Sources: Missouri targets Veatch to be brand-new AD

• Pete Thamel, ESPNApr 22, 2024, 04:53 PM ET

Missouri is targeting Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch to be the school’s next athletic director, sources informed ESPN. A deal is anticipated to be settled in the near future, per sources.Veatch has been at Memphis because October 2019 and brings SEC experience from his time at Florida from 2017 through 2019, when he was an executive associate athletic director.Veatch had a strong period at Memphis and leaves the school with a flurry of current accomplishment that includes a 10-win football season in 2023. Also, in current days, the athletic department received a pledge from FedEx of $25 million over the next 5 years, which is expected to be a boon for the school’s NIL efforts.Memphis likewise revealed a three-phase Simmons Bank Liberty Arena overhaul that’s set to cost$220 million and to be carried out in the coming years. Veatch helped protect cash from the state, FedEx and private fundraising to protect the renovations.Veatch will change Desireé Reed-Francois, who left for Arizona in

February. Veatch is a former Kansas State football captain and operated in athletics from 2010 to 2017, including a stint as interim athletic director.He also operated at Missouri in various development roles from 1997 to 2002, providing him familiarity with

the complications and politics that have actually become a fundamental part of the Missouri job. Veatch will be the fourth athletic director at the school considering that 2016. Veatch’s football experience proved appealing to Missouri officials.And his arrival will come at a time when the Missouri football program is bracing for unusually high expectations, as the football program will remain in or near the top 10 in the preseason polls. The Tigers will have among the SEC’s most accomplished quarterbacks in Brady Cook and perhaps the top wide receiver in the nation in Luther Concern III.