Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork has emerged as a target for Ohio State to replace the retiring Gene Smith, according to a report on Monday from ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Bjork has been athletic director at Texas A&M since 2019, and has held the same position at Ole Miss (2012-19) and Western Kentucky (2010-12). His hiring at Western Kentucky, at the time, made him the the youngest Division I athletic director in the country.
He has been in sports administration for over 25 years, also holding administrative roles at Albuquerque, Tulsa, Western Illinois, Missouri, Miami (Fla.) and UCLA dating back to 1994. A native of Dodge City, Kan., Bjork, 51, graduated from Emporia State University in 1995 and earned his master’s of athletic administration from Western Illinois in 1996.
During his time at Texas A&M, Bjork has made headlines for the university’s aggressive approach to name, image and likeness, as well as a fully guaranteed $95 million extension for then-football head coach Jimbo Fisher in September of 2021 that ended with Fisher being fired by Bjork and the Aggies this past November after just a 19-15 record over the last three seasons under Fisher.
Bjork has also raised the profile of Texas A&M’s athletic department, generating the seventh-most revenue ($193,139,619) in the NCAA during the 2022-23 academic year, according to USA Today, a category that was led by Ohio State with $251,615,345 in revenue.
Should Bjork land the job, he would not take over until Smith’s formal retirement on June 30. According to WSYX’s Clay Hall, Bjork is one of the finalists for the job along with Washington State athletic director Pat Chun, who worked under Smith at Ohio State.
