When Austin Thomas began his first job as a top-level college athletics administrator, he was working in a much different world than the one he’s navigating now.

Thomas, LSU football’s general manager, must now operate like a high-level NFL executive. He has to manage a salary cap. He has to negotiate with agents. He has to scout players on rival teams, just in case he and the program he represents one day encounters an opportunity to sign one of them out of the transfer portal.

“I never thought it would get here this fast,” Thomas said Thursday.

Luckily for LSU, few are more qualified to tackle those new responsibilities than Thomas, the administrator who’s believed to be the first person ever hired to work as the general manager of a college football program. LSU gave him that tit

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