It's not often someone in college athletics leaves an SEC (or Big Ten) job for a lateral position outside one of those two conferences. To make such a move for less money? That's a club so rare, it might have a membership of one.
But that's what happened Monday, as Missouri AD Desiree Reed-Francois took the same job at Arizona.
Reed-Francois is 11 months removed from a "hefty" raise that took her compensation to $1.2 million with $350,000 in deferred compensation. Her contract at Arizona starts at $1 million (with $250,000 in deferred comp) and doesn't reach $1.2 million until Year 5 in a 5-year contract.
What's more, Arizona is in the midst of a $240 million budget shortfall (since revised to "only" $177 million), in which terms like "hiring freeze" and "defer nonessential capital projects" are part of the university's plan to dig its way out. "Athletics, they are cutting," U of A president Robert Robins told his Faculty Senate back in December. "They are firing people. They are laying off people 100%, they are laying off people in order to increase revenue."
Former AD Dave Heeke was fired in January for "financial and operational mismanagement" resulting in a financial "disaster." That was shortly after losing Jedd Fisch to Washington, in large part due to financial concerns. Fisch said an interview his assistant coaching salary pool would've been $3.5 million less at U of A than it is at U-Dub. Arizona athletics overspent by $32 million in Fiscal Year 2023, and is unlikely to repay an $86 million loan from the university.
On the plus side, before his firing Heeke pledged there were no immediate plans to cut any of the Wildcats' 23 varsity teams.
Reed-Francois is a California native who went to law school at Arizona and spent most of her career on the West Coast -- she was UNLV's AD from 2017-21 before taking the Mizzou job -- and so perhaps that's the appeal here. That's what Reed-Francois said herself Monday.
"There are very few institutions that would entice me to leave an SEC athletics department with strong momentum," she said. "The University of Arizona has tremendous potential and is an institution — and an athletics program — on the rise, and I want to be a part of shaping that future."
Because otherwise it's difficult to imagine why an AD in good standing would leave the SEC -- for less money.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.