Austin Thomas, widely considered among the top executives in college football, the sport’s first-ever general manager at the collegiate level and a former FootballScoop award winner, will not return to LSU, FootballScoop has learned.

While Thomas has worked three different places in the past with new LSU head coach Lane Kiffin, this chapter on the bayou will not see Thomas remaining atop the Tigers’ off-the-field football duties.

Thomas and Kiffin worked together at Ole Miss, where Thomas held a similar, senior level-role that included helping negotiate assistant coaches’ salaries and contracts, game-scheduling responsibilities and various other tasks.

But Thomas returned to LSU in March to reunite with Scott Woodward, the LSU athletics director and a longtime mentor to Thomas.

He first met Kiffin in December 2008 when Kiffin was hired atop the University of Tennessee program as replacement to the fired Phillip Fulmer.

Thirteen months later, when Kiffin bolted for the USC Trojans job on the heels of Pete Carroll’s departure, Thomas was among a handful of people — including Ed Orgeron and Monte Kiffin, as well as James Cregg, all assistant coaches — who followed Kiffin to Los Angeles.

Thomas then had a brief stop at Bowling Green, was hired on at LSU into a top role in 2013 and was named FootballScoop’s Player Personnel Director of the Year in 2015, an award voted on by his peers.

Thomas also had a stop in a senior level-role at Baylor, on to Ole Miss and had been general manager and among LSU’s top assistant athletics directors in this return to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Kiffin already has brought with him Billy Glasscock, whom Kiffin hired away from Texas and who has in recent years also emerged as among the sport’s most widely respected personnel executives and general managers; he was vital in assembling this year’s Ole Miss team that is a lock for the 12-team College Football Playoff — the first-ever bid in Ole Miss history.

Kiffin also, as FootballScoop first reported Tuesday, has brought with him Dwike Wilson into a top recruiting and personnel position.

From Austin Thomas’ bio on LSU’s site:

Austin Thomas returned to LSU in January of 2024 and serves as a senior associate athletic director for football administration. It’s Thomas third stint at LSU as he previously served as general manager for the Tigers in 2021 and was a staff member from 2013-17. He was elevated to general manager at LSU for the first time in 2016, becoming the first person in college football to hold that title. Thomas returned to Baton Rouge after two years at Ole Miss, where he served as football chief of staff and sport administrator for the Rebel football program in 2022 and 2023. Ole Miss had perhaps the best season in school history in 2023, winning a program record 11 games, beating Penn State in the Peach Bowl and finishing the year ranked No. 9 in the nation.

Thomas spent the 2020 season as senior associate athletic director for football at Baylor, where he was tasked with overseeing all football related activities for the Bears.

Thomas served as the associate athletic director for football personnel at Texas A&M for two years during the 2018-19 seasons. Thomas helped guide the Aggies to its highest back-to-back recruiting classes in program history in 2019-20.

In his first two seasons at LSU, Thomas helped the Tigers claim back-to-back top five signing classes in 2014 and 2015, and in 2016-2017 during his time as the general manager, Thomas played a key role in the construction of the roster that won the 2019 National Championship. He was named the Personnel Director of the Year in 2015 and a finalist for the award in 2014.

During his first stop at LSU, the Tigers won 44 games in the five-year span and finished ranked in the Top 25 four times.

Considered one of the top off the field professionals in all of college football, Thomas spent multiple seasons on Lane Kiffin’s staff in off-the-field roles at both USC and Tennessee. Thomas served as a defensive quality control coach for Kiffin in Knoxville in 2009, followed by a two year stay at USC as the Trojans’ assistant director of player personnel from 2011-2013.