Ohio State is closing in on hiring its new athletic director.
Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork has emerged as the frontrunner to be Gene Smith’s successor, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Monday.
Sources: Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork has emerged as the target in Ohio State's athletic director search. Search is expected to be finalized in upcoming days.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) January 15, 2024
Sources confirmed to Eleven Warriors on Tuesday that Bjork is in line to be Ohio State’s athletic director, though OSU had not yet officially announced a hiring as of Tuesday afternoon.
Bjork has been the athletic director at Texas A&M since 2019. He was previously the athletic director at Ole Miss (2012-19) and Western Kentucky (2010-12).
Per Thamel, “Texas A&M is not expected to make a push to keep Bjork.”
A native of Dodge City, Kansas, who played football at Emporia State University, Bjork has nearly three decades of experience working in college athletics. Bjork, who is 51 years old, worked in the athletic departments at Missouri, Miami (Florida) and UCLA before getting his first athletic director job at Western Kentucky. He earned his master’s degree in athletic administration from Western Illinois, where he worked as a graduate assistant.
At Texas A&M, Bjork oversaw an athletic department that generated the seventh-most revenue in the NCAA during the 2022-23 academic year, per USA TODAY. Under Bjork’s leadership, Texas A&M has been one of the most aggressive schools in terms of using NIL to its advantage since athletes were first allowed to profit from their name, image and likeness in July 2021.
Bjork has also been unafraid to make coaching changes, as evidenced by Texas A&M’s firing of Jimbo Fisher this past season even though Fisher was still owed more than $75 million by the university. Bjork gave Fisher a 10-year, $95 million contract extension in 2021.
Assuming his hiring is finalized, Bjork would start his Ohio State tenure later this year. Smith, who announced his retirement in August, is set to remain on the job as Ohio State’s athletic director through the end of June.
