Syracuse Orange has honed in on Toledo's Bryan Blair as its next athletics director

The Syracuse Orange may have found its next athletics director.

Per SU alum and ESPN senior writer Pete Thamel, the 'Cuse is targeting Toledo athletics director Bryan Blair as the Orange's next athletics director, "with a deal expected in the near future."

If he's hired by SU, Blair would replace Syracuse's outgoing athletics director, John Wildhack, who has been in this role for roughly 10 years and will retire from that post on July 1. There are a lot of things going on with Syracuse University and SU Athletics: J. Michael Haynie was recently appointed the university's chancellor, a new athletics director is coming soon, and on Wednesday, Syracuse men's basketball head coach Adrian Autry was fired after three seasons at the helm.

Blair was appointed as Toledo's athletics director in 2022. Previous jobs have included deputy athletics director and chief operations officer at Washington State; senior associate athletics director at Rice; and assistant director of compliance services at South Carolina.

Blair played four seasons as a defensive lineman at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., where he was also a team captain.

Syracuse may announce its new athletics director soon.

According to Thamel, "Blair brings a reputation as a fundraiser, a strong football background and comes from an athletic department that won 13 (Mid-American Conference) MAC championships in his tenure. Toledo was the first MAC school with a collective and has a full-time executive for NIL strategy."

Blair's achievements so far with the Rockets are rather impressive. When he was hired by Toledo, he was the youngest athletics director at the FBS level. Per Blair's bio on the program's athletics department Web site: "Under his leadership, Toledo has delivered one of the most dominant competitive runs in the country. The Rockets have won 13 Mid-American Conference championships - more than the previous decade combined - since his arrival and became the first FBS school in history to win outright conference titles in football, men's basketball, women's basketball, women's cross country, women's tennis and men's tennis in the same academic year."

As Thamel noted, Blair is a tremendous fundraiser. For example, since 2022, major and planned gifts at Toledo "have increased by 282%, including a 92% jump from FY24 to FY25 alone." Given the importance of fundraising these days in college sports - including schools directly paying their athletes along with third-party NIL - Blair's fundraising prowess would be welcomed on the Hill, should he become Syracuse's next athletics director.