Gentleman Squirrels

February 10th, 2022 at 8:46 PM ^

Background from when he was hired by Jags

Gamble, who enters his 30th season in the NFL, most recently was the assistant general manager of the CFL's Montreal Alouettes in 2020 after serving as a senior advisor to the head coach and player personnel at the University of Michigan from 2017-19. Prior to his stint in Ann Arbor, Gamble was the assistant general manager for the San Francisco 49ers in 2016 after serving as a senior personnel executive in 2015. His return to the Bay Area followed his time in Philadelphia, where he was the vice president of player personnel for the Eagles from 2013-14.

In 2012, Gamble oversaw both the college and pro personnel efforts for the 49ers while working closely with Baalke. With assistance from Gamble and Baalke, the 49ers shared the NFL lead with nine Pro Bowl selections and advanced to three straight NFC Championship games and Super Bowl XLVII.

Prior to being named director of player personnel, Gamble served as the director of pro personnel for the previous seven seasons in San Francisco. Before his time with the 49ers, he served as a college scout for the Indianapolis Colts from 1998-2004. He also worked as a defensive assistant with the New York Jets for two seasons and had scouting roles with Carolina and Baltimore. Gamble earned his first scouting role in the NFL with Philadelphia in 1988.

Overall, Gamble has helped produce 12 playoff teams, including five with Indianapolis, five with Philadelphia and two with San Francisco.

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Blue boy johnson

February 10th, 2022 at 9:01 PM ^

Sounds good to me. 

The Colonel, or whatever he was called had to be Harbaugh's worst hire I would think. That was a weird situation. Other than that guy, hires seem to be pretty sound

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Robbie Moore

February 10th, 2022 at 9:15 PM ^

I'm not sure what all these positions mean. So Gamble is director of player personnel. There is a posting for an assistant director of player personnel (maybe Denard?). There is Aashon Larkins who is director of recruiting and Mike Elston who is recruiting coordinator. Who exactly does what? Who reports to whom? Presumably the actual coaching staff re-recruits the existing roster to keep players out of the portal. Who is recruiting players in the portal? Who is talking to players on other rosters who aren't (yet) in the portal (tampering now being an accepted activity)? The guys with the recruiting titles or the guys with the player personnel titles? Who coordinates with admissions to get portal recruits accepted? Etcetera. Etcetera. 

Enquiring minds want to know.

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JonnyHintz

February 10th, 2022 at 10:16 PM ^

I’d guess there’s some overlap between “departments” but I’d venture a guess that:

Karshnia is mainly in an administrative role, handling the logistics for recruiting. Travel accommodations for coaches, hotels, setting up those visits and making sure the proper forms are filled out and submitted to document recruiting trips and formalizing incoming players. Including gathering and monitoring transcripts for recruits.
 

Gamble’s focus will be more on the current roster, but also administrative. Overseeing day to day operations and providing players with the athletic and academic resources they need. In addition to functioning as somewhat of a counselor.
 

Aashon I would assume is in more of a scouting role. Scouring film and connecting with high school coaches to get insight on potential recruits. 
 

Elston would be more building the overall recruiting board and assigning coaches to recruits. Playing a pivotal role in those recruitments himself. 
 

We also have an on-campus recruiting director, Christina DeRuyter. Her duties would include setting up the on-campus experience for visiting recruits. So planning travel, hotel accommodations, meals, meetings with coaches/academic staff, and tours. 
 

Total guess on my part based on background of each person, so take it with a grain of salt. But there are ways to divide up the workload in a similar way to what I put here. I don’t think any of them “answer” to another, it’s more of a collaboration where everyone has their duties to do and they work together when those duties overlap. 

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GET OFF YOUR H…

February 11th, 2022 at 8:41 AM ^

The director of player personnel is basically the lead mind in who to approach and recruit.  They along with their staff are key to focusing the coaches recruiting efforts.  Essentially the GM position in the NFL, with their draft focus.  Difference is no salary cap, and your job is more about finding the "right fit" and "right character" for the program.  They are basically the person that nobody really knows about, but if the position is filled with someone bad, recruiting would go to shit.  We will see how a NFL guy slides into this role at the college level.

 

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JonnyHintz

February 11th, 2022 at 2:06 PM ^

That’s typically how the position is, but with Michigan hiring all of these additional recruiting roles (Albert Karshnia and Aason Larkins specifically) in addition to Elston being recruiting coordinator, it leads me to believe they’re not going the traditional route with the DPP position and those duties are being split up amongst the others. With NIL being a thing now, it would make sense to have the DPP head that area and the recruiting aspects get split between the two others.

You’re not wrong, I just think you’re looking at the role of DPP in a normal setting and not one where you’ve hired a Director of On-Campus Recruiting, Director of Recruiting, and a Recruiting Operations Coordinator in addition to your defensive line coach being the Recruiting Coordinator.
 

We haven’t had those positions in the past and most schools don’t have them. It stands to reason that roles that existed previously (like DPP) will now have different or fewer roles. 

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matt1114

February 11th, 2022 at 9:11 AM ^

Really looks like we are building a large recruiting staff that other bigger schools have. I'm assuming these positions will be working with NIL programs as well, so this is definitely something we have needed. Looks like we have had some drastic changes in recruiting staff over the past few years from Dudek doing it all to now having a full-on staff. 

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Twitch

February 11th, 2022 at 7:25 AM ^

From a 247 article by Zuniga.

 

"Among other duties, the Director of Player Personnel role is responsible for assisting the coaching staff in all aspects of recruiting prospective student-athletes to the program"

 

Hope this is of some help.  I also hope we are finally on our way to having a true NFL type of personnel department.  There have been several posts about this and the advantages it brings along with examples of schools with huge personnel departments.

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OwenGoBlue

February 10th, 2022 at 9:33 PM ^

Smart to expand this department, Michigan should be excellent in evaluation, recruiting, communicating with players/staff to keep everyone happy, etc.

They could probably staff a full NFL style scouting and personnel department with Harbaugh and Michigan connections. Lowkey there have been some big time behind the scenes people in Ann Arbor of late. 

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