Florida hires former Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs as an associate AD

Jay Jacobs was Auburn’s athletic director from 2005-2018. (Todd J. Van Emst/Opelika-Auburn News via AP, File)
Jay Jacobs was Auburn’s athletic director from 2005-2018. (Todd J. Van Emst/Opelika-Auburn News via AP, File)

It didn’t take long for former Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs to resurface in the SEC.

Florida announced Tuesday that it had hired Jacobs as an associate athletic director. Jacobs will oversee marketing and communications within the athletic department, as well as ticketing.

“Florida Athletics is fortunate to have someone of Jay’s caliber joining the UAA,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said in a statement. “His character, vision, experience and ability to connect with people will be tremendous assets to our department. Additionally, having served in a leadership role in the SEC, Jay understands the great privilege and responsibility we have as a member of this wonderful conference. It’s exciting to have Jay joining the Gators.”

Stricklin has worked with Jacobs for quite a while. Before joining Florida, Stricklin was the athletic director at Mississippi State.

Jacobs resigned from Auburn in 2017 amid athletic department tumult

Jacobs announced that he was resigning from Auburn in November 2017. The end of his tenure with the Tigers was rocky at best as Auburn’s athletic department was plagued with scandals.

Former assistant basketball coach Chuck Person was indicted as part of the FBI’s bribery investigation into college basketball weeks before Jacobs announced his resignation. Not long after Person resigned in September, a former track and field coach said he was assaulted by a colleague and filed a discrimination suit.

Over the summer, it was revealed a former softball player at the school alleged abuse and sexual harassment and said officials within the Auburn athletic department knew about complaints of that nature. Clint Myers, the longtime Auburn softball coach, resigned in August, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Myers’ resignation came after his son Corey, an assistant coach with the team, had resigned during the season. As part of the former player’s complaint to state officials, players knew Corey Myers was allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a player.

Jacobs was replaced at Auburn by Buffalo athletic director Allan Greene earlier in 2018. Greene became the third black athletic director in SEC history and the first who wasn’t hired from within. One of Greene’s first big moves was to give coach Bruce Pearl a contract extension. The school announced Monday that Pearl had received a contract extension despite the continuing FBI investigation.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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