Stanford football brought back one of the program's elite players in November, hiring Andrew Luck as the Cardinal general manager. It quickly became clear that Luck has as much power as any general manager in the sport after he fired coach Troy Taylor in late March.
As Stanford looks to rebuild after a rough first ACC season, boosters of its primary rival Cal want to copy the Cardinal blueprint.
The Golden Bears hired longtime NFL coach and Berkeley alumnus Ron Rivera as its GM in March, and boosters want the former Carolina Panthers and Washington Commanders coach to have a similar level of control over the football program as Luck has in Palo Alto according to a report by SFGATE.
The general manager is a relatively new position in college football, and schools handle the role in a number of different ways. In many cases, the GM is at the service of the head coach, though at Stanford it is clear that Luck is even more influential on the program than outgoing athletic director Bernard Muir. In Berkeley, Rivera reports to Cal chancellor Rich Lyons, while Cal coach Justin Wilcox reports to athletic director Jim Knowlton.
Two of Cal's most influential boosters want to see Rivera running the entire program, mimicking the setup that the Cardinal have. If the program doesn't make those changes, they've vowed to stop funding to the program's California Legends Collective, the only third-party NIL collective that supports the Golden Bears.
“You don't hire Mario Andretti and ask him to sit in the passenger seat, right?” said collective president Kevin Kennedy. “There’s a reason that you bring someone like that on staff: In order to give him control."
He outlined his concerns in a message to the collective's donors.
“Until I know the answers to the questions I posed above, I won’t personally invest more money in this enterprise,” Kennedy wrote. “More importantly, I cannot in good conscience ask any of you to do the same. I simply do not believe that Cal football can possibly succeed without some significant changes to how we have operated to date.”
The situation has become a divisive issue for Cal fans online, and some of the outcry has clearly reached Lyons, who made a call for unity as the campaign picked up steam.
Cal sports fans: It's time to pull together.
— Rich Lyons (@richlyons) March 25, 2025
For what it's worth, Cal had a much better inaugural ACC campaign than Stanford, going 6–7 with a berth in the LA Bowl. The season was marred by a string of brutal close losses. Cal was just 2–5 in one-score games, with four consecutive losses to Florida State, No. 8 Miami, No. 22 Pitt and NC State coming by a total of nine points.
However, many of the influential, monied boosters around the program believe Stanford is on a clearer track with Luck. Rivera's first major task may be getting these disparate parties back in alignment.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Cal Football Boosters Make Major Demand of Program As Andrew Luck Takes Over Stanford.
