Six candidates to replace Desireé Reed-Francois as Missouri’s Athletic Director (2024)

The dust hasn’t quite settled on Desireé Reed-Francois’ shock departure earlier this week. The comments on our posts are still hopping and, almost surely, DRF’s boxes haven’t been fully packed as of yet.

But as is the nature of college sports, movement begets movement, which means someone else will be boxing up their things and shipping them to Columbia, Missouri in the near future. That someone, Mizzou’s Athletic Director, has yet to be decided. However, there are plenty of good options for the administration to consider. Thanks to Mike Alden’s prolific AD tree and all of the young up-and-comers who have been mentored in Columbia over the years, there are a fair number of sitting athletic directors or candidates arguably ready to take the big job that all have Mizzou connections.

After doing some digging on what each candidate brings to the table and how they might fit into the current system in Columbia, we’re narrowing our list to six initial candidates. Note, this is not an official list, but names who we believe could be in the mix for the job.

Wren Baker

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I’d be surprised if, as I type this, several phone calls haven’t already been exchanged with Baker and his agent to gauge interest. He’s the obvious choice to be Missouri’s next AD.

Baker is and has been a rising star in college athletics for some time now, a Midwestern guy with a pivotal stop at the University of Missouri. Baker served as the Deputy AD from 2015-2016 and filled in as the interim when Mack Rhoades jumped to Baylor. Since then, he parlayed a successful term at the University of North Texas into a position at West Virginia, where he’s been for just over one full year. He was arguably the top candidate when DRF was hired, and he’s the top candidate now. He’s well-respected by his peers in and out of Missouri, and would be a home run hire if there ever was one for this position.

Baker is looking to hire a coach to replace the erstwhile Bob Huggins at WVU, so pulling him from Morgantown won’t be easy. But if you want a hire that will be considered a consensus winner, Baker is the choice.

Mark Allnutt: Athletics Director, Buffalo

Talk about #MizzouMade! Alnutt, the former Mizzou tight end and linebacker, has a long and storied career as an AD, climbing his way to the top job at the University of Buffalo. He’s been there since 2018 and has had quite a run, winning several departmental awards and overseeing successful hires in revenue and non-revenue sports. He’s also still young at 51 and could be looking to make the step into high-major college sports.

Sarah Baumgartner: Executive Sr. Associate Athletics Director, Texas

Texassports.com

If Mizzou is looking to hire an up-and-comer who’s looking for their first step into the full-time AD role, Baumgartner could be the best available candidate. Baumgartner, who has been with Texas since 2021, spent seven years in Columbia as the Associate Athletic Director for Development and, importantly, as the men’s basketball administrator during the Mike Anderson years. Baumgartner has extensive fundraising experience at the highest level — seriously, it doesn’t get more lucrative than UT-Austin — and has a good relationship with Nike, Mizzou Athletics’ sportswear partner. She may be more outside the box than some of the names on this list, but would be no less promising.

Doug Gillin: Director of Athletics, Appalachian State

App State Sports

Gillin has spent much of the last decade as the AD at Appalachian State and has succeeded just about as much as you can, especially in football. This includes the hire of one Eli Drinkwitz. That may be more important than we realize given the unique nature of Drink’s relationship with the Missouri Board of Curators. If one of the goals of this hire is to smooth over or negate that flow-chart inefficiency, Gillin might be the right guy to do it.

It’s not just his familiarity with Drinkwitz that would make him a good hire. Gillin has logged almost as much time in CoMo as Boone. He spent two separate stints at Mizzou, first as assistant AD and general manager of Mizzou Sports Properties from 1995 to 1999. He returned to Columbia in 2012 and served as the Deputy Athletic Director under Mike Alden until Alden resigned in 2015. Could a third stint as a Tiger be in order?

Laird Veatch: Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Memphis

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Another high profile candidate with Mizzou connections, Laird Veatch has done two separate stints in Columbia: the first from 1997 to 2002 in a variety of different roles; and then again from 2003 through 2006 as the General Manager of Mizzou Sports Properties. It’s been almost 20 years since Veatch served in a leadership role as a Tiger. Would he be willing to do it again? Veatch has successfully helped craft Memphis into one of the country’s premier Group of Five(?) schools, with both basketball and football considered perennial contenders in the AAC and regular postseason participants. Has Veatch accomplished all he can in Memphis? Does he want to reunite with Kerrick Jackson? It’s worth exploring.

Brian White: Vice President and Director of Athletics, Florida Atlantic

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We might as well round out our list with another prominent Mizzou connection who has done well for themself in the lower levels. Since Brian White left Missouri for Florida Atlantic, it’s been up-and-down for the Owls who kept basketball coach Dusty May after an unlikely Final Four run last year and saw their football program rise to prominence under Lane Kiffin until 2019. The hiring of Willie Taggert was somewhat ill-advised, but White rebounded nicely by bringing in Tom Herman, who fielded a competitive 4-8 team in his first season that lost four one-score games. White may still be a bit green for the Mizzou job, but he’s got plenty of recent experience in Columbia.