Missouri football adds director of football strategy and finance. Here's what he'll do

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Missouri football is adding to its front office.
The Tigers announced Friday via a news release that they have hired Gaurav Verma as the team's first director of football strategy and finance. Verma most recently was a salary cap specialist with the Denver Broncos. He will report directly to MU head coach Eli Drinkwitz, per the release.
Although the role shares some of the same common, front-office-type characteristics, Verma will not be the team's general manager — a significant distinction from front-office moves at other Power-conference programs.
Multiple football and men's basketball teams across the country, including Missouri basketball, have added GMs this offseason to help aid coaching staffs as college athletics handle the revenue-sharing era, including player-agent contract negotiations and revenue management.
Mizzou basketball added former assistant Tim Fuller to take on that very role.
That will not be Verma's job with Mizzou football.
His primary responsibilities, per the release, will be to lead 'strategic planning' in the following area:
Roster, scholarship and revenue cap planning
Talent evaluation and scouting operations
Recruiting calendar and logistics
Analytics and recruiting infrastructure
Compliance, NIL and interdepartmental collaboration
That, notably, does not include player-agent relations, but instead is more of a front-office focus on equipping the staff to plan for the new era of college athletics.
Universities, beginning this school year, are allowed to distribute $20.5 million of revenue to their student-athletes. Football and men's basketball are expected to receive the majority of that revenue-sharing money.
Verma's primary task appears to be managing the football team's allocation of those funds, much like an NFL salary cap.
"We are really excited to add Gaurav to our program," Drinkwitz said. "His NFL experience, as well as his business background, will help us navigate revenue sharing and contract management."
'"I'm thrilled to join Mizzou football at such a transformative time," Verma said in the release. "With college football evolving rapidly through revenue sharing and strategic roster management, I'm excited to apply my background in finance and the NFL to help Mizzou build sustainably competitive teams on the sport's biggest stage — the SEC. I want to thank Coach Drinkwitz for this opportunity and can't wait to help build on the program's success as we compete for national championships."
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Verma originally hails from Boston. He received a Bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Johns Hopkins University. He holds an MBA in finance from MIT. Verma previously has worked in investment banking and data science, per the release.
According to his LinkedIn page, Verma spent one year with the Broncos.
Drinkwitz previously expressed hesitancy about hiring a general manager, which may explain Verma's role and job title.
Back in April in response to a question from the Tribune, Drinkwitz had this to say:
"I don't know what the (revenue-sharing) rules are,' Drinkwitz said April 9. 'I don't know. If (adding GMs is) the structure that we go down because of the new settlement that's in place, then, yeah, awesome. I think that's something that would make a lot of sense. If there was a partner that needed to partner with me and handle a little bit more of the business structure side of it — great. But until I really know what that looks like … not yet.'
The latter part of that statement — handling the "business structure side" — appears to be most closely aligned with what Verma will do day-to-day.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Here's what Missouri football's new front-office hire will do