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Minnesota hires athletic director from Syracuse
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After less than a year at Syracuse, athletic director Mark Coyle is leaving for Minnesota.
The Gophers made that news official on Wednesday. Coyle will take over the vacant athletic director position in Minneapolis after 11 months on the job in Syracuse.
Coyle made the move for family reasons. From 2001-05, Coyle served as the Associate Athletic Director for External Relations at the University of Minnesota. He also had stops at Boise State and Kentucky, where he served as athletic director and deputy athletic director.
He was responsible for helping clean up Boise State following an NCAA investigation. He was also credited with negotiating a $42 million multimedia rights deal and generating $40 million in revenue from the Bronco Athletic Association.
When he was at Syracuse for the 2015-16 school year, Coyle fired football coach Scott Shafer, who took an assistant role at Maryland but resigned after four months on the job. Coyle hired Dino Babers to take over, who was caught off guard by the news.
Syracuse’s Dino Babers on AD Mark Coyle leaving for Minnesota: “Are you serious? No comment”
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 11, 2016
Minnesota was in search for a new athletic director after Norwood Teague resigned in August following a sexual harassment scandal. The university conducted a national search to find his replacement.
Coyle is on Minnesota’s campus Wednesday. His public introduction will likely be in the next 48 hours.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.