Arkansas State’s Terry Mohajir Hired as UCF’s New Athletic Director

UPDATE (11:24 a.m. ET Tuesday): It’s official:

Per the release: “UCF will welcome Mohajir to campus on Wednesday and Knight Nation is invited to watch an introductory news conference at 12:15 p.m.”

UPDATE (9:33 p.m. ET Monday): ESPN’s Chris Low is reporting that Terry Mohajir has agreed to become UCF’s new Director of Athletics.

UCF is indicating that the search is over in its own special way, although the athletic department has not confirmed a name yet:

UPDATE (6:55 p.m. ET Monday): Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports has tweeted that Mohajir “is expected to become” the new A.D. at UCF:

Arkansas State Athletic Director Terry Mohajir is emerging as the top candidate for the UCF Knights’ A.D. position, as first reported by Brandon Helwig of UCFSports.com.

Mohajir has been the AD at Arkansas State since 2012. He also worked at Kansas and FAU previously. He received an extension and a raise at A-State as recently as 2018.

There is no word yet from UCF.

UCF’s A.D. search has included candidates such as Auburn’s Allen Greene, New Mexico’s Eddie Nunez, Buffalo’s Mark Alnutt and Missouri’s Jim Sterk, who interviewed at UCF, as first reported by UCFSports.com and PowerMizzou.com, sparking speculation that Sterk would reunite with UCF President Alexander Cartwright, who hired Sterk at Missouri.

However, on Friday night, Sterk released a statement that he was not a candidate.

As first reported by UCFSports.com and confirmed by Black and Gold Banneret, the finalists for the AD job went into the weekend with final interviews being conducted by President Cartwright.

Should Mohajir be the selection, the good news is he has had a great track record of hiring football coaches. Three months after returning to A-State, his alma mater, Mohajir had to replace Gus Malzahn, who left for Auburn. Mohajir hired Texas co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin, who went 7-5 and won a Sun Belt title before going to Boise State. Mohajir followed that by hiring then-North Carolina offensive coordinator Blake Anderson, who had a great run at Arkansas State and helped lead the Red Wolves past the UCF Knights in the 2016 Cure Bowl. Recently, Mohajir hired Butch Jones as the Red Wolves' new head coach after Anderson left for Utah State.

Outside of football, Arkansas State’s other sports programs have thrived under his leadership. According to his bio, A-State has won 18 Sun Belt titles in ten different sports under his tenure, leading all Sun Belt schools by a wide margin.

He is also renowned for his fundraising acumen. Take a look at what he did for Arkansas State’s fundraising after he became the A.D. in September of 2012:

Mohajir is also well-respected in the business as he was ranked as the fifth-best AD in a non-P5 conference according to Stadium last year (Danny White was No. 1). He is also a member of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. And he’s got a reputation for aggressiveness:

This story is developing and will be updated.