BAYLOR’S ‘HEAD COACH OFF THE FIELD’
3/11/2020 5:23:00 PM | Football
Former LSU General Manager Overseeing Recruiting, Personnel, Operations
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
From Phillip Fulmer at Tennessee to Lane Kiffin at USC to Les Miles and Ed Orgeron at LSU to Scott Woodward and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M, Austin Thomas has been mentored by some of the best.
But, Baylor's new Senior Associate AD for Football credits Monte Kiffin for making a "huge difference really early in kind of setting the tone."
When the legendary NFL defensive coordinator joined his son, Lane, at Tennessee, Monte Kiffin asked a 23-year-old recruiting and personnel graduate assistant to be a defensive quality control coach.
"I'm still trying to finish my master's, and I was like, 'Coach, I don't have any desire to be a coach,''' said Thomas, who earned a master's in sports administration from Tennessee. "And he said something that has always stuck with me. He said, 'I know you don't want to coach. Right now, I have a bigger vision for you than you do for yourself.'''
Kiffin's vision was for Thomas to eventually be an NFL general manager who could "bridge that gap" between the football side and management.
"Coming from the NFL, he said there are too many people in management within an organization that don't understand anything about football," Thomas said. "And there are too many people on the football side that don't understand anything about the organization and management and structure. So, there's a huge disconnect. He said, 'We need people that know how to bridge that gap.'''
Eleven years later, Thomas said, "it's kind of crazy that he really did have that kind of vision, because I would not have seen that for myself."
One of just two general managers in college football when he was promoted to that role at LSU in November 2016, the 34-year-old Thomas is in a similar capacity with first-year head coach Dave Aranda at Baylor.
"Coach Aranda says I'm essentially the head coach off the field," said Thomas, who was hired in January after two years at Texas A&M as Associate AD for Football Personnel. "My job is to alleviate as much stress off of him as I possibly can, for him to pour into our staff and our young people in this program in order to win football games and shape lives."
That includes overseeing football operations, personnel, recruiting, roster management, contracts and the budget.
"Those are not the hard things," he said. "The hard part is the management of people and fitting the pieces together and having everyone on the same page, in multiple ways, whatever that may be. You're trying to fit people from different walks of life that are at different places in their lives together and to empower them and lift them up. To me, the part that takes the most work is to get everyone pulling the rope in the same direction."
Aranda, who worked with Thomas for two years at LSU, calls him a "rising star in college football."
"He's got a great way about him," the Baylor head coach said. "He's able to juggle multiple things at once. His presence, his personality, his way of communicating and relating to people is what really sets him apart. Austin is going to be able to help us get organized and get to work as efficiently as possible."
Something of a recruiting junkie growing up in Nashville, Tenn., Thomas remembers getting in trouble in school on National Signing Day for spending too much time in the library trying to get recruiting updates.
He's parlayed that passion into a lucrative career, starting as a volunteer assistant at Tennessee under Fulmer.
"I walked over there one day and just said I really wanted to get involved," said Thomas, a history major who initially planned to earn his law degree and become a sports agent. "At the time, the athletics director was Mike Hamilton and the Senior Associate AD for Football was David Blackburn. And they said I could volunteer. 'You can get started that way, if you really think this is something you're passionate about.' I started as a volunteer and just kind of kept going."
When Lane and Monte Kiffin left after one year to go to USC, Thomas initially stayed back in Knoxville.
"Tennessee was all I knew, so I wanted to stay. I thought I had made it in the world," Thomas said.
A couple months later, though, Austin and his wife, Brittney – both Nashville natives – packed up their bags and headed to Los Angeles.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," he said, "flying into L.A. and going over rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of houses and just saying, 'What in the world did I just do?' It forced my wife and I to grow. We didn't know anyone, we had no family there. We had to rely on each other. We had work and us, and that was it.
"That was just God's way of telling us that this is where you need to be, this is what you need to do for your growth. Looking back, I am so thankful that it worked out the way it did and that I did go to USC and experience that for three years."
Hired as Director of Player Personnel at LSU under Miles in 2013, Thomas was promoted to Assistant AD two years later. Returning to USC with new head coach Clay Helton as Assistant AD for Football in February 2016, he stayed only a few months before coming back to Baton Rouge.
"It doesn't happen a whole lot in my world like it does for coaches, but LSU offered me a guaranteed contract if something happened to Coach Miles," Thomas said. "I really wasn't looking to leave USC, but theyhad just gotten a new AD (Lynn Swann). There were so many moving parts to it that it was just crazy. But, I feel like it was all in God's plan in putting me where I needed to be."
When Miles was let go four games into the 2016 season and replaced by Orgeron, Thomas was promoted to the GM role.
Orgeron, who had worked with him at both Tennessee and USC before, said Thomas "one day will be an NFL General Manager."
"I trust him in all aspects," Orgeron said at the time. "He can have the keys to the car. I trust him in everything that he does."
In overseeing everything off the football field, Thomas said he was "building everything from scratch at that point, like trying to put in a system, which I feel like we're kind of doing here (at Baylor) right now."
He was instrumental in top-five recruiting classes at LSU that eventually led to the Tigers winning the 2019 national championship.
"Once you get that blueprint after a year, you just tweak it and you have that blueprint," he said. "At the same time, that first year is always a growing process, because you're having to take like Coach Aranda's vision and helped him create all of that.'
Leaving LSU after the 2017 season, Thomas had opportunities at both Tennessee and Ole Miss, but ended up going to Texas A&M in June 2018 as Associate AD for Football Personnel with Fisher.
"I loved LSU, I loved the people at LSU. I was very invested there," he said. "I cried like a baby when I left LSU, when I thought I was going back home to Tennessee. But, my plan wasn't the same as God's plan. My wife and I were getting ready to have our second little boy, and that played into the Tennessee decision, because we had never been close to our families. They're both in Nashville. So, we started by wanting to get close to our families, and God took us seven hours farther from our family."
Thomas credits Woodward "a ton for my growth as an administrator." The Athletics Director at A&M when he was hired, Woodward actually became the AD at LSU following the 2018 season.
"I credit him so much with my growth and the ability to shape the way I think about things and see the bigger picture," Thomas said. "He's just a really humble, down-to-earth human being that I love and respect as much as anyone in the world. We talk frequently, and he is still very, very active in my life."
One of the first moves Aranda made after being hired as the head coach at Baylor was to contact Thomas.
"I thought he was just calling to ask who he should hire, but he asked if I wanted to join him," Thomas said. "There was a little bit of back and forth, but I knew in my heart I wanted to be with someone like him. Because when someone speaks to you and they talk to you about trust and about faith and about believing in you and being a part of shaping a program and shaping lives, those are things that are not easy to find."
So, here he is, building that blueprint again.
Jeramiah Dickey, Baylor's Associate Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics, said Thomas is a "tremendous person and addition to our team."
"He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience as we continue to define what it means to be elite," Dickey said. "He leads with a servant heart and will positively impact our student-athletes and their experience as we continue to Prepare Champions for Life."
During the interview and hiring process with Aranda, Dickey and Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades, Thomas said he "could just see their vision and the want for people that want to be led and want to lead with God at the forefront."
"That's so amazing," he said. "I'm just so thankful for the opportunity that they have blessed not only me with but this entire staff. I saw an AD, a Vice President for Athletics and a head coach – seeing how united they are and how powerful that can be – that was something that drew me to want to come and be a part of that."
Thomas met his wife, Brittney, during his one and only year as an undergrad student at Lipscomb University back home in Nashville. The couple, who will celebrate their 10th anniversary this summer, have two boys, Paul Austin (4) and Paxton Ace (1).
Being a dad, Thomas said, "changes everything you do."
"It changes the way you think, it changes the way you invest your time, it changes your priorities. I can't imagine loving anything more than I love those boys," he said. "In the past, I made the mistake of putting my work before my family. When I went from LSU to A&M, I just really had a paradigm shift. Football will always be part of what I do, but I will never, ever let it define who I am."
Baylor Bear Insider
From Phillip Fulmer at Tennessee to Lane Kiffin at USC to Les Miles and Ed Orgeron at LSU to Scott Woodward and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M, Austin Thomas has been mentored by some of the best.
But, Baylor's new Senior Associate AD for Football credits Monte Kiffin for making a "huge difference really early in kind of setting the tone."
When the legendary NFL defensive coordinator joined his son, Lane, at Tennessee, Monte Kiffin asked a 23-year-old recruiting and personnel graduate assistant to be a defensive quality control coach.
"I'm still trying to finish my master's, and I was like, 'Coach, I don't have any desire to be a coach,''' said Thomas, who earned a master's in sports administration from Tennessee. "And he said something that has always stuck with me. He said, 'I know you don't want to coach. Right now, I have a bigger vision for you than you do for yourself.'''
Kiffin's vision was for Thomas to eventually be an NFL general manager who could "bridge that gap" between the football side and management.
"Coming from the NFL, he said there are too many people in management within an organization that don't understand anything about football," Thomas said. "And there are too many people on the football side that don't understand anything about the organization and management and structure. So, there's a huge disconnect. He said, 'We need people that know how to bridge that gap.'''
Eleven years later, Thomas said, "it's kind of crazy that he really did have that kind of vision, because I would not have seen that for myself."
One of just two general managers in college football when he was promoted to that role at LSU in November 2016, the 34-year-old Thomas is in a similar capacity with first-year head coach Dave Aranda at Baylor.
"Coach Aranda says I'm essentially the head coach off the field," said Thomas, who was hired in January after two years at Texas A&M as Associate AD for Football Personnel. "My job is to alleviate as much stress off of him as I possibly can, for him to pour into our staff and our young people in this program in order to win football games and shape lives."
That includes overseeing football operations, personnel, recruiting, roster management, contracts and the budget.
"Those are not the hard things," he said. "The hard part is the management of people and fitting the pieces together and having everyone on the same page, in multiple ways, whatever that may be. You're trying to fit people from different walks of life that are at different places in their lives together and to empower them and lift them up. To me, the part that takes the most work is to get everyone pulling the rope in the same direction."
Aranda, who worked with Thomas for two years at LSU, calls him a "rising star in college football."
"He's got a great way about him," the Baylor head coach said. "He's able to juggle multiple things at once. His presence, his personality, his way of communicating and relating to people is what really sets him apart. Austin is going to be able to help us get organized and get to work as efficiently as possible."
Something of a recruiting junkie growing up in Nashville, Tenn., Thomas remembers getting in trouble in school on National Signing Day for spending too much time in the library trying to get recruiting updates.
He's parlayed that passion into a lucrative career, starting as a volunteer assistant at Tennessee under Fulmer.
"I walked over there one day and just said I really wanted to get involved," said Thomas, a history major who initially planned to earn his law degree and become a sports agent. "At the time, the athletics director was Mike Hamilton and the Senior Associate AD for Football was David Blackburn. And they said I could volunteer. 'You can get started that way, if you really think this is something you're passionate about.' I started as a volunteer and just kind of kept going."
When Lane and Monte Kiffin left after one year to go to USC, Thomas initially stayed back in Knoxville.
"Tennessee was all I knew, so I wanted to stay. I thought I had made it in the world," Thomas said.
A couple months later, though, Austin and his wife, Brittney – both Nashville natives – packed up their bags and headed to Los Angeles.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," he said, "flying into L.A. and going over rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of houses and just saying, 'What in the world did I just do?' It forced my wife and I to grow. We didn't know anyone, we had no family there. We had to rely on each other. We had work and us, and that was it.
"That was just God's way of telling us that this is where you need to be, this is what you need to do for your growth. Looking back, I am so thankful that it worked out the way it did and that I did go to USC and experience that for three years."
Hired as Director of Player Personnel at LSU under Miles in 2013, Thomas was promoted to Assistant AD two years later. Returning to USC with new head coach Clay Helton as Assistant AD for Football in February 2016, he stayed only a few months before coming back to Baton Rouge.
"It doesn't happen a whole lot in my world like it does for coaches, but LSU offered me a guaranteed contract if something happened to Coach Miles," Thomas said. "I really wasn't looking to leave USC, but theyhad just gotten a new AD (Lynn Swann). There were so many moving parts to it that it was just crazy. But, I feel like it was all in God's plan in putting me where I needed to be."
When Miles was let go four games into the 2016 season and replaced by Orgeron, Thomas was promoted to the GM role.
Orgeron, who had worked with him at both Tennessee and USC before, said Thomas "one day will be an NFL General Manager."
"I trust him in all aspects," Orgeron said at the time. "He can have the keys to the car. I trust him in everything that he does."
In overseeing everything off the football field, Thomas said he was "building everything from scratch at that point, like trying to put in a system, which I feel like we're kind of doing here (at Baylor) right now."
He was instrumental in top-five recruiting classes at LSU that eventually led to the Tigers winning the 2019 national championship.
"Once you get that blueprint after a year, you just tweak it and you have that blueprint," he said. "At the same time, that first year is always a growing process, because you're having to take like Coach Aranda's vision and helped him create all of that.'
Leaving LSU after the 2017 season, Thomas had opportunities at both Tennessee and Ole Miss, but ended up going to Texas A&M in June 2018 as Associate AD for Football Personnel with Fisher.
"I loved LSU, I loved the people at LSU. I was very invested there," he said. "I cried like a baby when I left LSU, when I thought I was going back home to Tennessee. But, my plan wasn't the same as God's plan. My wife and I were getting ready to have our second little boy, and that played into the Tennessee decision, because we had never been close to our families. They're both in Nashville. So, we started by wanting to get close to our families, and God took us seven hours farther from our family."
Thomas credits Woodward "a ton for my growth as an administrator." The Athletics Director at A&M when he was hired, Woodward actually became the AD at LSU following the 2018 season.
"I credit him so much with my growth and the ability to shape the way I think about things and see the bigger picture," Thomas said. "He's just a really humble, down-to-earth human being that I love and respect as much as anyone in the world. We talk frequently, and he is still very, very active in my life."
One of the first moves Aranda made after being hired as the head coach at Baylor was to contact Thomas.
"I thought he was just calling to ask who he should hire, but he asked if I wanted to join him," Thomas said. "There was a little bit of back and forth, but I knew in my heart I wanted to be with someone like him. Because when someone speaks to you and they talk to you about trust and about faith and about believing in you and being a part of shaping a program and shaping lives, those are things that are not easy to find."
So, here he is, building that blueprint again.
Jeramiah Dickey, Baylor's Associate Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics, said Thomas is a "tremendous person and addition to our team."
"He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience as we continue to define what it means to be elite," Dickey said. "He leads with a servant heart and will positively impact our student-athletes and their experience as we continue to Prepare Champions for Life."
During the interview and hiring process with Aranda, Dickey and Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades, Thomas said he "could just see their vision and the want for people that want to be led and want to lead with God at the forefront."
"That's so amazing," he said. "I'm just so thankful for the opportunity that they have blessed not only me with but this entire staff. I saw an AD, a Vice President for Athletics and a head coach – seeing how united they are and how powerful that can be – that was something that drew me to want to come and be a part of that."
Thomas met his wife, Brittney, during his one and only year as an undergrad student at Lipscomb University back home in Nashville. The couple, who will celebrate their 10th anniversary this summer, have two boys, Paul Austin (4) and Paxton Ace (1).
Being a dad, Thomas said, "changes everything you do."
"It changes the way you think, it changes the way you invest your time, it changes your priorities. I can't imagine loving anything more than I love those boys," he said. "In the past, I made the mistake of putting my work before my family. When I went from LSU to A&M, I just really had a paradigm shift. Football will always be part of what I do, but I will never, ever let it define who I am."
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