Clay Bollinger

Clay Bollinger joined Cincinnati as its Director of Content Strategy in May 2025, his 13th year in college athletics.

Bollinger leads the football creative strategy to reach elite recruits, grow the program’s brand, and deliver high-impact content through collaboration across all departments.

He comes to Cincinnati after serving as The College Sports Company’s Media Operations Director, overseeing athlete-driven media networks for numerous Power 4 programs.

Prior to that, Bollinger held leadership roles including Assistant AD - Creative/Digital at West Virginia, and Director of Football Content roles at Texas A&M and Tennessee. 

Alongside his work at The College Sports Company, Bollinger produced content as a freelance creative in 2024 for national brands, universities, and media platforms. His work includes ESPN’s College GameDay, Nike’s 2024 Kickoff Classic, and numerous NIL activations with University of Texas student-athletes. He covered marquee events like Elite 11 Regionals, the Red River Rivalry and Lone Star Showdown.

Bollinger led Texas A&M football’s creative team in 2023, developed student training programs, and produced content around major events like the 2024 NFL Combine, Texas Bowl, and SEC Nation. He integrated sponsored campaigns with brands like Adidas and T-Mobile, and coordinated collaborations with Johnny Manziel and others. His efforts drove 135.5 million impressions in 2023 — the most ever for the program — and helped A&M secure the No. 1 transfer class and No. 16 signing class nationally.

At West Virginia, Bollinger led the athletics and football creative teams and organized their 2022 NIL Symposium. He directed gameday content, influencer collaborations, and sponsor integrations with brands. He played key roles in major events — from March Madness to the 2021 Guaranteed Rate Bowl to introducing AD Wren Baker — and helped WVU rank top 25 in college football social interactions consistently.

During his three years with the Volunteers, he led a significant rise in the football program’s digital presence, increasing social media engagements by 31.7% and impressions by 46.2% from 2019 to 2020. Under his direction, Tennessee Football grew from 46.2 million to 86 million impressions year-over-year. He helped sign two top 13 recruiting classes in 2019 and 2020 including the eighth highest rated recruit, OL Darnell Wright, in program history according to 247sports in 2019.

As an Athletics Communications graduate assistant for Clemson in 2017, Bollinger produced content for all varsity sports and assisted in publishing duties for the most followed Twitter account in college football at the time. The Tigers won the ACC Championship and earned the No. 1 seed in the 2017 College Football Playoff.

Bollinger spent three seasons as a student manager and one as a student recruiting assistant at Kentucky, reaching the 2016 TaxSlayer Bowl. He managed the official team and recruiting social media accounts, produced internal recruiting content, plus helped Kentucky’s 2017 recruiting class rank in the top 25 and is considered one of the best recruiting classes in UK football history. 

Bollinger holds a bachelor’s degree from Kentucky and a master’s degree from Clemson.