The College Football Pre-season Magazine Lives On; Meaningless Titles

One of the joys of being a college football fan is the annual ritual of scouring the pre-season magazines to read about your favorite team and learn who the best teams in the country are projected to be.

Even in the age of the internet and social media, this rite of passage continues today.

The Athletic's Stewart Mandel had a terrific post about college football preview mags last week.

It got me thinking back to how each year sports information directors (SIDs) will lobby the magazines to get their star players on the cover.

Back in the day, the most important magazine was Street & Smith's. Over the years, Stanford's SIDs created a good relationship with their editors, to the extent that we got four national covers in the space of 12 years.

My predecessor and mentor, Bob Murphy, successfully lobbied for Jim Plunkett over Mississippi's Archie Manning for the Street & Smith's cover in 1970.

I was able to get Guy Benjamin on the cover in 1977, and my successor, the indomitable Bob Rose, did the same with John Elway in '81 and '82.

For years the Street & Smith's folks insisted that their "cover boy" be photographed without the facemask on his helmet, so we had to take them off for Plunkett and Benjamin. By Elway's time, sanity had prevailed and they used a close up action shot.

Those were the days. Sadly, Street & Smith's is no longer with us. Nor is its major competitor from back then, Game Plan, which to me was more of a betting guide, anyway.

As Mandel reported, "most of the preview magazines didn't survive the Internet age. Street & Smith's folded in 2007, when it merged with Sporting News, which went all digital in 2012, and Game Plan ended in 2014." 

Today, there are three print survivors--Athlon (launched in the 1970s), Lindy's (1982) and Phil Steele ('95).

Apparently, some folks still want the experience of holding a physical product in their hands, particularly one like Steele's 350-page 2025 edition, which provides easier reference than the internet and is reportedly the leading revenue producer for Barnes and Noble.

Hang in there, Phil.

Admin Numbers: Reportedly among the 363 staff cuts Stanford announced last week were 30 in the Athletic Department.

We've written several times about the administrative bloat in the department, which has been increasing steadily over the past two decades.

Back in Murphy's, Rose's and my time, the SID office at Stanford consisted of two writers/media relations people and one secretary. We handled over 30 sports. And we did a pretty good job, from most accounts.

Todays sports information department has 11 people.

According to the current staff directory posted on the Athletic Department website, there are 2 Deputy Athletic Directors, 18 Associate Athletic Directors (including some with the added designation "Executive" or "Senior') and 19 Assistant Athletic Directors. That's 39 Deputy or Associate or Assistant ADs, not including the current Interim Athletic Director.

(This listing may not reflect recent cuts, but if so they haven't made it to the website).

It was so simple back in the day when Stanford AD Andy Geiger had three Associate ADs (Doug Single, Alan Cummings and me) and one Assistant AD (Jim Gaughran).

Nary an "executive" or "senior" or "deputy" in the bunch.

Stanford is far from alone. Administrative bloat is a national disease. Texas A&M just hired former Arkansas Senior Associate AD for Marketing & Business Development Taylor McGillis.

His new title: Executive Senior Associate AD for External Relations & Revenue Generation.

Not to be outdone, LSU hired former Ohio AD Julie Cromer as Executive Deputy AD and Chief Operating Officer.

One of these days we may have a Senior Executive Deputy AD for Administrative Title Development.

Coming Soon: College football is less than two weeks away. Next Monday we'll take a look at some of the transfers who will impact the '25 season, the huge amount of NIL money being spent to attract those transfers and top high school recruits, and some of the key matchups and important questions going into the opening weekend.