As predictable as times of sports turbulence at Mizzou is the cynical retort one hears when big jobs in Boone County open up again.
You know the one.
“Who would want it?â€
I’d recommend against taking that route when considering the ongoing search for a new MU athletics director.
Yes, high on the list of Mizzou cons is an organization chart that just drove Desiree Reed-Francois to pivot for cash-strapped Arizona less than three years into her run at Mizzou, not too long after former AD Mack Rhoades jumped from the Tigers to then-scandal-ridden Baylor. In between, short-timer Jim Sterk was both hired and nudged out. For an AD who fails to unite a kitchen full of cooks that includes the UM System Board of Curators, progress can be stalled and authority can be undermined. No debate there.
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But every campus has its challenges to leadership, and the hurdles at Mizzou have never stopped qualified candidates from showing interest. It won’t start now, either, and I’d argue that for the right person, this will be a more appealing job than it has been in a long time. For a few big reasons.
Let’s start with the obvious.
The money.
Mizzou has been throwing around some serious loot and could do it again in this search.
Tigers football coach Eli Drinkwitz is now a $9 million man and one of the Southeastern Conference’s highest-paid coaches. Mizzou men’s basketball coach Dennis Gates got a big bump because of one good season — before this one derailed. Reed-Francois had secured a new deal less than a year before her decision to pivot. A record-setting $62 million donation arrived less than a month ago, I’m told from a donor who has shown loyalty to Mizzou for decades regardless of the name of the AD. The SEC coffers are open and continuing to flow into CoMo, and that will only grow as the SEC and the Big Ten keep distancing themselves from those outside the so-called Super Two conferences.
Mizzou’s budget for athletics is in good shape, thanks in part to Reed-Francois, and this should be appealing because there’s no reason it should not continue to grow. Maybe Mizzou isn’t a draw for sitting SEC and Big Ten ADs. Outside of that, the Tigers should be able to turn some heads with their search.
Next up is Mizzou’s name, image and likeness momentum. This could fall under the money column, too, but it’s really a separate silo of cash from the athletics department and university budget.
Mizzou has made up ground and then some on the NIL front. Thanks to help from an aggressive state law that allows more leniency than most, plus businesses and individuals willing to pump cash into the NIL pool, Mizzou feels like it can hang with some of the biggest spenders in the NIL space. If continuing to compete and lead in that realm is not on the next AD’s must-do list, the candidate shouldn’t be on the list in the first place.
Drinkwitz’s efforts to spearhead NIL growth should help weather an NIL change. If Reed-Francois alone had been responsible for the surge, the Tigers could be in trouble. That’s not the case here.
Football. Football. Football. Sorry to be repetitive there, but it’s always going to be the most important factor for an SEC program — period. And Mizzou’s football program is quite healthy at the moment. Drinkwitz just rallied the fan base with a breakthrough season that included 11 wins and a Cotton Bowl exclamation point. A talented team returns this fall, and it should be ranked in the preseason Top 25. That prime starting point matters more than ever before moving forward as a College Football Playoff field expands and the power brokers who shape the sport work to force as many SEC and Big Ten teams into the bracket as possible. You don’t have to love it for the sport to see it’s good for Mizzou.
Reed-Francois and Drinkwitz were not on bad terms, but he was not hired by her and she was in a wait-and-see stance when the curators pushed through his second-most-recent extension back in 2022. Drinkwitz’s voice could be a big one in the search for a new AD. A lot of SEC AD hires happen because football is broken or in need of a coaching change. That is not the case at Mizzou.
“I think I had a great relationship with Desiree,†Drinkwitz said in CoMo on Monday as spring camp bloomed. “We worked well together to try to advance not only the athletic department but the Missouri football program. I think we accomplished that. No, I don’t think it’s a challenge to have somebody new come in. I think it’s an opportunity. I think with any situation it’s an opportunity to improve your current condition. If you look at a new person coming in with strengths and how they are going to add value to what we are trying to build and what we are trying to accomplish.
“I would hope by now that it’s not about me at all, it’s about how do we build Mizzou football to last for a long time as a premier place to come play college football. And not only Mizzou football, but Mizzou athletics. I want us to have the best of the best. And that’s from facilities, to NIL, to player development. To raise the standard. The potential here is endless. For me, an opportunity to work with somebody new is just that. An opportunity to improve the possibilities.â€
One last thing.
The board of curators likes being involved in athletics but doesn’t love the spotlight that comes with it. That’s unavoidable now. It means the pressure’s on to prove more can be achieved with a new AD. It means the new hire will, at least temporarily, receive a wave of support from the university side.
For the new hire, that should be appealing. People who succeed in the AD line of work don’t tend to see situations that can’t be solved. They see opportunities and the dollar signs that come with them. They trust in their ability to turn a hard job into a great and lasting one.