Northwestern administrator Travis Goff will join Kansas as athletic director

Kansas is finalizing a deal to hire Northwestern administrator Travis Goff, a Sunflower State native who graduated from the school, to be its next athletic director, a person familiar with the decision said.

Kansas was expected to make the hiring of Goff official as soon as Monday night, according to the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the school was still completing details of an agreement and working on an announcement.

Goff has been at Northwestern since 2012, most recently as deputy athletic director and assistant vice president for development. He played a role in fundraising that led to massive facilities upgrades at Northwestern and oversaw the football, baseball and volleyball programs.

Kansas has been searching for an athletic director since Jeff Long resigned almost a month ago.

Long was responsible for hiring Les Miles, with whom the school parted ways amid sexual misconduct allegations dating to the football coach’s time at LSU. Long initially said he would lead the search for Miles’ replacement, but criticism about the due-diligence he did in hiring his longtime friend, coupled with massive public outcry, led to his decision to resign.

Goff’s first big task will be to determine what to do with a football program already going through spring practice under wide receivers coach Emmett Jones, picked to serve as the interim coach last month.

The downtrodden Jayhawks lost all nine of their games last season. They have not had a winning season since Mark Mangino was on the sideline in 2008.

Goff returns to Lawrence having worked under former Northwestern athletic director Jim Phillips, who left the school earlier this year to become Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner.

Goff grew up in Dodge City in the southwestern part of Kansas. He graduated in 2002 with degrees in journalism and sociology, then earned an MBA from Tulane, where he worked as associate athletic director for external affairs.

He is the sixth athletic director for the Jayhawks since Bob Frederick retired in 2001.