UNLV AD Desiree Reed-Francois to be named next Missouri AD

Wade-Peeryby:Wade Peery•08/08/21

Desiree-Reed Francois will be named the next Missouri Athletic Director, per Yahoo Sports Pete Thamel. An announcement is expected from officials at Missouri within the next 24 hours.

Reed-Francois, the first female and woman of color athletics director at the FBS level, was instrumental in guiding the UNLV athletic program to new heights.

Under Reed-Francois’ guidance, UNLV captured eight Mountain West team championships since 2017-2018.

She recently signed a four-year extension with UNLV through 2026, paying her $420,000 annually, according to a report.

UNLV credited Reed-Francois with helping the Rebels’ fundraising reach record heights. The student-athletes at UNLV have also earned higher Academic Progress Rates since 2017, when she joined the University.

The hiring of Desiree Reed-Francois as the AD at Mizzou will mark a couple of significant milestones. She will become the seventh woman athletic director in the power five conferences and the second female athletic director in the SEC but first at a public SEC school.

TRACK RECORD AT UNLV

Here are a couple of factoids about her contributions to UNLV, according to her bio.

  • In 2020, season ticket sales increased by 50% from 2018, and football premium revenue jumped nearly 70% in 2020.
  • In her first year, UNLV entered into a 10-year multimedia rights deal with Learfield, a deal which was the largest in the Mountain West Conference from a revenue standpoint.
  • She improved UNLV’s football facilities, including UNLV opening a $35 million, state-of-the-art Fertitta Football Complex.
  • She also helped to negotiate a deal where UNLV football could use the Las Vegas Raiders $2 billion football facility in 2020. Allegiant Stadium is one of the nicest football facilities in the world.

Prior to UNLV, Reed-Francois worked at Virginia Tech, where she was the Deputy AD for Whit Babcock. She also spent some time as a sport administrator at Tennessee when Cuonzo Martin was the head coach in Knoxville. She was on the committee

Of course, one of Desiree Reed-Francois‘ most important duties when she gets to Missouri will be helping the football program.

The Missouri Tigers’ will welcome the services of Ohio State transfer Mookie Cooper, a former four-star recruit that is expected to have an instant impact on the offense in 2021.

The Tigers went 5-5 last season under new head coach Eli Drinkwitz.

He wasn’t happy with his team’s effort on the first day of fall camp recently and let them know about it in the Columbia Daily Tribune.

“Everybody, me, coaches, managers, support staff, players, the whole thing — we didn’t bring our best stuff,” Drinkwitz said. “You can’t waste days. They’re not pushing back the season.”

The Missouri football program will have to pick things up if they want to improve upon their 5-5 record.