Green Wave is among several college football programs in the country to assemble a staff prepared to handle roster management as the sport continues to transform.
Head coach Jon Sumrall now has a director of roster management on staff for the Tulane football team, Kelly Comarda, who was one of the co-founders of their NIL Collective, Fear the Wave.
College sports are finding it essential to have in-house NIL and roster management staff, and several roles have been created by programs to headline these efforts.
Between the transfer portal, NIL, and impending revenue-sharing, Sumrall shared that he sees the sport moving closer to emulating the NFL in a recent 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."
In order to handle all of that while trying to coach a championship football team, Sumrall needs Comarda on staff.
"Bringing Kelly [Comarda] back was a home run hire for us, for our athletic department, for our university, and selfishly, for me," Sumrall said. "Kelly was a key component in starting the collective, Fear the Wave. He's a former baseball player here, now a lawyer. He's very well educated and intelligent about this area of expertise."
Sumrall explained how Comarda oversees what the NIL pieces look like for the program and the future of revenue-sharing for the football team in particular.
"That allows me to worry about coaching the football team. He may run something by me on what's out there for a guy financially, but I'm not the one sitting there in the back crunching numbers, trying to figure out what we can pay him. I'm not the general manager. I get to be the head football coach. I could not be more thrilled to bring Kelly back home to New Orleans to be a part of the Green Wave football program."
Frankly, the position is a necessity in order to compete, whether at a Group of 5 or Power 4 school. But at the G5 level, programs like Tulane must adapt or risk painfully falling behind with no way to ever catch up.
By hiring a director of roster management, the Green Wave signified their readiness to compete for a championship.
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