Philly native Andrew Goodman’s logistics expertise has helped lead Tennessee to the College Football Playoff

Shortly after Andrew Goodman’s football career ended at Penn State following the 2011 season, by all accounts he was closing his chapter on the sport he had always played.

Goodman, now the director of football operations for College Football Playoff-bound Tennessee, grew up in Northeast Philly, in Somerton, where he was a standout at George Washington High School. Many of his family members had also attended Penn State.

So after the former walk-on wide receiver was finished with school, he landed a job as a transportation coordinator at Toys “R” Us.

It didn’t take him long to realize that walking away from the game that had fundamentally wired the way he approached life wasn’t something he could live with.

“I found out a couple weeks in [to my job] that this is not for me,” Goodman said by phone earlier this fall. “I missed the team. I missed that environment. In an athletics environment, you’re bringing your best every day, and you don’t settle for less. You want that pressure, you want those expectations; I didn’t realize I missed it until I didn’t have it.”

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But that didn’t mean he had to give up his career in logistics. He still wanted to put his supply chain and information systems bachelor’s degree from Penn State to use.

In his spare time, Goodman began coaching in 2013 for Mastery Charter under John Davidson, his high school receivers coach at Washington, whom he considers a mentor. By then, he started a new job as a dedicated transportation fleet manager at Cowan Systems LLC in South Jersey. He worked a 10-hour overnight shift, slept, then drove to North Philly for football practice, and then back for his work shift.

Working in football, however, was the career he really wanted.

“I was burning a candle at both ends, just trying to get back, so that was extremely challenging,” Goodman said. “But I told myself from the moment I got back into [coaching football], I need to give it everything I have, sacrifice everything I have, to give myself a shot at this career.”

Goodman left coaching at Mastery after six months and spent a year and a half as a logistics analyst for ChemLogix LLC.

But he never stopped looking for his next opportunity, which arrived in the form of an entry-level position as assistant director of football operations and recruiting with Princeton in 2015. He’d be making significantly less money, from his $60,000-a-year day job to making just $200 a week with Princeton.

But his foot was in the door.

After nearly two years at Princeton, countless hours networking, and gaining valuable experience with the Buffalo Bills as a player personnel and operations intern, Goodman earned a role as a recruiting coordinator on James Franklin’s Penn State staff in 2016. He was in charge of planning for high school recruits and their families taking visits to campus.

But Goodman said his experience with the Bills, specifically learning from organizational leaders like Kevin Meganck, Buffalo’s VP of football administration, helped set his sights on his true calling.

“What you learn is, the more varied experience you can get, the better you are,” Goodman said. “[The Bills] did a great job of having [people like Meganck] available an hour a night, different people in leadership roles to pick their brains, because I was probably the oldest. I was 24, a lot of these kids are still in college, but the opportunity to network, to pick their brains, to learn, and just find what opportunities are out there. … So that helped me decide football operations, this is a path where I can flourish.”

To get where he wanted to be, Goodman knew he needed to work for a program that did things “at a high level.” He learned to be detail-oriented, and Goodman approached every opportunity with the thought, “How do you learn from every type of experience you get?”

“That’s what helped,” he said. “That’s what I did with the Bills and at every other stop. You just got to be a sponge. Good experience, bad experience. Everything is an opportunity to learn.”

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In 2019, two and a half years after arriving at Penn State, Goodman took a job at Brown as the program’s director of football operations. He has continued to climb the proverbial ladder in the operations world, and after a brief stint with Connecticut’s football program in that same position, Goodman got an opportunity to join Josh Heupel’s staff at Tennessee in 2023.

So what does his director of football of operations job entail? Goodman’s career before football turned out to be more helpful than he realized.

“You look at it from a 30,000-foot view of what are you doing each day of the year, you’re calendar planning. And from there, you ask, ‘What does a typical Monday look like in offseason training?’” Goodman said. “You look at the calendar and different blocks and figure out what you want to ensure your players are getting from a training perspective. You’re also looking at what your players are getting from a professional and personal development aspect. So it’s 365, 24/7 program planning.

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“Logistics is huge. How we are ensuring that coaches coach, players play, how you get to the game, that’s on me and my department. … My goal is to take all of those worries and logistics and things outside of X’s and O’s. So all in-season traveling, bowl games, postseason play, how we’re getting there, how many days we’re getting there, where are we practicing.”

He was excited to join a “storied program on a meteoric rise” at Tennessee. After a 9-3 season last year, Tennessee finished 2024 at 10-2, earned the No. 9 seed in the College Football Playoff, and will face No. 8 Ohio State on Saturday in the first round (8 p.m. ESPN).

In Knoxville with his wife, Brie, who’s been with him since the beginning of this career change (“she’s been my rock,” he said) and their son, Graham, the 34-year-old Goodman is enjoying his friendly neighbors and the “infectious energy and Southern hospitality” of Tennessee.

But the job doesn’t come without its challenges.

During Tennessee’s trip to Raleigh earlier this year to face North Carolina State, the trip was delayed by a speaking event by presidential candidate Donald Trump that same day. At the urging of the Secret Service, the Volunteers quickly unloaded their equipment, players, and staff onto buses, an example of how quickly things change during team travel.

“Every road game, even home games, there’s opportunities for those things to happen. So you’ve got to have multiple plans and contingency plans in case things like that happen,” Goodman said. “We’re hyperdetailed and hypersensitive too. So you got to know what’s going on. Absolutely no surprises for anything. You got to be on it.”

Goodman has been on a fast rise, but he’s “being where my feet are” when envisioning what’s next for him. For now, he’s focused on the Vols’ trip to Columbus, Ohio. And a win for his team at Ohio Stadium could send this Philly native out to Los Angeles for a quarterfinal Rose Bowl matchup with No. 1 Oregon.

Not bad for a former logistics analyst.

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