This Marshall AD opening seems like the hardest to predict candidates, or at least where they will come from outside of one name: Jeff O’Malley. The VP/AD at Lamar University, O’Malley served as a top administrator at Marshall Athletics for 20 years and was the interim AD during Covid-19 and the move to the Sun Belt Conference before Spears was ultimately hired instead. O’Malley accepted the position at Lamar shortly after Spears came on board. Would he come back?

Since there aren’t any other obvious candidates, I decided to research recent AD hires at the same membership level of Marshall. I have been putting together an AD hiring spreadsheet for my dissertation and that guides me in some of my thought processes. The data is split on whether it will be a sitting AD, a power school deputy AD, or a Sun Belt Conference deputy. I do offer one potential name besides O'Malley but it seems difficult to predict.

Marshall HEA Briefing: https://higheredathletics.com/2025/06/11/hea-briefing-marshall/