The Arizona Wildcats are set to have their worst showing ever in the Directors’ Cup, an all-sport ranking that has been in existence since the 1993-94 school year.

Arizona used to live in the top 10, but it has become a fringe top 25 athletic department in recent seasons. With only points from baseball still to be counted, the Wildcats are 30th in the nation … and that is where they will finish.

UA will score 25 points for reaching the NCAA tournament in baseball, but that won’t move the Wildcats up in the overall standings, and neither can any school catch them. Arizona’s previous worst finish in the Directors’ Cup was 27th in 2008.

For most of the duration of the Directors’ Cup, Arizona’s athletic director was Jim Livengood, who left in December for UNLV knowing that his expiring contract was not going to be renewed. Greg Byrne took over in May.

It falls to Byrne to get Arizona back in the Top 10.

The Directors’ Cup standings includes the top finishes in the NCAA postseason for a department’s top 10 men’s and top 10 women’s programs. One hundred points are awarded for an NCAA title, with a minimum of five points given to an NCAA appearance, depending on the size of the bracket. For football, points are awarded based on the final USA Today Top 25 poll and bowl game results. Arizona, for example, received 25 points for its Holiday Bowl loss.

Greg Byrne

Arizona’s new athletic director will be Greg Byrne, an Arizona State graduate who has been the athletic director at Mississippi State for the past two years.

Byrne will replace Jim Livengood, who accepted the athletics director position at UNLV in December because his contract was not going to be renewed at the end of this academic year.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that he is one of the rising stars in athletics around the nation,” University of Arizona president Robert Shelton said in a press conference this morning.

The hiring is pending approval of the Arizona Board of Regents, with a tentative start date of May 1. Shelton said one of his advisers through the search process has been former UA athletic director Cedric Dempsey, who also served as the NCAA president for nearly nine years.

Shelton said Byrne’s base salary will be $390,000, with incentives for academic and athletic achievement. Livengood annual salary was $372,000.

Shelton called the pool of potential candidates “a broad, deep field. I was pleased with the number of candidates who came to my attention. … We focused very quickly on Greg as a young up-and-coming person who has the right values, I think, to fit into the University of Arizona.”

Shelton said he had conversations with five potential candidates, but added that Byrne was the only one with which he had next-level discussions and said, “I really want you to come.”

Byrne, 38, released a statement this morning:

“As we have discussed many times, intercollegiate athletics is a very emotional industry. It is why all of us are so invested in this business, whether it is as administrators, coaches, student-athletes, or fans. We all have strong feelings about what happens here. My emotions today range from the highest highs to the lowest lows. While I am excited about a new opportunity, I am heartbroken to be leaving a lot of friends. …

“One of the absolute truths in college athletics is that you can not dictate the times and places in which opportunities present themselves. As I have done in the past, I review those opportunities from a myriad of different viewpoints. Center-most in those items I consider is the affect a professional decision would have on my family. There is little question that this decision is a good one for my family. It places us back in a part of the country with which we are familiar, one that returns us near family and life-long friends. But this decision was more than just family. My new position offers many of the same challenges we faced here at Mississippi State. We will attack those challenges in the same way we did here.

“It is important for me to convey to you that I did not pursue this opportunity. In fact, my initial reaction was to discourage any future interest. It took several conversations, and much prayer on my part, but their overwhelming interest was apparent as time moved along. The combination of a professional challenge and a personal commitment to my family made this position very attractive to me.”

Byrne also has worked in athletics at the University of Oregon, Oregon State and Kentucky. His father, Bill Byrne, was the athletic director at Oregon from 1984-92 and is the current athletic director at Texas A&M. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State in 1994 and a master’s degree from Mississippi State in 2009.

Kathleeen “Rocky” LaRose is serving as Arizona’s interim athletic director. Byrne is expected to meet with the Tucson media on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m.

Byrne will be taking over an Arizona athletic department that had $51,822,629 in revenues and $51,627,538 in expenses in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. Mississippi State in that time period had revenues of $36,536,152 and expenses of $36,467,532.

Byrne’s big hiring at Mississippi State was football coach Dan Mullen, plucked off the staff of Urban Meyer at Florida after the 2008 season after MSU coach Sylvester Croom was forced out. Mullen, who was widely viewed as one of the top assistants in the country, went 5-7 in his first season.

Mullen told the Jackson Clarion Ledger: “I will forever be grateful to Greg Byrne for giving me the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream, and while I’m saddened by his departure, I understand and respect his decision for his family. Greg made a huge difference at Mississippi State, and we will continue to build a football program upon his vision for what Bulldog athletics should be – relentlessly competing for championships.” Other MSU coaches commented, too, at the Clarion Ledger.

Chris Low, the SEC blogger at ESPN.com writes that Byrne will be missed at Mississippi State.

At Mississippi State, Byrne maintained a weekly-updated blog on the athletic department’s official site, and he also has a Twitter account.

“There is no one more highly regarded at this university,” university president Robert Shelton said of LaRose in a press release, “and the department will be in good hands under Rocky’s leadership while we search for a permanent replacement for Jim.”

Livengood, 64, had been Arizona’s athletic director for nearly 16 years, but his contract was not going to be renewed after its expired June 30, 2010.

LaRose is in her 31st year at Arizona, joining the staff as the softball coach in 1979. She has been the senior associate athletic director for the past 16 years.

Livengood in a UA release said: “My experience in 16 years at the University of Arizona has been nothing short of phenomenal, both professionally and personally. To complete a period like this, with so many high points and other dramatically difficult moments, is truly satisfying.

“I’m proud to have been a Wildcat. The hard part will be the separation between me and the hundreds of people with whom I have worked so closely at the University of Arizona.”

Jim Livengood's tenure at Arizona is coming to an end/Tucson Citizen photo

UPDATE: The Arizona Daily Star is reporting that Livengood has accepted the UNLV job. The Las Vegas Review Journal is reporting that a press conference at UNLV has been scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today to announce the school’s new AD.

One way or another Jim Livengood won’t be here much longer. He might be UNLV’s athletic director as early as Thursday. If not, he’ll ride out his Arizona contract and be done at the end of June.

He began his job right after Arizona’s Fiesta Bowl victory over Miami on Jan. 1, 1994. That’s a long time ago. Long enough that Livengood suffers locally from Dick Tomey Syndrome — anybody at one spot that long has highs and lows, creating firmly entrenched supporters and detractors.

Most importantly, Livengood has lost his support from the board of regents and university president Robert Shelton, who, at least publicly, has been unwilling to fight the fight to extend Livengood’s contract.

It was Shelton — as much if not more so than Livengood — who failed to step up during Lute Olson‘s leave of absence for health-related reasons. Neither could wield the clout to do what needed to be done — convince Olson to retire, which would have been a good move for all the parties.

Olson, however, proved more powerful than either. Besides, who wanted to be the bad guy who told Lute he couldn’t coach here anymore?

Anyway, when the powers that be declined to consider another Livengood contract, he went looking for another job. He is 64 and not ready to golf full time. He is one of three finalists for the UNLV athletic director position, along with former Oregon athletic director Bill Moos and Washington State senior associate athletic director John Johnson.

In Las Vegas on Tuesday, at a public forum during his interview, Livengood acknowledged his contract at Arizona wouldn’t be renewed.

Whether he gets the UNLV job or not, Arizona will have a big decision to make soon.

It shouldn’t be too hard.

(Of course, that’s what we said about the men’s basketball job, and that nearly turned into a fiasco. Shelton, in an interview in Dec. 2008 with the Tucson Citizen, said he was going to be very involved in that hiring … so he has to share in all the false steps along the way before UA landed Sean Miller.)

The Arizona athletic department has its challenges, notably getting a $378 million facilities plan off the ground.

But coach Mike Stoops and the football program is hitting its stride, and the long-term future of the basketball program is in good shape with Miller. Arizona has national championship coaches in softball (Mike Candrea), swimming (Frank Busch) and men’s golf (Rick LaRose) — all holdovers from previous administrations.

Baseball coach Andy Lopez, a Livengood hire, won a national title at Pepperdine. Second-year women’s basketball coach Niya Butts might prove to a young star in the business.

At the beginning of Livengood’s tenure, Arizona began a nine-year streak of top 10 finishes in the Directors’ Cup Standings, which rates an athletic department on how all sports fare in the postseason. For the past few years, the Wildcats have been mostly just inside the Top 25.

Not what it once was, but still the envy of many programs.

I’m reminded of what Livengood said about the UA men’s basketball vacancy last year. “This is a great job,” he said.

The AD’s job is, too. Arizona will have no shortage of good candidates.

Someday soon, Shelton is going to be on the spot. If he doesn’t want Livengood around, then he can’t afford to mess up the hire.

He’ll have to make sure that the introductory press conference for the new athletic director is, as Livengood would say, a great Wildcat day.

UNLV school president Neal Smatresk denied to that paper — and to the Las Vegas Sun — that a hire had been made or that an announcement was pending.

UPDATE: Rebel Nation, an insert in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, cites a source saying that Livengood, if hired by UNLV, would give strong consideration to bringing in UA defensive coordinator Mark Stoops to fill the Rebels’ vacant head coaching position in football. Stoops has been mentioned as a strong candidate at Youngstown State.

Livengood, who has been at Arizona since January 1994, has a contract at UA that expires on June 30. In an interview in February with the Tucson Citizen, he said he would like to continue working past that date, when he will be 65 years old.

“The biggest thing right now is, I think I want to go longer,” he said. “I feel good. I’m healthy. I like what I’m doing. … But Robert Shelton and the board of regents will end up making those decisions.”

Or not.

University president Robert Shelton hasn’t moved yet to ask the regents for a new contract for Livengood, even though Arizona State on Friday received a four-year extension for its athletic director, Lisa Love.

Given that, it’s not surprising Livengood would be exploring his options elsewhere.

Shelton, talking to the Star’s Patrick Finley about Livengood for a story in Friday’s edition, said that, “I have great admiration for him and what he’s done, and he is known nationwide. So he and I are talking about what his next step should be.”

A call from TucsonCitizen.com to Livengood on Friday night went to voicemail.

UNLV’s former athletic director, Mike Hamrick, left in July to go to Marshall, his alma mater. Jerry Koloskie has been serving as interim athletic director and is believed to be among the candidates for the permanent position, assuming Smatresk and Livengood don’t already have a deal in place.

The other local candidate is believed to be South Point arena manager Steve Stallworth, a former UNLV quarterback. Two sources told TucsonCitizen.com that interviews were supposed to take place Saturday.

Arizona sports information director Tom Duddleston said Livengood was not on the football team’s charter to Los Angeles on Friday but was expected to attend Saturday’s football game at USC.

At Arizona, Livengood has overseen a department whose budget nearly reached $52 million for the 2008-09 school year. Through recent tough times for the economy and athletic departments — with soaring coaching salaries, travel costs and insurance premiums — Livengood has always kept Arizona in the black, even if just barely.

Arizona had $195,091 left over after its 2008-09 expenses of $51,627,538.

It will immediately be an interesting time for whoever gets the UNLV job because the Rebels are looking to hire a football coach after firing Mike Sanford before the end of the regular season.

“What it will do for this department is hard to measure,” Livengood said.

Livengood has a $378 million master plan to improve facilities across many sports, with improvements to the north end zone — including a new scoreboard and a four-story building for the football offices and locker rooms — pegged at a cost of about $85 million.

The new end zone would replace the bleacher seating with about 5,000 more-expensive seats while slightly increasing capacity. Other parts of this first phase of the master plan are improved stadium lighting, an extension of the Jimenez practice facility, and upgrades to the loge, scholarship suites, east side seating and the Dan Dunlap Stadium Club.

“While much heavy lifting is still ahead, the money the Stevens have given is just a great start toward that effort,” Livengood said.

The first phase of the project will need Board of Regents’ approval in January.

“We didn’t look at it as a building to put your name on, but as an investment in the university and the athletic department and the football program,” said Jeff Stevens, who is the president and chief operating officer of Western Refining, which is based in El Paso.

“If Arizona is going to continue at a high level of Division I football, these are the types of facilities that need to be built. We feel very strongly that this is the right time, the right commitment.”

The first phase of the project benefits football directly, but the other sports will benefit from the football team’s move out of McKale Center, creating more space for everyone.

“I have been excited about this for weeks when I heard about this vision coming to reality,” said football coach Mike Stoops. “For our program to grow — and for all the other programs to grow — this is a necessity in modern day collegiate sports.”

The Stevens, who are both UA grads, previously contributed $3 million toward UTEP’s new basketball practice facility — the Foster Stevens Basketball Complex — which opened this spring.