The Nebraska football team is making a move that seems like it’s part of the new era of college football. The Huskers are hiring a new General Manager and they’re pulling the new hire out of the NFL.
The Cornhuskers are bringing in Pat Stewart in order to take on the new position. Stewart is getting hired over from the New England Patriots front office and will likely be making a pretty penny in order to do it.
Stewart spent 13 total seasons with the New England Patriots, 2007-2017 and 2023-2024, in various off-the-field roles. Most recently, Stewart was the Patriots' director of pro personnel in 2024. Now he’s headed to the Nebraska football program to try and soup up their recruiting department.
Per sources, current Nebraska general manager Sean Padden will move to a new role of assistant AD for strategic initiatives. This role will include ties to the salary cap, contract negotiations and analytics. https://t.co/sV79ZwxnJj
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 27, 2025
Nebraska football brings in new general manager
Stewart might have spent of his recent career with the Patriots, but there was also a period of time when he worked with Matt Rhule. Stewart was director of player personnel in 2020 and, later, vice president of player personnel in 2021 and 2022 for the Carolina Panthers.
Pete Thamel reported on Wednesday evening that the Huskers aren’t moving out the man who was doing the work that Stewart will now do. Sean Padden had been the Cornhuskers General Manager. However he will now be NU’s new assistant AD for strategic initiatives. Padden will reported focus on salary cap, contract negotiations and analytics in the new era of revenue sharing.
The Nebraska football team joins several other programs that have adopted a General Manager position that is much more similar to the same position in the NFL. The NIL and rev sharing has forced these programs to look at money in the sport more directly than they ever had before.