FARGO — We’ve been through this before around here, especially in the college football coaching realm. Craig Bohl, Chris Klieman, Matt Entz and Tim Polasek have all had their names connected to bigger, more lucrative jobs while they were still employed by North Dakota State.
Now it’s the athletic director’s turn. Welcome to the club, Matt Larsen.
North Dakota State President David Cook, left, with NDSU athletic director Matt Larsen and Cook’s wife, Kate, during a presentation at the Bison men’s basketball game Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026 at Scheels Center in Fargo.
Mike McFeely / The Forum
Larsen is the NDSU athletic boss, successful by almost every metric and young enough (52) to understand the world of college athletics isn’t going back to the way it used to be, which will make him an attractive choice for a job at a larger university in a more powerful conference with a (much) larger athletics budget for (a lot) bigger salary.
Add an obvious connection to a university president who Larsen knows well and got along with swimmingly and, well, let the speculation begin.
Take Iowa State, for example, where former NDSU president David Cook now leads that university and longtime AD Jamie Pollard recently announced his intention to retire.
Doesn’t get any more obvious than that for rampant speculation, does it?
I asked Larsen on Tuesday, July 28, about the possibility of him replacing Pollard and he declined comment.
Don’t take that one way or the other, Bison fans. It’s my sense he just doesn’t feel it’s necessary or useful to comment on speculation. Fair enough.
But, I’ll admit, when Pollard said earlier this month he was going to retire effective June 30, 2027 — or sooner if a replacement was named — my thoughts immediately went to Larsen as the next guy in Ames.
The Matt Larsen File
NDSU athletic director since 2014.Seven Football Championship Subdivision national championships.Three men’s basketball NCAA tournament appearances.Three-time Summit League Commissioner Cup winner as best overall athletic department.$115 million in new athletics facilities, including $50 million in privately raised funds for football’s indoor practice facility.Grew athletic budget from $18 million to $31 million.Two-time National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics FCS athletic director of the year (2019, 2025).Played key role in moving NDSU from FCS to the FBS and Mountain West Conference.
Larsen is close to Cook and he’s led an extremely successful mid-major athletics program with national championship-winning football teams in FCS. He understands the Upper Midwest mindset. He’s made good hires in important programs like football and women’s basketball when the opportunity arose.
South Dakota State’s Justin Sell has a couple of connections at Iowa State, too, and his name is being tossed about. The Iowa State football coach, Jimmy Rogers, and the men’s basketball coach, T.J. Otzelberger, were both hired by Sell at SDSU before they found other jobs to climb the professional ladder and eventually ended up in Ames.
It’s just hard to ignore the importance of Iowa State’s new president.
Cook was an almost universally liked and respected leader at NDSU with a knack for connecting with anybody. He could sit down in a suit and tie to impress a major donor or powerful politician while also having the ability to turn his golf cap backwards, drink a beer and talk smack with coaches or alumni. There was nothing forced or phony about it. It was genuine. He was a good guy who was extremely competent at his job who made anybody — from a rich guy to a professor to a partying football fan — feel comfortable.
Larsen worked well with him. Most famously, of course, they paired to move the Bison from FCS to FBS and the Mountain West Conference. That was a massive step in the school’s history that took Cook and Larsen working step-by-step, hand-in-hand for years. They couldn’t have gotten it done if they weren’t on exactly the same page.
I’m not the only one thinking this way. While AD job searches don’t necessarily get the headlines of coaching searches — maybe the agents aren’t as active leaking information to national media because their slice of the money pie isn’t quite as big — there was a story published by the Des Moines Register citing Larsen as a top candidate for the job at Iowa State.
Larsen, Sell, Tulane’s David Harris, Montana State’s Leon Costello, Boise State’s Jeremiah Dickey and Drake’s Brian Hardin were the names listed by the Register as top external candidates.
Top internal candidates were Shamaree Brown, senior associate athletics director for student services for six years; Chris Jorgensen, senior associate athletics director for operations for 15 years; and Ryan McGuire, senior associate athletics director for external relations, in charge of fundraising efforts for 22 years.
While listing the resume and positives of all candidates, the Register liked the Cook-Larsen relationship.
“Alignment between university president and athletics director is integral for success and support for any university’s array of sports teams. Larsen would have a head start in having that alignment and familiarity with Cook,” the paper surmised.
From right to left: NDSU head football coach Tim Polasek, NDSU director of athletics Matt Larsen, NDSU president David Cook, and interim NDSU president Rick Berg speak during a press conference on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at the Sanford Health Athletic Complex in north Fargo to announce NDSU football joining the Mountain West Conference as an affiliate member for football, competing at the Football Bowl Subdivision level beginning this fall.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Iowa State is a Big 12, Power Four job with an athletics budget of about $145 million compared to NDSU’s roughly $31 million. It’s simply a different world and a major professional step up. Pollard reportedly makes $900,000 annually while Larsen’s salary is in the $340,000 range. And Ames, frankly, is a great college town with a passionate and dedicated fan base.
The one key item that might weigh heavily on Larsen, should things move beyond speculation to the serious stage: NDSU hasn’t even played a down yet in the Mountain West, the conference to which the Bison just moved and a goal toward which Larsen worked so hard for so long. NDSU losing its AD — and potentially other staffers — at this stage would be crushing and possibly damaging.
Knowing Larsen just a little, I think it would be a difficult choice to walk away at this juncture. It’s something that will give him pause. But is that enough to keep him in Fargo? That’s a tougher question.
Iowa State reportedly wants to make a decision by late fall. The rumor around Ames is Cook wants to move fast. The speculation season has already begun.
Mike McFeely is a columnist for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He began working for The Forum in the 1980s while he was a student studying journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He’s been with The Forum full time since 1990, minus a six-year hiatus when he hosted a local radio talk-show.