Univ. of Texas President Bill Powers on Monday said that he "expects a new AD will be in place before the end of the football season," according to Pete Thamel of SI.com. The announcement that UT men's AD DeLoss Dodds would retire "makes it clear that Texas' athletic department is changing." So "what happened to the once-dominant Texas athletic program?" The new AD will "soon face decisions regarding the three most prominent remaining members of the athletic department" in football coach Mack Brown, men's basketball coach Rick Barnes and baseball coach Augie Garrido. It is "expected that the new athletic director will have more business experience than Dodds, who came from a traditional athletics background." The question is, "who will actually be making the decisions? Will it be Powers?" He has "spent the past two years locked in an ugly battle with governor Rick Perry." Or will it "be the Board of Regents?" Four recent Perry appointees have "attempted to oust Powers, giving him little leeway with the nine-person board." Or will it "be the new AD?" A high-ranking UT official said, "There's four regents out of nine who would fire Bill Powers tomorrow. There's a lot of distrust in all of this." Meanwhile, Powers "isn't anxious to run Brown off, largely because he likes Brown and is pleased with his clean NCAA record." UT is "still winning at the cash register," as the school takes in more than $100M from football annually, and its $163M athletic department revenue from '11-12 is the "highest of any school in the nation" (SI.com, 10/8).
