Miami's Alonzo Highsmith reportedly in line to leave Hurricanes as New England Patriots job awaits

Alonzo Highsmith will be leaving the University of Miami to return to the NFL. According to The Athletic, the New England Patriots are finalizing a deal to add Highsmith to their front office as an executive in personnel. The job title is not yet determined, though.

Highsmith has been the general manager of football operations for the Hurricanes since 2022, mostly evaluating transfer prospects. When he was hired by Miami, he said that he returned to college because of his relationship with Mario Cristobal but admitted to enjoying pro football.

“I love the University of Miami, but I also love pro football,” Highsmith said, via On3. “I enjoy pro football. That’s who I was: pro football. Being part of scouting, developing in Green Bay, Cleveland and Seattle.

"I only came back because of Mario. I came back because of his work ethic, how relentless he is and he understands what good players look like. He’s been around great players so it was a natural fit for me.”

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Alonzo Highsmith's career

Alonzo Highsmith began his front office career in 2012, taking a senior personnel executive position in the front office with the Green Bay Packers.

In Jan. 2018, Highsmith was hired by the Cleveland Browns as the vice-president of player personnel. He was there until 2019 when he took a job as a personnel executive with the Seattle Seahawks from 2020 to 2022.

Alonzo Highsmith left Seattle to join Miami, where he was for less than two years before being hired by New England. It wasn't a surprise to see the Patriots add him to their front office.

After parting ways with Bill Belichick, Kraft said that the New England Patriots would look outside the organization for front-office roles.

"What we know, and we have a lot of people internally who have had a chance to train and learn under the greatest coach of all time -- a man who as a football intellect is very special. In the short term, we're looking for collaboration," Kraft said at a press conference, via CBSNews.

"Our team has a tremendous opportunity to position ourselves right given our salary cap space, and we've never drafted -- in my 30 years of ownership -- as low as we're drafting.

"We're counting on our internal people, whom we're still learning and evaluating. We're going to let that evolve and develop. Before key decisions have to be made, we will appoint someone. We'll probably start doing interviews and looking at people from the outside. But my bias has always been in my companies to develop a culture from within where we understand one another."

In Alonzo Highsmith, Kraft has added someone with years of front-office experience.