Thursday, 1:35 p.m. ET: According to Pete Thamel of ESPN, the deal has been approved by Syracuse's board. The hire will be made official soon. 

Wednesday PM: The Syracuse athletic department started its Wednesday by firing head men's basketball coach Adrian Autry after three seasons that saw him go 49-48 and miss the NCAA Tournament three times.

It ended its Wednesday agreeing to terms with a new athletic director, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN.

Syracuse and Bryan Blair have agreed to terms to make him the school's next athletic director, per ESPN sources. The deal is still subject to final board approval tomorrow, and is expected to be announced soon after that happens.

Blair had previously served as the athletic director at Toledo, but he has also worked at Washington State and South Carolina.

The following comes from a portion of his Toledo bio:

Appointed in 2022, Blair serves as Vice President and Director of Athletics at the University of Toledo, where he has led a bold and comprehensive modernization of Rocket Athletics—marked by record-breaking revenue generation, championship success, strategic brand elevation, and a deep commitment to student-athlete outcomes....

As the 14th Director of Athletics in school history—and the youngest FBS AD in the country at the time of his hire—Blair has redefined Toledo’s trajectory. 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.

Blair is set to inherit a generally solid situation at SU. The Orange women's basketball team is going to be headed to the NCAA Tournament when the brackets come out on Sunday, and both men and women's lacrosse teams are in a good spot too - the SU men reached the Final Four a season ago and were briefly ranked No. 1 in the nation earlier this season. 

However, the football team is coming off a 3-9 campaign, though there is optimism with Steve Angeli returning from injury to be the starting quarterback once again. Head coach Fran Brown has also brought in a nice crop of transfers.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the men's basketball program, the most marquee program on campus. In addition to firing Autry, Syracuse fired the entire coaching staff and its general manager on Wednesday. Pete Thamel of ESPN reported that the new athletic director will have the final say on the new basketball coach, and Blair will have to immediately get to work on vetting the candidates.

Syracuse reportedly already has six names of interest, including Mike Hopkins and Gerry McNamara.

The biggest question facing an athletic director today is how can they raise money for NIL? Are they able to secure corporate partnerships and big time donors? That will be at the forefront of things that fans want to know as Blair gets to campus.

There is at least one prior relationship for Blair in the athletic department. SU hired former Toledo defensive coordinator Vince Kehres as its new defensive coordinator under Brown.

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