Narrowed to the core, success for most big-time college athletic directors comes down to two sports and one question. The two sports are football and men’s basketball. The one question is “how does any decision impact football?”
Football and men’s basketball are the engines that power all prominent college athletic programs. An athletic director putting the right people in place to lead those programs goes a long way to earning job security because these sports benefit the university, the rest of the department’s athletic teams, and more broadly satisfy the school fan base. Botch the hiring of one or both coaches in the premier sports and trouble will soon follow.