The Beaver AD job gets tougher, and Barnes cries uncle

Updated 3/27/2026 7:35 AM

The Scott Barnes era at Oregon State is over — for all intents and purposes, at least.

Though no official announcement has been forthcoming, The Oregonian reported Thursday on Barnes’ “retirement” from his job as athletic director at the school, with quotes from Barnes in confirmation.

According to the report, Barnes will continue to serve as athletic director through Aug. 31, then become a “senior advisor for athletics” through Aug. 31, 2027.

In 2023, OSU president Jayathi Murthy signed Barnes to a contract extension that ran through June 30, 2030 and paid him a compensation package of more than $1 million per year. In an interview a month ago, I asked Barnes if he intended to continue on the job through the end of his contract.

“We are pushing these boulders up the hill,” he told me. “At some point, I am going to want to hold onto that and let somebody else push it up the rest of the way. I would say the chances are more than not that I won’t finish my contract.”

Barnes was being honest there. Not so much when I asked about the future of basketball coach Wayne Tinkle.

“We will make a decision (on Tinkle) at the end of the year,” he said.

Barnes fired Tinkle on Feb. 27, two days before the Beavers’ final regular-season game against Santa Clara. Bad timing in my book.

But one source tells me Barnes had made the decision to let Tinkle go after the season as early as October. And that in December, Justin Joyner —    who would become the new head coach — was brought to town for an undetected visit. For some reason, Barnes chose to pull the plug with one game left, and leave it up to Tinkle whether he wanted to finish the season.

Well, yes he did. And then he paid for a half-page ad in the local newspapers, thanking Oregon State for the opportunity to coach and to fans for their support, becoming a folk hero forever in Beaver Nation.

That was just one of the poor decisions that Barnes made in the last year that turned a good portion of the school’s alums, boosters and followers against him.

Barnes fired Trent Bray seven games into the 2025 football season. Yes, Oregon State’s record was 0-7 to that point, but with one of the toughest schedules in the nation and some winnable games remaining. Barnes said Bray had lost the locker room, but there were more players upset than pleased with his dismissal.

Then there was the debacle with Blueprint Sports, to which Oregon State signed a NIL management deal against the wishes of athletic department general manager Kyle Bjornstad. Blueprint was being pushed by deputy athletic director Brent Blaylock, who had a previous relationship with the company while at Arizona.

Blueprint wound up being a sham company, and texts obtained through a public records search by the Belligerent Beavs podcast showed that Barnes threw Bjornstad under the bus, assigning blame to him for the mishap. Oregon State terminated the agreement but paid Blueprint $280,000, essentially for nothing. Blaylock resigned, presumably under pressure, and Bjornstad resigned on his own accord. Potential lawsuits against both Blueprint and Oregon State on behalf of Bjornstad remain a possibility.

Barnes is also a defendant along with Oregon State in a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed last October by former OSU rowing coach Gabriel Winkler, alleging retaliation, lack of due process and breach of contract.

The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.

With the dissolution of Dam Nation collective, Oregon State’s NIL situation is a mess, too. It was clear during my interview with Barnes that for now, there is nobody in charge of the NIL operation. I have concern that the most successful programs — baseball and women’s basketball — will not be taken care of adequately through revenue-sharing and NIL to attract and retain athletes.

There has been plenty of heat on Barnes in recent months, and some internal dissatisfaction within the athletic department about him, too. Last week, the OSU Board of Trustees held a two-day meeting in Corvallis, primarily to approve tuition and fee rates for the upcoming school year as well as a 10-year capital forecast. One source said Barnes’ status was also a topic of conversation. Murthy reports directly to the Board of Trustees.

Perhaps it is coincidence that Barnes chose to reveal his retirement plans so soon after that meeting. Or maybe not. It is true, though, that Barnes had been talking privately for months to associates — including Murthy — about his potential retirement. (And, of course, he dropped that hint in my article, too.) A source says Murthy convinced him that he was needed and he should stay on. Think about that. Knowing he would be gone sooner than later, the president let him fire and hire new football and basketball coaches.

“That’s the last thing a new coach would want — to have the athletic director leave before he even got started,” says a former OSU head coach. “Coaches don’t go to work for somebody they don’t think will be there for awhile.”

With the timeline for Barnes leaving the AD position, neither JaMarcus Shephard nor Joyner will coach a game with the man who hired them running the department. In the case of Joyner, who remains coaching at Michigan through completion in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, is it too late to pull out of the job and stay put?

Barnes has gotten some things accomplished during his nine-plus years as Oregon State’s athletics boss. He made good hires in football (Jonathan Smith), baseball (Mitch Canham) and wrestling (Chris Pendleton) and got some new facilities funded, including the $162-million completion of Reser Stadium in 2023. The Reser family contributed the major gift to the project in honor of the family patriarch, the late Al Reser.

“That was a have-to,” says Marty Reser, Al’s son and a Reser Fine Foods executive for 45 years before his retirement a year ago. “That was Al’s dream. He commanded us kids to make sure that got done. Out of respect for him, that was his legacy. We wanted to make sure we fulfilled it.”

Barnes got thrust into what Pendleton calls “one of the most unforeseeable events in college athletics history.”

“We are talking about having to navigate Covid, the transfer portal and NIL and having a conference collapse before your eyes,” Pendleton says. “You are taking media rights down from about $30 million a year and trying to get the best you can as you transition from there being a Power Five (conferences) to a Power Four.”

“What he got hired for,” Reser adds, “is not the job today.”

Barnes, 63, looks fit and told me he feels fine physically. But he suffered a serious heart attack in 2023. I am not sure how much health had to do with his resignation, but it may have played a part.

“When you go through the widow-maker, that has to beat you up,” Reser says.

“Scott literally died,” Pendleton says. “He sacrificed a lot of his health and family for the job. I am happy that he will get to spend more time with (wife) Jody and be able to stabilize his health.”

Pendleton admits to “mixed emotions” about Barnes’ decision. Cuts are being made across the board in OSU athletics for the 2026-27 academic year; Pendleton has fought hard for his program, especially in terms of scholarship money. NIL funding has been nearly nonexistent.

“But Scott hired me and gave me this opportunity,” he says. “I am grateful for that. He was perfect by no means, but he had every intention of helping Beaver athletics navigate these very difficult times. In his position, you have to have thick skin and take criticism — some warranted and some unwarranted.”

Reser has served on several coach search committees and is a member of the advisory board to the athletic department. He, too, has had his criticisms of Barnes.

“But Scott was the catalyst that kept the Pac-12 together when everybody was bailing ship,” Reser says. “I am proud of the job he did. When you are Washington State and Oregon State, there were no life preservers left. That makes things difficult.

“The Blueprint thing was a tough one. Nobody won in that. The school lost in it, for sure. But we learned from it. Everybody makes mistakes. Sometimes you just own up to it and say, ‘I missed on this one.’ ”

I’m not sure Barnes ever did that, though. It seemed others were to blame for mistakes. I haven’t seen a “I missed on that one” from him over a lot of swings-and-misses.

Now Barnes is being handed what amounts to a golden parachute. He gets a year as a “senior advisor for athletics” after he leaves the AD position five months from now, at presumably the same salary as he makes as an AD. My guess is that was a compromise. He won’t be paid for the final three years of his contract, saving the university some money, but will receive what amounts to a year’s severance pay. I am doubtful Barnes will be of much service to his successor or offer much “advice” to coaches in the department during his final year there.

Blaylock, incidentally, is still living in Corvallis and remains on the athletic department payroll. Generally when people resign a position, they don’t continue to receive their salary.

Pendleton believes Barnes’ resignation “opens a lot of windows when you look at what schools are doing nationally.”

“We are not the only school going through a budget crisis, but schools like Washington State are showing more creativity to battle the deficits,” Pendleton says. “I hope this opens some people’s eyes that we have to support athletics at a higher level, be creative and find ways to right the ship. We have a lot of talented head coaches fighting the fight every single day.”

On March 6, the Washington State board of regents approved a one-time $20 million investment from the university’s operating funds into Cougar athletics for the 2027 fiscal year. Pendleton wouldn’t say, but that may be part of what he is getting at.

Now Oregon State is in the business of hiring an athletic director. Pendleton notes that Barnes lost three assistant ADs who went on to become ADs at other schools — Kimya Massey at San Diego, Dan Bartholomae at Western Michigan and Zack Lassiter at Abilene Christian.

“What they have done at their respective schools has been impressive,” Pendleton says, noting that they might be strong candidates to replace their former boss. “The best part is they know the landscape here and love Oregon State.”

Or maybe it would be better to get a fresh start with someone new. I am sure DHR Global of Chicago — the school’s executive search firm of choice — will assist Oregon State. But who will make the decision from the university’s side? Please don’t tell me it’s Murthy, who seems to know less about athletics than I do about academics.

I am hoping she understands that athletics are, as they say, the window to a university.

“Nobody has ever paid,” Reser says, “to watch a kid take a mid-term.”

Reser gets the final word: “The job of athletic director has changed. The type of individual needed is different. You have to run it as a business now. And at Oregon State, we need to clean up a few things before we can put it on the market to sell.”

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