Rhoades gone, what's next?

So Mack Rhoades has left the frying pan of Mizzou to jump into the fires of Baylor. Or to use the analogy I did a few times on Wednesday, he has jumped off the Titanic and landed in freezing shark infested waters with miles to swim to reach the shore.

Anytime someone leaves, there are two pertinent questions: What happened? And what’s going to happen? We’ll take them in that order.

The immediate reaction is going to be this: How bad must it be at Missouri for the AD to go to Baylor? And that’s fair. It’s been bad at Missouri. No one can deny that. But I don’t know that Rhoades’ departure makes any grand statements other than what HE thought of Missouri. It doesn’t have to mean that’s what somebody else thinks.

Rhoades took over a bad situation. No question. But he didn’t make it any better. The football protest in November wasn’t his fault. But he handled the aftermath poorly. He retained Tim Jamieson only to part ways with him a year later. He reportedly shopped the basketball job to multiple candidates and then gave the guy he had a vote of confidence. He hired a baseball coach TWO WEEKS AGO. And then he left.

I tend to believe Rhoades when he said he was all in at Missouri 14 months ago. I really think he was at that time. He really thought this was a dream job and a great place where he could win big. And then the last 14 months happened. I always wanted a Dodge Durango. So my wife and I bought one a few years ago. And it sucked. So I sold it when I still owed more than it was worth. Sometimes things just don’t go the way you plan. You can either keep plugging away and try to come out the other side or you can admit a mistake and cut ties. Rhoades cut ties.

He’ll be vilified for it. I don’t know (or really care) whether that’s fair or not. But he’s out. I’ve heard talk for about three months he was looking to get out. I’m not shocked THAT he left. But I’m shocked at the place for which he left. It’s hard to argue there are two athletic departments that have been drug through the mud more than Missouri in the last year. But it’s even harder to argue there isn’t one…and Rhoades just decided to run it.

Either way, Rhoades’ short tenure at Mizzou is over (Alden was here for 17 years, Gary Pinkel for 15 years and Rhoades for 14 months). So the more important question for Tiger fans is what happens next?

Wren Baker—Rhoades’ No. 2—has been installed as the interim Director of Athletics. The bet is that tag will stick for a while. The campus doesn’t have a permanent Chancellor and the University System doesn’t have a permanent president. Those roles have to be filled before you can even think about hiring a permanent replacement for Rhoades. I know far less about that side of things than I do the athletics, but I have had people say they expect permanent leadership to be in place by the end of the calendar year. So let’s look at some time after that before Mizzou fills the AD role for good.

Baker will probably be a candidate, particularly if he safely navigates the next few months. Here are a few others:

*Whit Babcock is the AD at Virginia Tech. He was at Cincinnati before that after working under Alden at Mizzou. Babcock makes a ton of sense for Missouri. Would he take the job? That seems more uncertain. One person who knows Babcock told me he didn't think so.

*Mark Alnutt is as associate AD at Memphis. Alnutt played football at Mizzou, worked for the football program and the athletic department and was the AD at Southeast Missouri State before taking a job at Memphis last year. Alnutt would certainly be interested in Mizzou, but would Mizzou be interested in him? He’s got some experience, but not a ton.

*Jon Sundvold is a businessman in Columbia and a recently named member of the Board of Curators. Sundvold’s name has been run up the flagpole by fans for years as a logical choice as the Director of Athletics. Sources have indicated that he’d be interested in listening if Missouri was interested in talking. Sundvold is scheduled to be on the PowerMizzou.com Podcast on Thursday afternoon (an appointment that was set prior to the news of Rhoades’ departure).

That's a starting point. It’s certainly not an exhaustive list. But in starting this search (and, again, we don’t really know who would be in charge of it or when it could start) Missouri needs to realize a few things. The school simply isn’t in a position to go grab a big name. They’re probably not going to be able to hire a sitting Power Five AD (I’d have said the same thing about Baylor yesterday, so you know…).

What Missouri needs is simple: Someone who has such an affinity and belief in the University of Missouri that he will risk his job and his reputation to restore it. The thing’s a mess right now. Has been for a year or so.

Many will read that and think I mean it has to be a “True Son” (whatever that means). That’s not it. It doesn’t have to be an alum. It doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who has ties to Mizzou. But it has to be someone who has such an unfailing belief that this place can be great that he (or she) will risk everything to try to make it great. I don’t know who that is. I don’t know when it happens. But those are the qualifications.

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