COLUMBIA, Mo. — Surprise departures tend to create more questions than answers.
Such is the nature of Desiree Reed-Francois’ abrupt exit from the University of Missouri’s athletics director role, a sudden personnel shift made all the more perplexing by her landing at the University of Arizona — where she went to law school, yes, but a program in a less-prestigious conference with high-profile financial problems.
In Columbia, the MU athletics department will move on quickly. The search for Reed-Francois’ replacement is already underway. The school’s highest-paid employee, football coach Eli Drinkwitz, . And on the same day Reed-Francois was introduced in Tucson, staff inside Mizzou Arena prepared to give away hats as a promotion for a men’s basketball game Tuesday night.
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That doesn’t mean there won’t be questions. There’s the matter of what happened — what underlying tension outweighed undeniable momentum to a degree that Reed-Francois would look for another job. And there’s the matter of what will happen — who and what is impacted by her departure and who the university will hire to replace its highly regarded AD.
These are three of the biggest questions facing Mizzou athletics as it moves on from the short Reed-Francois era:
What does the oversight committee entail?
Any sort of forensic hindsight in the immediate aftermath of Reed-Francois’ departure quickly turned to an MU sports oversight committee created less than two weeks ago by the UM System Board of Curators.
The committee has yet to publicly meet, so little is known about how it ultimately will function and what its power will be. But the board established the four-member panel because it felt that “at this moment in the evolution of key programs and with major planned investments in MU Athletics imminent, accountability to the Board and the State through this new committee is more important than ever,†according to a document from its Feb. 8 meeting.
The committee has the power to monitor athletics department funding and the progress of athletic facilities upgrades and receive updates on the broader state of college sports.
Does that mean there will be more administrators attempting to meddle in the athletics department’s affairs? Does that take away power or interfere with the athletics director? Those questions are likely to be answered in the coming months as the committee begins to operate.
Potentially just as important, though, are the optics of the committee. The athletics director has always reported to the Board of Curators, so the creation of the Mizzou Intercollegiate Athletics Special Committee shouldn’t drastically change the power dynamics between the university and athletics department leadership. But is the presence of such a committee a red flag to potential AD candidates? Conversations will take place between prospective hires and the curators who make the decision, so the dynamic could very well be made clearer behind the scenes, but for now, there’s some uncertainty over how the special committee will impact the future of the athletics director position.
How are coaches impacted?
Drinkwitz will soon be working with his third AD since he was hired in December 2019. Fresh off an 11-win season and Cotton Bowl victory, his job is as safe as it ever has been. And as he moves increasingly to the forefront of the Mizzou brand, how much is Drinkwitz a factor in the AD search?
The same dynamic that may have limited his synergy with Reed-Francois — the potentially uneasy tie between an athletics director and a coach she did not hire — will exist with the next hire, but that’s not to say that any disconnect couldn’t or won’t be averted by getting the head football coach on board early with the new AD.
More impacted by Reed-Francois’ departure is men’s basketball coach Dennis Gates, who is currently slogging through a winless Southeastern Conference campaign that is likely to go down as one of MU’s worst basketball seasons ever. His seat is being cooled by memories of last year’s run to the NCAA Tournament, but that isn’t likely to have as much staying power with an administrator who did not hire him.
Having next year to work with a highly touted class of incoming freshmen seems like a lock for Gates. But is anything beyond that a guarantee? The degree of job security he had with Reed-Francois is likely to shrink under a new AD — and the possibly reframed expectations for what next year’s men’s basketball benchmark will be could change the urgency of his program-building process.
The coach whose job may be the most impacted by athletics director turnover is women’s basketball coach Robin Pingeton. Reed-Francois had previously said that failing to get that team back to the NCAA Tournament would mark the end of Pingeton’s time coaching the Tigers. With two SEC wins at this stage of the season, it looks like the Missouri women will be missing out on the NCAA Tournament once again.
So will the new athletics director move quickly to fire Pingeton and hire a replacement? Or will she get another year of working with the current young core of players? The time for a decision on the women’s basketball front will arrive quickly for the new AD.
Does stadium renovation progress slow?
One of the key storylines of Reed-Francois’ final few months in Columbia was proposed renovations to Mizzou’s athletics facilities.
An initial announcement of wide-ranging upgrades to the Mizzou Sports Park — “a comprehensive facilities master plan that would impact every Mizzou sports program and feature sequential construction projects,†as put it — was winnowed down at a November Board of Curators meeting to just the renovation of Memorial Stadium’s north concourse.
The curators backed a contract with an architecture firm for pre-design services, setting up a report scheduled for their April meeting that will include a concrete proposal for the football stadium project.
Subsequently, Reed-Francois secured a record-breaking $62 million donation to the athletics department, with $50 million of those funds allotted for the stadium renovations. While she was involved in the process of setting up the renovations, the wide range of others involved should keep it moving.
But if administrative priorities shift to making the AD hire, do stadium upgrades move to the back burner? How will an athletics director climbing aboard in the middle of the process acclimate? How invested will that AD be in the process? Will any staff turnover throughout the rest of the athletics department impact the workflow? What will become of plans for other facilities?
Previous estimates for the north concourse project expect it to be ready for the 2026 football season. The Board of Curators’ April 18 meeting should be revealing about the future of the stadium upgrades.