SALT LAKE CITY — In the non-Power Five conference athletic director world, BYU’s Tom Holmoe and Utah State’s John Hartwell stand out.
Both Holmoe and Hartwell earned a B-plus grade for their work as athletic director in a Stadium analysis piece written by Jeff Goodman and Brett McMurphy ranking the top non-Power Five conference ADs, with Holmoe taking the No. 3 spot in the rankings, one above Hartwell.
The article is a part of a series ranking the athletic directors in Power Five conferences, in addition to the non-P5 rankings.
Goodman and McMurphy outlined what factors went into defining their rankings, including how successful football and men’s basketball head coaches are that the athletic directors hired. Their success, or failure, counts toward that particular AD’s grade even if the athletic director has moved on to another school.
Other factors include “difficulty of opponents in their respective conferences, bowl appearances, NCAA tournament trips, conference titles and national championships won.”
Holmoe, who took over as BYU’s AD in 2005, received an A-minus for his two football head coaching hires — Bronco Mendenhall (2005-15) and Kalani Sitake (2016-present) — and a B-plus for his two men’s basketball coaching hires — Dave Rose (2005-19) and Mark Pope (2019-present).
“BYU AD Tom Holmoe made two monster hires in his first year in Bronco Mendenhall and Dave Rose. After three consecutive losing seasons (2002-04) under football coach Gary Crowton, Holmoe promoted defensive coordinator Bronco Mendenhall,” Goodman and McMurphy wrote.
“Before BYU went independent, Mendenhall won two Mountain West titles in six years. Overall in Mendenhall’s 11 seasons, he went to 11 bowl games and had five double-digit win seasons before leaving for Virginia after the 2015 season. Rose, in 14 seasons, made eight NCAA tournaments and won four Mountain West titles.”
Sitake has gone 27-25 in his four seasons as BYU’s coach with three bowl appearances, while Pope led the Cougars to a 24-8 record last year with a No. 18 ranking in the final Associated Press poll.
Hartwell has been Utah State’s AD since 2015, after four years serving in the same capacity at Troy. He received an A grade for his football coaching hires, including bringing back Gary Andersen last year to replace Matt Wells, and a B grade for his men’s basketball coaching hires, including Craig Smith in 2018.
“John Hartwell’s first athletic director job was at Troy, where his best hire was football coach Neal Brown, who inherited a program with four consecutive non-winning records. Brown turned the program around, recording three consecutive double-digit win seasons for the first time in school history, including upsets at LSU (in 2017) and at Nebraska (in 2018),” Stadium’s analysis of Hartwell reads.
“Hartwell then went to Utah State, where he landed basketball coach Craig Smith from South Dakota and football coach Gary Andersen. Smith made the NCAA tournament in his debut season, the school’s first appearance in eight seasons, while Andersen went 7-6 and earned a bowl berth last season.”
In Stadium’s rankings of the Pac-12 athletic directors, Utah’s Mark Harlan comes in No. 9, with a C grade, though it should be noted that much of Harlan’s grade derives from his previous AD job at South Florida, where two basketball head coaching hires particularly dragged down his grade.
Also, Goodman and McMurphy did not account for fundraising or building of facilities in their rankings. During his time, Harlan has been involved with the renovation project at Rice-Eccles Stadium to expand and revitalize the stadium’s south end zone.
“Mark Harlan’s track record at USF wasn’t pretty. On the football side, he threw a ton of money at Charlie Strong and it looked good early. But after a Top 25 ranking in 2017, Strong was 4-14 in his last 18 games before being fired after three seasons,” Stadium’s analysis on Harlan reads. “Harlan’s first hoops hiring was Orlando Antigua, who was fired after three seasons and a 23-55 mark. Then he went with Brian Gregory — who is 48-53 and still looking for an NCAA tourney appearance after three seasons.”
Former Utah State athletic director Scott Barnes, now the AD at Oregon State, is No. 5 in the Pac-12 rankings with a C-plus grade. A significant portion of Barnes’ positive marks come from his football coach hirings at USU.
“Scott Barnes’ best hires came on the football side at Utah State with Gary Andersen the first time around and then with Matt Wells. The pair turned around the program and took the Aggies to seven bowls in 10 years. Barnes also hired Jonathan Smith at Oregon State, but that hasn’t fared well in the first two years,” Goodman and McMurphy wrote.