College football insider makes prediction on Kevin Warren's future with Big Ten, NFL

As two Big Ten teams prepared to compete in the College Football Playoff this weekend, reports surfaced connecting commissioner Kevin Warren to the Chicago Bears as a top candidate for their soon-to-be-vacant president position. He’s a serious contender for the position, and multiple college football reporters spoke about that Friday.

The Athletic’s Matt Fortuna made a bold prediction Friday afternoon on “The Bernstein and Holmes Show” on 670 The Score in Chicago. Warren interviewed in-person at Halas Hall, the Bears’ team facility in Lake Forest, Illinois, and Fortuna said that shows the team’s interest in him.

Then, he made a bold prediction. He thinks Warren will eventually get the job.

“Everyone in college sports — commissioners, athletic directors, coaches, you name it — they have conversations all the time,” Fortuna told hosts Laurence Holmes and Leila Rahimi. “In fact, the Big Ten’s statement yesterday basically intimated as much with Kevin Warren. I can tell you this is not the first conversation he’s had with an NFL franchise since taking over as Big Ten commissioner. I don’t imagine this gets out the way it does, and so publicly. I mean, once it got out and once I started making calls on this, a lot of the reaction was, ‘Yeah, we’re surprised it took this long … at least from the NFL side.’ Again, he lives in Chicago. Him going to Halas Hall to interview isn’t him getting on a plane flying across the country. It’s a much lighter lift for him being in his backyard here.

“I think … it’d be a very awkward dance to go back to the Big Ten to lead that conference, I think, in the manner he’s capable of doing with this being out there and with this hovering over everything right now. Again, I think these guys are smart, they’re savvy. I don’t think this gets out as publicly as it does if it’s not already a done deal or very close to being a done deal. I know there were one or two other people who have been brought back for other interviews, as well. But I know the Bears thought very, very highly of Kevin Warren and I expect him, ultimately, to be the next president there.”

ESPN’s Pete Thamel: Bears have not offered Kevin Warren the job, but ‘he is a top candidate’

Later in the day, ESPN’s Pete Thamel — who broke the original story Thursday — joined The Paul Finebaum Show and shed more light on Warren’s candidacy with the Bears. He noted Warren’s background with the Minnesota Vikings, where he helped the team build U.S. Bank Stadium. The Bears are working toward building a new stadium in Arlington Heights, a northwest suburb of Chicago.

However, Thamel made it clear a deal is not done yet.

“Kevin Warren’s experience does tend to lean into what the Bears need and are looking for,” Thamel said. “He spent 21 years in the NFL with three different teams, and there’s a lot of things that tend to align with his resume and what the Bears are looking for. But the deal is not done. They have not offered the job. He has not taken the job. But he is a top candidate, and there was certainly no denial amid the statement that the Big Ten released.”

Thamel also provided a timeline on a decision from the Bears, whose current president, Ted Phillips, is retiring after the season. Chicago released a statement Thursday saying the team hasn’t set a timeline yet, but Thamel said the search is nearing its conclusion.

“That Bears job is expected to be filled in the upcoming weeks, Paul,” Thamel said. “[Warren] is certainly a person of interest and there’s certainly mutual interest. He interviewed at team headquarters, he interviewed in-person for the job. This isn’t 15 people on Zoom.”