Ross Bjork will have some major shoes to fill when he takes over as Ohio State’s athletic director on July 1, but he’s ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work. “I don’t have to bring any core values to this job,” Bjork said Wednesday at his introductory press conference. “They’re already well established.” He’s right. Ohio State is one of the NCAA’s most established programs primarily due to the success of current AD Gene Smith. Under his watch, the Buckeyes have claimed 32 team and 117 individual national championships.

But after 18 seasons of turning the Buckeyes into a staple of athletics, Smith is set to retire on June 30. Bjork is expected to keep the pedigree of Ohio State athletics at its peak during his time in Columbus.

“I think I’m the very first hire [under new OSU president Ted Carter], and my goal is not to mess it up,” Bjork said. Bjork, who spent over a decade in the Southeastern Conference at Texas A&M and Ole Miss, already understands how athletics are changing, especially in the world of name, image and likeness, and the transfer portal. Under Bjork’s watch, A&M’s athletic department generated the seventh-most revenue in the NCAA during the 2022-23 academic year, according to USA TODAY. Since the approval of NIL, the Aggies have been one of the more aggressive schools in securing talent with backing from boosters.

Carter, who recently was named the school’s president, put together a committee to find Smith’s successor. While Carter turned his sights toward Bjork, hoping to finalize the deal, he said the decision wasn’t quick and it took time to reach a conclusion. “There are no secrets once you get into interviews and hires,” said Carter. “This information was starting to leak. I also want to make sure that whoever we selected had some good overlap time with Gene Smith to be ready to come in and go to work. Bjork, 51, will be under contract through 2029. He’ll earn slightly over $2 million annually, not including performance incentives and retention bonuses.

Ohio State marks the fourth program Bjork will lead, hopefully, this time to national championships in football, basketball, and various other sport. Prior to his stops in College Station and Oxford, he served as athletic director at Western Kentucky from 2010-12. Bjork’s tenures with Ole Miss and Texas A&M were faced with controversy. In Oxford, Bjork defended then-football coach Hugh Freeze against 21 NCAA rules violation charges, including a failure-to-monitor charge and a lack of institutional control.

It was later reported that Freeze made at least a dozen calls to an escort service on school grounds, ultimately leading to his firing. At Texas A&M, Bjork was influential in the lucrative contract extension handed out to Fisher in 2021 amid the rumors of the LSU opening. Coming off a 9-1 finish with a top-five ranking in the AP Poll, the Aggies upped Fisher’s annual salary to $9 million while extending him through the 2031 season.

Fisher, who was fired after going 19-15 in his final three seasons, will be owed the entirety of his $77 million buyout through the end of the contract, making it the largest contract buyout in league history. “You take facts, you take data, you take some emotion, you take some personalities, and then you make the right decision,” Bjork said. “As we went through whatever it was at Ole Miss or what it’s been at Texas A&M, you own those decisions.” Bjork will oversee all sports, but attention currently is set on football following an 11-2 finish under fifth-year coach Ryan Day. The Buckeyes lost 14-3 in the Cotton Bowl against Missouri last December and have lost three consecutive times to Michigan.

While Bjork made constant changes to his athletic staffs at Texas A&M, he was complimentary of Day’s presence with the program, mentioning how the two spoke for about an hour on Monday during the final stages of negotiations.

“Brilliant mind in the game of football,” Bjork said of Day. “High-level leader. Knows what championship football looks like and knows how to put all those pieces together.” Bjork, a native of Dodge City, Kansas, might not understand everything about Ohio State, but he understands the importance of rivalries. When asked about The Game, Bjork said it matters, but it would be his job to support Day entering 2024.

“The best thing I can do is lock arms with him, figure out if there are any barriers and figure out key decisions.”