Northwestern's football coaching staff has had tremendous turnover since David Braun took over as head coach last summer, and even in the year before that. So much that there’s only one man who coached a game under previous coach Pat Fitzgerald: newly promoted defensive coordinator Tim McGarigle.

The same has been true for the Wildcat recruiting staff. Previous director of player personnel Jonny Kovach left the program last July, shortly after Fitzgerald was fired. Offensive personnel director Todd McShane resigned in December to take a promotion at his alma mater, Oregon State. The latest to leave was defensive personnel director Bryan Payton, who announced his resignation on May 3.

Many fans may not know Payton beyond his theatrical Drake posts on X signaling that Northwestern had just landed a defensive commitment, but he was an integral part of the recruiting operation and the longest-tenured employee in the personnel department.

He estimates that he played a role in landing 75-80% of the 182 signees who came into the program since he was hired in 2015. He was the first to scout an under-the-radar offensive lineman from Texas named Rashawn Slater, who became an NFL first-round draft pick. He also has more than 83,000 followers on X, the most of anyone in the program, including the Northwestern's official account.

Payton said that his leaving the program at this point was “100% my decision.” With new general manager Luke Walerius on board, he no longer saw any advancement opportunities.

“I have nothing but respect for what Northwestern is doing, but I want to progress in my career,” he said. “In terms of upward mobility [at Northwestern], it was clear that that wasn’t going to happen.”

The move also enabled him to talk to a journalist more freely than he would have had he still been on staff.

Payton may have left Northwestern, but he didn’t leave recruiting. He’s taken a 9-to-5 job as a corporate recruiter. “The process is mostly the same,” he said. “I just have to learn the industry and the company.”

He also still has one foot in football. He has launched BDPRecruiting, a recruiting service focused on “educating, advising, and empowering recruits and families through the recruiting process one step at a time,” according to his website.

Payton saw a lot of change in college football recruiting since he arrived to Evanston as a recruiting assistant nine years ago, after his own college career as a running back at Indiana from 2005-09. But maybe not as much change as you think.

In terms of the transfer portal and NIL, the two factors that have drastically altered the landscape of the sport, Payton said that neither drastically changed his job. He attributes it to the type of players Northwestern recruits, and the school’s unique value proposition.

“Because of the nature of Northwestern’s academics, we didn’t spend a ridiculous amount of time on transfers,” he said. “If you compare Northwestern to other Power Four schools, we didn’t spend anywhere near the amount of time on the transfer portal that they did – not even close.”

It makes sense that the transfer portal isn’t as big a factor at Northwestern. The school’s rigid academic standards makes it difficult to bring in transfers who are not already graduates. Northwestern attracts players who value the program’s academics, so very few of them leave without first earning their degrees. So Northwestern, as Braun has said many times, will continue to be a development program that attracts mostly three-star players and then coaches them into productive Big Ten players.

“High school recruiting will continue to be the backbone of the program,” said Payton.

As for NIL, Payton says that it was a “non-factor” for most of the players that the Wildcats recruited since 2021, when the NCAA passed rules allowing players to profit from their name, image and likeness.

“In my conversations with recruits, it didn’t come up very often,” he said.

Furthermore, Payton said that he usually didn’t know how much players were paid during their time at Northwestern. Recruiters and assistants usually let Braun or, before him, Fitzgerald, handle those conversations in the recruiting process. Again, the same dynamic applies: Northwestern attracts players who value the degree; how much NIL money they will earn is a secondary consideration, if that.

“They don’t care as much as [fans] think they do,” said Payton. “It’s not that big a selling point.”

Still, Payton contends that Northwestern needs to “decide who they want to be” in the brave, new world of college athletics. Do they want to be a program that wins six to eight games per year and then, once in a while, when they get a good quarterback and put together a special senior class, they might be able to “make a run”? Or do they want to be a legitimate contender in a Big Ten conference that will get a whole lot tougher starting next fall, when Oregon, USC, Washington and UCLA join the league?

“I think for most of the kids that Northwestern is going to get, NIL is not going to be a top factor,” said Payton. “But if you want to win the Big Ten, they need to get some kids who do care. To get the top talent guys, you’ve got to pay them.”

That’s why Payton thinks that Jacob Schmidt, the executive director of TrueNU.org, Northwestern’s NIL collective, is “one of the most important people in the program.” That could change soon, however, as the NCAA last Thursday reached a settlement in House vs. NCAA that would enable schools to pay athletes directly – though it still has to be approved by the federal judge overseeing the case, which could still be months away.

Northwestern hasn’t been as active as other programs in the transfer portal, either. A total of 12 Wildcats entered the portal after the 2023 season; that’s the second-lowest number in the Big Ten, behind only Nebraska, with eight.

But the number of transfers across the country is staggering. Rivals lists more than 2,400 athletes in their transfer portal tracker. Indiana and Michigan State led the Big Ten with 39 players apiece (though both programs went through a coaching change, which makes it more understandable).

Payton thinks that the sheer number of players in the portal is an indicator of athletes “making the wrong decision,” whether they are fringe players at the lower levels of sport, or five-stars at the highest. Oftentimes, it’s because they don’t have the best guidance.

That’s where he thinks he can help with BDP Recruiting.

“My true passion is helping recruits and their families through the process,” he said. “If they make more educated decisions on the front end about what’s important to them, and then stick to it, there wouldn’t be so many kids in the transfer portal. And coaches would be able to retain their talent.”

So far, Payton’s message has resonated with high school prospects and their families. He said he has already signed and is advising more than 10 athletes, and that’s come from just posting on his @BDPRecruiting X account.

Payton is no longer part of the Northwestern football program, but he’ll still be a fan. He can’t wait for Oct. 5, when he will watch Northwestern take on his alma mater, Indiana, at the new temporary lakeside stadium.

Payton may have played for the Hoosiers, but there's no question where his heart is now. He says he’ll be wearing purple, not crimson on that day.