Notre Dame is set to add Arkansas general manager Butler Benton to their staff.
It is expected that his Notre Dame title will be along the lines of associate athletics director of player personnel.
Marcus Freeman, who with a multi-person committee conducted interviews across the last several weeks, is close to formally to naming the Fighting Irish’s new hire, sources share.
The Irish interview process included multiple candidates – including within the Big 12 and SEC -- already with “general manager” attached to their titles at their current schools.
Ultimately, Notre Dame is plucking away Butler Benton from Southeastern Conference resident Arkansas to fill the spot. Benton has been the Razorbacks’ general manager for two years after spending the 2020 campaign as Chad Lunsford’s director of player personnel at Georgia Southern.
Benton publicly announced his departure from Arkansas Tuesday.
But Benton and Freeman are not strangers.
In fact, their familiarity with one another goes back to the onset of both their post-playing careers. Freeman was the Kent State linebackers’ coach in 2011-12, the first full-time coaching post of Freeman’s ever-ascending career, when Benton was at the Northeast Ohio university earning his master’s degree following his playing career as a running back at the University of Cincinnati.
Continuing the common theme, Benton played at UC for both Mark Dantonio and former Irish head coach Brian Kelly, who previously hired Benton some half-dozen years ago to serve as the Irish’s assistant director of player development.
Benton also has stops at Michigan State and the University of New Orleans.
Notre Dame is just days into its 2023 spring camp, the program’s second under Freeman. The Irish wrap up their 2023 early-year work with their annual Blue & Gold Game April 22.
Then, Notre Dame – off a 9-4 2022 debut under Freeman – kicks off its 2023 season abroad, when it battles traditional rival Navy Aug. 26 in Dublin, Ireland.