Ohio State expected to name Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork to succeed Gene Smith

Ohio State is expected to hire Texas A&M’s Ross Bjork to succeed Gene Smith as the school’s athletic director, a source told The Dispatch Monday.

Bjork, 51, has been Texas A&M’s AD since 2019. He was previously at the Mississippi and Western Kentucky.

He is a native of Dodge City, Kansas, and graduated from Emporia State. He played fullback on Emporia State's football team.

Bjork’s expected hiring comes just days after Ted Carter officially began as Ohio State’s new president. Ohio State’s Board of Trustees must approve the hiring. Their next meeting is in February.

In an interview with The Dispatch on Thursday, Carter said the first word that comes to mind in hiring a new AD is "leader." The individual would need to "know how to work across a very complex spectrum," he said.

Carter was also looking for someone who understands the vast challenges and changes taking place across the college athletics landscape — name, image and likeness opportunities, conference realignments, changes to the college football playoffs and managing 36 Division 1 teams, to name a few.

"We need to hire somebody that is not learning on the job," Carter said. "(They) have to come in with a whole lot of experience, understand the challenges that are out in front of us, be able to make certainly hard decisions — because there will be some hard decisions coming up."

If he is hired, Bjork would be the ninth athletic director in school history. He has no ties to Ohio or the Big Ten.

His tenures at Ole Miss and Texas A&M were not without controversy. At Ole Miss, Bjork repeatedly defended then-football coach Hugh Freeze against 21 NCAA rules violation charges, including a failure-to-monitor charge against Freeze and a lack of institutional control. The NCAA infractions committee said Ole Miss had "an unconstrained culture of booster involvement in football recruiting."

The allegations included charges of a cash payment to a linebacker. Freeze was eventually fired after it came to light from a public records request filed by his predecessor, Houston Nutt, that Freeze had placed at least 12 phone calls to escort services.

Ole Miss issued a self-imposed bowl ban for the 2017 season. The NCAA added a bowl ban for the following season.

"This is now the third case over three decades that has involved the boosters and football program," the NCAA panel said when announcing the bowl ban. "Even the head coach acknowledged that upon coming to Mississippi, he was surprised by the 'craziness' of boosters trying to insert themselves into his program. At the hearing, Mississippi's chancellor acknowledged his institution's problem with boosters, characterizing one instance as 'disturbingly questionable.'"

The NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee partly overturned the sanctions, eliminating a restriction on unofficial visits to the school.

At Texas A&M, Bjork fired football coach Jimbo Fisher in November. Fisher was lured to Texas A&M from Florida State in 2017 with a guaranteed, 10-year, $75 million contract. Bjork didn't become Texas A&M's AD until 2019, but he extended Fisher's contract in 2021 through 2031 and allowed it to remain fully guaranteed.

No offset or stipulation was included in the extension to reduce the amount A&M owes Fisher if he takes another job. As a result, the school owed Fisher $76 million.

"It was a mistake, as we look back on it," Bjork is quoted as saying in a report by Dallas television station WFAA following Fisher's firing. "There’s a lot of other buyouts where if coaches got let go today, would be more than what our buyout is. But those programs are winning. Ours didn’t work."

Despite spending more than $177 million, Texas A&M's athletics, particularly football, has been an underachiever. The Aggies had recruiting classes ranked in the top 10 from 2020-22, including the No. 1 ranking by 247Sports.com in 2022, but finished only 7-6 last year and 5-7 in 2022.

According to Bjork's contract with Texas A&M, he must pay the school $750,000 −half of his annual salary for this year − as the buyout to accept the Ohio State offer.

Bjork did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Dispatch.

The Dispatch has learned that Washington State athletic director Pat Chun was a finalist for the job. Chun spent 15 years in the OSU athletic department from 1997-2012, including as executive associate athletics director before his hiring at WSU.

Smith will retire at the end of June after serving as AD since 2005.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: OSU expected to name Texas A&M AD Ross Bjork to succeed Gene Smith