New general manager remains tight-lipped on strategy for Arkansas

Like it or not, revenue sharing is here.

Up to $20.5 million of Arkansas' budget can go towards directly paying athletes under the terms of the recent House v. NCAA settlement.

Where that money goes, and more importantly, to which sport that money goes to, will play a huge role in the quality and caliber of players the teams are able to get.

The Razorbacks brought on Remy Cofield in April, former Director of Scouting for the Boston Celtics, as deputy athletic director and general manager to assist with that.

In professional sports, general managers often times have full control over roster building, but Cofield made it clear that it would still be the likes of Sam Pittman and John Calipari calling the shots on personnel decisions.

"It’s the coaching staff’s vision," Cofield said. "Whatever they want to get done from that standpoint with their rosters, we’re going to try to do everything we possibly can to get it done. I’m personally not necessarily a ‘yes man,’ but I will give my opinion on certain things, especially as time goes along. They have the full autonomy to say yay or nay."

He sees his role more as the strategic master to try and make the department run as efficiently as possible. Some schools have laid out specific figures as to how the school will divvy up the pie between sports.

For example, Indiana's AD Scott Dolson announced that football will get roughly 70-75% of the revenue-sharing budget, with men's basketball getting roughly 20%, according to the IndyStar.

Cofield refused to divulge whether or not the Hogs would follow a similar blueprint that is slowly taking shape as the industry standard.

"Can’t [give them to you," Cofield said about specific figures. "I will say that we're going to put forth a good effort to be competitive in all of our sports from a revenue sharing standpoint.

"Those numbers that are getting tossed out there, we're happy to accept them and see them from our standpoint, we're just not going to do that from the University of Arkansas."

Arkansas also does not have a staff in place under Cofield nearly 3 months into his tenure. Cofield prioritizes getting the right people in place over urgency as football season is roughly 2 months away.

"We’ll go over that when the time is right," Cofield said. "We’ve gone back and forth about a few positions that will help us in the long run. I’ve talked to a few people, I’ll be honest about that.

"We talked to a few people about different things. It’s about getting the right people in to help us out and be a part of this, because it’s important we get it right the first time."

Cofield is hoping that the culture of Arkansas and the area will make up for any financial shortcomings that the department may have.

"There’s a lot of people that live here that are coming from other places," Cofield said. "I’m talking about LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, all these different places, bigger cities.

"They come down here and they don’t want to leave. I think that’s a testament to what Arkansas is."

Cofield oversees all 19 sports, the baseball portal is open until July 1st and one roster spot still remains on the men's basketball team should Arkansas decide to use it.

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