The American Athletic Conference is hiring former Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti as its next commissioner, two people with knowledge of the move told The Associated Press on Tuesday night.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was still being finalized and no official announcement by the conference was scheduled yet.
Yahoo! Sports first reported the AAC was targeting Pernetti to replace the retiring Mike Aresco.
Pernetti, a New Jersey native and former Rutgers football player, is currently the president of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. He has led the prep school for elite athletes since 2015.
He was athletic director at Rutgers from 2009-13, helping land the school membership in the Big Ten after years in the Big East and one year in the American Athletic Conference.
Pernetti resigned in spring of 2013, before Rutgers officially joined the Big Ten, after it became public that he had been shown evidence of men’s basketball coach Mike Rice Jr. physically and verbally abusing his players and only suspended Rice instead of firing him.
Before Rutgers, Pernetti worked in programming for ABC Sports and helped start College Sports Television, which later became CBS Sport Network.
The American Athletic Conference will be a 14-member football conference next season, with SMU leaving for the Atlantic Coast Conference and Army set to join. Wichita State is also a member for basketball.
The AAC has been in transition the last two years with UCF, Houston and Cincinnati leaving for the Big 12 and six new schools joining in 2023: North Texas, Rice, FAU, Charlotte, UAB and UTSA.
Other members include Memphis, Temple, South Florida, Tulsa, East Carolina, Navy and Tulane.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
