OPINION |
If Missouri State athletics fans weren’t already buckled in tight for a wild ride into a new era, they better strap in with a firesuit, helmet and a full NASCAR-driver-like head-and-neck restraint device.
Just one month after the school announced it was making the ascent to the Football Bowl Subdivision and joining Conference USA, neither man who laid most of the groundwork for the move will be around to see it through.
Athletic director Kyle Moats was named the new AD at Eastern Kentucky University on June 10, ending a 15-year run at Missouri State. The news came seemingly from out of nowhere. In a news release posted an hour after Eastern Kentucky announced the hire, Missouri State said “Information related to the naming of an interim AD and the subsequent search for Moats' replacement will be available at a later date.”
Family might have played into Moats' move
Four weeks ago to the day, Moats talked enthusiastically and positively at a May 13 news conference on the move to C-USA.
It’s been known for several months that Missouri State president Clif Smart would be retiring at the end of June, with the elevation of football and the CUSA move his final major decision. It’s not uncommon for an AD to seek a new start when a president retires or moves on, but this one seems a surprise as it’s probably a lateral move, at best.
It makes more sense for Moats when you consider his son, Kirk, is a senior associate AD at Eastern Kentucky. Kyle Moats will get to work alongside his son and see his two grandkids on a regular basis. Those are big wins.
Meanwhile, lots of heavy lifting — fundraising, fundraising and more fundraising along with relationship-building — will fall on the shoulders of Moats’ replacement. Incoming Missouri State president Richard “Biff” Williams will be charged with making that hire one of his first big decisions after he settles into his office on July 1.
A wild three months for Missouri State athletics
What a wild last three months it’s been for athletics at Missouri State. Men’s basketball coach Dana Ford was fired and one-time Bears coach Cuonzo Martin was hired. Iconic baseball coach Keith Guttin retired after 42 years. The school announced the transformative change for football with a new conference. And now it needs a new AD.
There’s a good chance that Williams knew that Moats was looking for a change and already has a list of candidates. What might the new president look for?
The aforementioned fundraising aspect tops the list. While Smart and Moats emphasized the move to CUSA and upgrade in football will be “budget neutral,” that is going to take work. That task will now fall to others, with the new AD leading.
That new AD will need to do the obvious, of making good coaching hires — though everything is set in that regard heading into the 2024-25 season — and setting a positive tone for the entire department. Most importantly, he or she must have the charisma to connect with presidents of local corporations with difference-making money, plus the charm to hobnob with common folks who live paycheck-to-paycheck and sit in the upper deck.
Moats did more positive things than not in 15 years at MSU
Moats did more positive things than not during his 15 years at Missouri State, but if there was a knock it was his leadership style among some fans. Moats was not Bill Rowe, his predecessor who often made it a mission to shake hands with as many fans as he could. That wasn’t Moats’ style and that was fine as he preferred to stay mostly behind the scenes and analyze, though that didn’t sit well with many who felt unappreciated and stayed away from men’s and women’s basketball games in droves.
In fairness to Moats, the person following Rowe was going to have a big challenge no matter what. Moats made it work for 15 years and he steered the department to a noteworthy amount of success, including:
- Home-run hires in women’s basketball with Kellie Harper, Amaka Agugua-Hamilton and Beth Cunningham.
- The bold, and at the time controversial, hiring of Bobby Petrino as football coach in 2020. Petrino took the long-dormant program to the FCS playoffs for the first time in three decades, with a league title and back-to-back playoff appearances.
- A nationally-ranked men’s soccer program on an annual basis, with the Bears not missing a beat in the transition from Jon Leamy to Michael Seabolt as head coach.
- Major facilities upgrades with Allison South Stadium and the renovation of Plaster Stadium after students passed the Bear Experience and Recreation (BEAR) Fee.
- Improvement in student-athlete performance in the classroom, with the cumulative grade-point average rising from 2.88 in 2009 to a school-record 3.30 in the 2024 spring semester, when a record 304 Missouri State athletes had a GPA of 3.0 or higher.
Unfortunately, the sport many fans care the most about — or at least used to — did not flourish under Moats’ tenure. Men’s basketball won a Missouri Valley Conference championship in 2011, but results have been average or worse in most years since. Attendance in Great Southern Bank Arena plunged to a Division I-era low average of 3,000 the past season.
Many challenges await new AD
The return of Martin as coach in late March appears to be a tremendous decision that Moats gets credit for. But his hires of Paul Lusk and Dana Ford did not work out and home games have been downright depressing over the last few years as apathy set in.
Missouri State’s move to Conference USA with added emphasis on football surely will get most of the attention, but relevance in men’s basketball should remain a priority. That and many other challenges await a new athletic director.
The last few months of Missouri State athletics have been anything but boring. The next few years should be every bit as compelling.
