Florida football has hired former Atlanta Falcons executive Nick Polk as its new Associate Athletic Director/Football General Manager and analytics guru Benjamin Elsner as Director of Football Strategy, the school announced Monday.
The moves come as the Florida Gators shape their front office to prepare for college football moving into a revenue-share model following the House v. NCAA settlement. Both will work with UF general manager Jacob LaFrance and director of college personnel Bird Sherrill to manage UF’s roster. LaFrance will continue his primary role of high school football scouting while Sherrill will scout players in the transfer portal.
“We’re getting this front office built out to be more strategic about the salary cap, the contracts, rev share, marketing, endorsement, that pool of money that could come available,” Florida football coach Billy Napier said during his national signing day press conference on Feb. 5. “And then, how you allocate the money becomes part of the evaluation process.
“We have been living life that way although there’s no rules, what we’ve tried to do the last 18 months is create our own rules in terms of how we added players to the team. Not only the addition of players but the retention of players. I think we’re kind of getting on the interstate and slotted in that right lane here.”
What Nick Polk, Benjamin Eisner bring to Florida football
Polk spent 17 seasons as Director of Football Operations for the Atlanta Falcons (2004-21), where he was responsible for salary cap management, including draft negotiations, contract proposals, player contracts, coaches’ contracts, trades and trade value analysis.
During Polk’s 17 seasons in Atlanta, the Falcons reached the playoffs seven times and advanced to Super Bowl LI in 2016 before falling to the New Egland Patriots. Polk was involved…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/florida-football-hires-former-atlanta-202826447.html
Author : The Gainesville Sun
Publish date : 2025-02-10 20:28:00
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