Just 24 years old, Patton became one of the highest-ranking women in Division 1 college football when she was promoted in April to be Harvard’s director of football operations. She’s the youngest DFO in Division 1, Harvard’s first female DFO, and one of only a dozen or so women to hold the position across 260-plus Division 1 programs.
DFOs are typically responsible for overseeing the off-field operations for the program, including travel, budgeting, compliance, and facility management. They’re also the team’s primary liaison with the equipment and training staff, as well as the rest of the athletic department.
In short, it’s a big job for one person, especially one in just the second year of her career.
“It’s no secret that football is obviously a male-dominated field, so it says a lot about her that the coaches trusted her in this position,” said Jackson McSherry, the former DFO at Harvard, who hired Patton as an assistant recruiting and operations coordinator in 2024. “It says a lot about the confidence that she has and the knowledge that she has about Division 1 football.”
Her confidence stems from decades of observing the game alongside her father, James Patton, who has coached for three decades in Division 1 and is now an associate head coach at his alma mater, Miami (Ohio).
“She wouldn’t say a lot, but she would watch how things work, and I think . . . those experiences have helped prepare her for this,” he said.
As the daughter of a journeyman football coach, Patton has lived in eight states and attended three high schools in four years, each in a different state. The longest the family stayed in one place was from 2006-12, when her father was an assistant coach at Oklahoma.
As they moved around the country, Patton and her three siblings — older brother Brayden, younger sisters Madie and Abbie — were witnesses to the demanding hours and frenetic lifestyle that come with a career in football. But Patton wasn’t deterred.
“We have lived this game for our whole lives,” she said.
Patton began her career at Harvard in the summer of 2024, just a few weeks after graduating from Michigan State, where she majored in journalism and worked as a student operations assistant for the football program for three seasons.
She initially planned to go into sports journalism or PR, but after working on the sideline as the Spartans beat rival Michigan in a nationally televised game (a 37-33 thriller during her sophomore year), she had a change of heart.
“I kind of had this realization that I don’t know if I could live my life without football,” Patton said.
Crimson coach Andrew Aurich called to offer her the recruiting assistant job just days before graduation, and her first week at Harvard coincided with the Crimson’s official visit weekend — notoriously one of the most hectic times of year for the recruiting staff.
She hadn’t even settled into her desk by the time the players arrived. Suddenly, it was a frenzy: She coordinated the hotel rooms for a couple dozen players and their families, brought the coaches up to speed on the itinerary for the weekend, and managed the bus schedule to transport the recruits around the city.
“She really didn’t even know exactly what was going on, just because there wasn’t enough time to brief her on the entire weekend, but I really needed her help, and she jumped right in and she killed it,” McSherry said.
When McSherry left Harvard in the spring to become the director of football business operations at Boston College, he suggested Patton as his successor. Given that Patton hadn’t completed a year with the program, promoting her was a gamble, but McSherry had faith in her, and Aurich agreed.
“It feels really rewarding, just seeing where all my hard work has taken me,” Patton said.
Harvard will open its season Saturday at 1 p.m. at Stetson (Fla.), and Patton, as has been the case for most of her life, will be on the sideline.
“It’s historic for a school like Harvard,” said first-year student manager Sreenidi Bala, who sought out a role with the football team after reading about Patton online. “It’s amazing seeing what women can do for this game.”