College football insider raises questions about peculiar timing of Mike Bohn resignation

Friday, news broke that USC athletic director Mike Bohn would be resigning, effective immediately. The timing is interesting considering the Trojans are more than a year away from leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten and the fact that Bohn has only been at USC a little more than three years.

That hasn’t gone unnoticed, according to The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach. She said Bohn’s resignation caught people she’s spoken with off guard, as well. However, she also reported Bohn wasn’t at the Big Ten meetings this week, which raised some eyebrows.

“I can tell you that people certainly outside of his inner-most orbit were shocked to see it, especially a resignation that’s effective immediately,” Auerbach said on The Paul Finebaum Show Friday. “I think a lot of people, their ‘Spidey Sense’ is going, wondering what could’ve caused that. Still trying to figure that out. I was told by a couple of different sources that he was not present at the Big Ten meetings earlier this week in Rosemont, Illinois. And from each of the people who mentioned that to me, they thought it was odd at the time, but certainly, they are shocked as anyone to see the news, especially less than 14 months from away USC joining the Big Ten. There is still so much that needs to be done.

“But I think we’re going to certainly probably find out more information — friction and relationships between academics and athletics at that school and just sort of other things that may have led to this. But it was definitely notable. … Definitely a stunner in terms of the timing and just how much is still to go between the move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten.”

The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach on Mike Bohn’s resignation: ‘I think there’s still a lot of questions that my peers and I will be continuing to dig in to’

USC had its commencement ceremony May 12, just one week before Bohn’s decision came out. But the athletics calendar is still going, including the baseball team and track and field teams making their final pushes toward the Pac-12 Tournament. Considering everything Bohn accomplished during his short time at the university — from the Big Ten move to the hiring of Lincoln Riley as football coach to positioning the Trojans as a key player in the NIL landscape — Auerbach said there are, understandably, questions needing answers.

“I think that’s what everyone’s trying to figure out, including his peers in the industry that I’m hearing from who are, again, just really stunned by the timing of a move like this,” Auerbach said. “We’ve seen a lot of movement from athletic directors to presidents over the last few years, but he has not been at USC very long. He got there in 2019. Obviously, a seismic move, the move to the Big Ten, hiring Lincoln Riley. These were massive decisions and quite an eventful tenure. But yeah, I mean, typically, you don’t really see from a mutual decision an effective immediately resignation, right? You would think there would be a stay on for a transition period or finish up the end of the school year, X and Y and Z.

“So I think there’s still a lot of questions that my peers and I will be continuing to dig into and hopefully, we’ll get more clarity around it. But I think for now, it’s certainly safe to say that the timing is stunning and the way that it came down for it to be a resignation that is effective immediately.”