On July 21, Diana Sabau will walk out of her office at Utah State University for the last time as the university’s director of athletics. She will have served a grand total of 701 days in that role. It won’t go down as the shortest tenure for an athletics director in USU history, but it will be far shorter than her two predecessors — John Hartwell and Scott Barnes — who were both in Logan for seven years. Even in that short time, though, Sabau has managed to work up quite a legacy. One that will be remembered far beyond the small span she spent at USU. The beginning of the 2024 calendar year proved to be biggest hurdle for Sabau. Her first widely-seen move as athletics director ended up being firing women’s basketball head coach Kayla Ard in early March 2024. The firing was all but guaranteed given Ard’s 24-90 overall record as coach in four season, it was mostly the manner in which Sabau went about the firing that raised eyebrows. Before Ard had even made her way to the postgame press conference following what would be her final game (a 85-49 loss to Boise State in the

LOGAN – After serving for not quite two years as the athletics director at Utah State, Diana Sabau is be moving on to become the deputy AD at the University of Maryland. The news was first reported by collegead.com with Utah State officially announcing Sabau’s departure Wednesday morning. According to the university, Sabau’s last day will be July 21. Sabau officially took over the job at Utah State on August 21, 2023 and led the athletics department through an eventful time in its history. Less than a year into her tenure, she played a leading role in the dismissal of football head coach Blake Anderson, deputy AD Jerry Bovee, and senior AD over women’s athletics Aimee Crosbie. Both Anderson and Bovee filed lawsuits against the university, with Bovee naming Sabau specifically in his wrongful termination and whistleblower lawsuit. Mere months after those firings made national headlines, Sabau led USU to one of its highest points in history as the school received an invite to the Pac-12. Throughout the eventful months, Sabau also directed significant fundraising efforts, including the Reach and Rise campaign seeking to raise $125 million. One year after the campaign’s start, it has raised $28 million toward that goal. During

LOGAN – After serving for not quite two years as the athletics director at Utah State, Diana Sabau will reportedly be moving on to become the deputy AD at the University of Maryland according to collegead.com. Sabau officially took over on August 7, 2023 and led the athletics department through an eventful time in its history. Less than a year into her tenure, she played a leading role in the dismissal of football head coach Blake Anderson, deputy AD Jerry Bovee, and senior AD over women’s athletics Aimee Crosbie. Both Anderson and Bovee filed lawsuits against the university, with Bovee naming Sabau specifically in his wrongful termination and whistleblower lawsuit. Mere months after those firings made national headlines, Sabau led USU to one of its highest points in history as the school received an invite to the Pac-12. Throughout the eventful months, Sabau also directed significant fundraising efforts, including the Reach and Rise campaign seeking to raise $125 million. One year after the campaign’s start, it has raised $28 million toward that goal. During her tenure, she hired, and later extended, men’s basketball head coach Jerrod Calhoun along with hiring women’s head coach Wes Brooks. She also secured an extension

With the formalization of Texas State joining the Pac-12, the musical chairs of western conference realignment has reached a temporary conclusion (it’s always temporary with conference realignment). No further schools are expected to be added to the Pac-12 or the Mountain West in the immediate future. With the loss of its autonomous conference status, the Pac-12 is now a peer conference to the Mountain West. Obviously geographically speaking that’s true, but also in the two conference’s Group of Five (Group of Six?) status. Even more important is that both have the goal of being the top G5 conference in the nation. The Mountain West had been racing toward that goal in the last half decade, especially in men’s basketball, and were only missing some bounce-back seasons in football from programs like Utah State and San Diego State (among others) in order to be the clear-cut best-of-the-rest league in the two major sports. Now, the Pac-12 is usurping the crown Gloria Nevarez was in hot pursuit of — and nearly had. Oregon State and Washington State dropped the hammer by flexing their war chest of hundreds of millions to reel in the best programs from the Mountain West and lure in