Georgia, Clemson ADs will put friendship aside for a few hours in opening football matchup

When Georgia football coach Kirby Smart and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney take their spots on opposite sidelines Saturday in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the top 15 showdown will pit two of the three active coaches who have won national championships.

It will also be a clash of powerhouse programs located less than 75 miles apart, with athletic directors ― Georgia’s Josh Brooks and Clemson’s Graham Neff — who share a bond that started as they rose up to their positions at schools where football matters a lot.

The game between the No. 1 Bulldogs and No. 14 Tigers is a marquee matchup on the first full weekend of the season. Either Brooks or Neff will leave with fans having to come to grips with a loss on their team’s ledger before Labor Day.

“We’ll see how the results fall,” Neff said. “I would tell you that however the outcome goes, the team or the school on the losing end will remind our head coaches that the prior ADs actually scheduled this game. … If we or he were to win, we’ll probably take credit for scheduling the game.”

Brooks, now 44, remembers getting to know Neff, 40, in 2017 when the Bulldogs played in the College Football Playoff for the first time. Brooks worked in internal operations at Georgia. Neff had a similar role at Clemson and was at the same site visit with all four playoff teams in Atlanta.

Brooks said they talk now a couple of times a month and both consider each other to be among their closest friends in the industry.

“He’s a great person, a great colleague, someone you can bounce ideas off of,” Brooks said. “We had a similar journey coming up. … We can be very open with each other. We’re respectful of each other’s jobs but helpful in sharing the right information that can be useful to learn from each other.”

Brooks was hired as Georgia athletic director in January 2021 after Greg McGarity retired. Brooks, a Louisiana native, had moved from football operations to assistant and associate AD to senior AD positions at Georgia, with stops at Louisiana Monroe as deputy AD and Division III Millsaps as athletic director in between.

So Brooks tried to be a resource for Neff in December 2021 when the Clemson AD job opened after Dan Radakovich left for Miami. Neff said he did the same before Brooks landed the job at Georgia.

“We’re both kind of younger dudes, his AD job was the year before mine, we were both deputies together,” Neff said. “It’s stitched together for quite some time. It’s pretty cool.”

Neff was in his ninth year at the South Carolina school, serving as chief financial officer, director of capital projects and deputy AD. He graduated from Georgia Tech in 2006 with a degree in civil engineering and was head manager of the Yellow Jackets’ basketball team that reached the Final Four in 2004. He worked for accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, as financial controller and in ticket operations at Georgia Tech and then associate AD at Middle Tennessee State before going to Clemson.

Brooks and Neff spend time together at professional development events, like in Atlanta earlier this month. Brooks usually goes to Clemson for an indoor track meet at the start of the season and gets to catch up with him there.

Neff said Brooks is usually one of his first calls to discuss “the moving parts of the industry,” being at “like-minded schools in a lot of different regards, but certainly in investment and support and broad-based and comprehensive investment for all of our sports.”

Neff provided insight about logistics for playoff trips after the Tigers’ run of appearances in the CFP from 2015-20. Neff said the two talk about names for head coach openings no matter the sport.

“He’s a great communicator and people person and then you balance that with his intellect and strategy, he knows his stuff and has a great way about him,” Neff said. “He’s highly strategic and that combination makes him really, really unique.”

When Brooks was searching for a gymnastics coach this spring, he turned to Neff as a sounding board about the possible pool of candidates because Neff had hired a coach two years earlier when Clemson started its program.

“He’s somebody I trust,” Brooks said.

Neff picked Brooks’ brain about gymnastics, too, before Clemson hired Utah State coach Amy Smith.

Neff and staff attended a Georgia gymnastics meet to see it firsthand before the school hired its first coach. They sat together and talked about the sport during the meet.

“It’s leaning on each other for resources and recommendations,” Neff said.

Brooks said there’s not much sharing how the schools are approaching major changes to college athletics, including revenue sharing with athletes, but it tends to be more personnel matters like firing a coach.

“These jobs can be lonely,” Brooks said. “When you’re sitting in this chair, you need friends who are sitting in similar chairs that are going through the same challenges you are. You can just discuss ideas or just commiserate sometimes.”

Brooks sent a video for a birthday video Neff’s staff put together for his 40 ^th .

They joked when Neff replaced Brooks as the youngest power conference AD when he was hired.

“We laugh at that from time to time,” Neff said.

They sat together at the NCAA soccer round of 16 game last season between the schools. Clemson prevailed on penalty kicks.

“We were joking that if it was tied after PKs, the ADs would get out there and have PKs vs. each other,” Brooks said. “He’s taller and longer so that would have been more of a challenge.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia, Clemson ADs will put friendship aside for a few hours in opening football matchup