Bowling Green athletic director Bob Moosbrugger relieved of duties, effective immediately

Editor’s note: UPDATED at 3:45 p.m. EST to reflect Bob Moosbrugger’s statement to the BGSU athletic department and provide additional context reported after the fact.

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Bowling Green State University shook up the top of their athetic department on Wednesday afternoon, announcing a “leadership transition” which will see athletic director Bob Moosbrugger relieved of his duties, effective immediately.

Moosbrugger, who had worked as BGSU’s athletic director since 2016, will be replaced by deputy athletic director Stacy Kosciak on an interim basis while the school searches for Moosbrugger’s replacement.

Moosbrugger, a former BGSU baseball player,took over as his alma mater’s ADin May 2016, inheriting messy situations with the football and basketball programs from previous AD Chris Knighton after the latter abruptly stepped down to take another job opportunity.

首次报道新闻周三下午by Patrick Andres and David Briggsof theToledo Blade,with the university later confirming the announcement.The news also comes on the heels of Moosbrugger reportedly fielding offers from other institutions, most notably Washington, going backto this past June.

BGSU was reportedly ready to move on after those June reports, but agreed to give Moosbrugger some more time to pursue other opportunities before today’s announcement,per reports from WTOL 11’s Jordan Strack.

Moosbrugger confirmed his firing to the BGSU athletic department later Wednesday afternoon, with WTOL 11 obtaining the statement and releasing it to the public.

Moosbrugger is responsible for firing Mike Jinks and hiring current football head coach Scot Loeffler in football, while also extending former Knighton hire Michael Huger’s contract in men’s basketball. Other major hires include women’s basketball coach Robyn Fralick (57-66 overall, with one division title in four seasons) and hockey coach Ty Eigner (15-19-3 in one season.)

His decisions in football and men’s basketball were perhaps his undoing, as Scot Loeffler has gone 7-22 in his tenure as coach after the disastrous Jinks experiment, while Huger’s MBB teams have been favorites to make deep runs but consistently underperformed, going 115-105 overall with only one postseason appearance in the College Basketball Invitational in seven seasons.

“As Division I programs such as BGSU face the transformation of intercollegiate athletics — with opportunities such as name, image and likeness — along with the need to increase and diversify resources, and to refocus the holistic role athletics has on an institution, we need to consider new perspectives and strongly position BGSU athletics for the future,” BGSU president Rodney Rogers saidin a prepared statementon Wednesday afternoon. “I am grateful for Bob’s service to his alma mater, and I certainly wish him the very best in the next chapter of his career.”

Moosbrugger was signed through 2024, at a rate of $275,000 per season, and is owed six months of base salary if he is fired without reason with no other job lined up, per theBlade.