When Will Rutgers Hire a New Athletic Director?

When Pat Hobbs resigned on August 16th last year, little did anyone close to the program suspect that on July 11th of 2025, Rutgers Athletics would still be in search of a full-time athletic director. For those counting days on the calendar, that's 330 days without a captain on the bridge.

For comparison, it took fellow Big Ten members Maryland two months and Michigan State six weeks to hire new athletic directors. With interim AD Ryan Pisarri announcing earlier this week that he's taking a full-time AD position at Tufts University, Rutgers Athletics is essentially leaderless heading into the fall season.

A significant reason for the delay in hiring a new AD is that former President Jonathan Holloway announced his resignation just over a month after Hobbs, announcing he would step down at the end of the academic year on June 30, 2025, essentially punting the hire to his successor.

New President William Tate IV, who took over the reins on July 1st, is already dealing with his first challenge, as the fall season kicks off in a little over a month with the Men's Soccer team's match against Providence on August 21st.

Aaron Breitman said it best on his Scarlet Faithful podcast, "As Rutgers Fans, we are Charlie Brown going to kick the football and Rutgers Athletics is Lucy pulling it away as we go to kick the ball, time after time after time."

Charlie Brown never learned. Will Rutgers? There has been speculation that Rutgers had a finalist for the AD position, but that the Board of Governors was possibly split, or that Greg Schiano wasn't aligned. But it's just that - speculation.

In late April, eight months after Hobbs resigned, Rutgers hired executive search firm TurnkeyZRG to find his replacement. Hindsight is 20/20, but if you are going to wait eight months to hire a search firm, knowing the new president is starting two months later, why not just wait?

Despite the messy process, Rutgers gains a new president who is a proven leader, one who championed athletics at an SEC powerhouse, and one who wants to win. In all likelihood, the Board of Governors will continue to drag their feet as the fall athletic season rapidly approaches, and it will ultimately be on President Tate, eleven days into the job, to solve his first crisis and help steer a rudderless athletic department safely into port.

Recommended Articles