Richard McCullough has a varied resume. He’s a scientist, entrepreneur and has run businesses. He’s been a professor. He’s now been Florida State’s president for five years.
McCullough is also an avid sports fan, attending FSU’s games at home and on the road. While that is the case for football it’s also the same in Olympic sports, too.
He’s half-jokingly remarked of late that presidents spend a considerable amount of time fielding questions and comments about athletics. It’s been more of the case with a struggling football program and as part of concurrent searches for an athletics director and football coach.
McCullough knows what he wants from athletics as well as what he doesn’t want.
“I don’t want to be the athletics operations guy,” McCullough said. “I have a whole university, a $3.2 billion budget.”
McCullough said he wants new athletics director Jeff Purinton to be a CEO, tell him what support the department and programs needs and to let him know about external issues around college athletics that the president should have on his radar.
In a breakout interview with the media after Purinton’s introduction on Tuesday, McCullough spoke with the Osceola and other news outlets. Here are four takeaways on his thoughts:
The right AD for the time
Usually the athletics director is chosen to handle pressing issues of that time as well as hire coaches to lead respective programs. Michael Alford was directed to fundraise and sell tickets. David Coburn was instructed to fix the budget. Dave Hart was picked for his all-sports view.
That’s painting with a broad stroke of a brush, of course. But those are among some examples of prior athletics directors. McCullough and BOT chairman Peter Collins said they interviewed seven or eight sitting Power 4 athletics directors and that Purinton checked all of the boxes. It’s clear the revenue generation and getting a grasp on name, image and likeness are top of mind for McCullough.
“If you’re looking for the perfect modern AD I think you’re going to need somebody that knows how to work the revenue side, NIL, NIL above the cap, some people call it,” McCullough said. “You’re going to need somebody that understands the best practices of what’s going on. This is an ever-changing set of experiences. Every six months something changes.”
And it will likely change again soon — whether the Protect College Sports Act is approved by the House of Representatives or not.
Aspiring for the top 10
FSU finished in the top 10 of the Director’s Cup in 2017-18 and 2018-19. But since the rankings resumed after COVID in 2020-21, the drop has been noticeable as the all-sports excellence rankings had FSU at 16, 14, 17, 12, 28 and 41 in 2025-26.
The reasons for this range from the ACC’s relatively low revenue distribution dollars (compared to the SEC and Big Ten) to the football team’s struggles (lack of success initiative money). Alford was conservative in his interpretation of the NIL deals, and FSU lagged there. FSU isn’t “broke,” a common social media or message board topic, but the football team’s player acquisition budget of approximately $30 million is behind Miami and Florida. Luke Loucks estimates there are a dozen ACC teams with more money to acquire talent than the Seminoles.
FSU won a soccer title in December and the softball team claimed an ACC title in the spring. But the Director’s Cup tracks overall success in the NCAA postseason. McCullough called all of FSU’s head coaches “awesome” and said he didn’t feel there was a bad one on campus. That indicates a need for more financial investment in the athletes and programs.
“Come in knowing that we want to be at the top of the Director’s Cup,” McCullough said of a goal he has for Purinton. “We want to be in that top 10. We’ve been there before but that’s the expectation that we have now. We just have to roll up our sleeves and get with it and I think catch up with what everybody else is doing.”
Much of the discussion has been around finances and football. But McCullough pointed to Purinton’s experience at Alabama, where he was part of the decision to hire Nate Oats as the men’s basketball coach and re-energize the program. Alabama has reached the Sweet 16 in 2021, 2023 and 2026, the Final Four in 2024 and Elite Eight in 2025. Purinton wasn’t there for all of those appearances, but the groundwork was set when he was in Tuscaloosa.
“It’s not just football. It’s every sport across the spectrum,” McCullough said. “Alabama, he completely resurrected the basketball program. He was put in charge of that. They hired a great coach, turned it around.”
A methodical football search
With Purinton now in place as athletics director, McCullough and Collins can turn their complete focus to hiring a football coach. McCullough said interim athletics director Bruce Warwick gave him names to consider.
“Bruce gave me his list today (Tuesday). I know next week he’s going to be going back focusing on football,” McCullough said. “ … He digs in really deep with a lot of details, a lot of statistics, a lot of research. He’s a really, really thoughtful guy. When he gives me a list it’s not like he just looked on Instagram and wrote something down.”
McCullough said “we’re doing this very methodically.” That’s yet another strong indication the football coach search is closer to the beginning stages than one that’s narrowed down candidates to a few finalists.
Athletics department structure
McCullough mentioned some changes to streamline athletics that impact facilities and events teams.
“We have three events teams. That doesn’t make sense. We’re combining that all into one events team,” McCullough said. “Athletics needs to be focused on winning games, not events. Facilities, same kind of thing. It’s more about becoming leaner, more focused, more efficient and we have a greater understanding of what the organizational structure looks like.”
That organizational structure has not been released by McCullough, who previously discussed the need to evaluate FSU athletics following the dismissal of Alford on Sept. 14. McCullough and Collins later said they needed time to review the structure, and he’s also looked at other ACC schools and how they have modified the athletics department.
When asked if there would be another administrator alongside the athletics director on the organizational chart, McCullough said: “We’re going to need somebody full time to focus on revenue.”
It’s not yet clear who that person will be or if Purinton will make the hire. But considering McCullough previously said Purinton is the CEO, it’s fair to establish that he will have a say in that decision.
McCullough commented that Seminole Boosters has been “doing a great job with the revenue” component, mentioning the fundraising record from 2025-26.
“We want to make changes without breaking the stuff that’s already working,” McCullough said.
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