Northwestern's pool of candidates for the open athletic director position is much deeper than first thought.

On Sunday, the San Jose Mercury-News broke the news that Northwestern had interviewed two athletic director candidates from the PAC-12. A short time later, ESPN's Adam Rittenberg tweeted several more names to add to the list.

NU is reportedly considering up to eight people for the job, which Dr. Jim Phillips left in February to take the commissioner's job in the ACC.

Here are the candidates mentioned, in alphabetical order. Their bios are linked to their names:

Janna Blais: Northwestern deputy AD is currently serving as the interim AD as the search to replace Phillips is conducted.

Anucha Browne-Sanders: Former star Northwestern women's basketball player has held executive positions with the NBA and New York Knicks and now works for UNICEF.

Patrick Chun: Current Washington State AD was previously the AD at Florida Atlantic and an associate AD at Ohio State, his alma mater.

Napoleon Harris: Former star Northwestern DE/LB and NFL first-round draft pick is now a state senator from Illinois.

Rick Hart: SMU AD was previously the AD at UT-Chattanooga and an administrator at Oklahoma and North Carolina, his alma mater.

Joe Karlgaard: Rice AD spent several years in the athletic department at Stanford, his alma mater.

Mike Polisky: Northwestern's deputy AD is responsible for ticket sales, corporate sponsorships and the Chicago's Big Ten Team marketing slogan.

Desiree Reed-Francois: UNLV's AD is a lawyer who held athletic administration jobs at Virginia Tech, Cincinnati and Tennessee, as well as with the Raiders and the NFL.

The search to replace Dr. Jim Phillips seems to be nearing the end.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury-News reported that Northwestern interviewed a pair of PAC-12 athletic directors and that a hire may be made official in the next week to week and a half.

The two Pac 12 ADs interviewed were Pat Chun of Washington State and Jim Knowlton of Cal.

Knowlton spent three years as the AD at the U.S. Air Force Academy before taking the job at Cal, so he is no stranger to strict academic standards. Knwolton has not had to hire a football coach during his time in Berkeley, but he did hire men's basketball coach Mark Fox, who is 22-37 through two seasons. He also streamlined the athletic department's fundraising arms, according to Wilner's story.

While both are good candidates, Chun seems like an ideal fit for Northwestern. He's from Big Ten country, a native of Ohio and Ohio State alumnus. He spent 15 years working in the Ohio State athletic department, culminating with four years as the associate athletic director. If there were an athletic department in the Big Ten to model Northwestern's future after, Ohio State is certainly a good choice.

Chun left Columbus in 2012 to become the AD at Florida Atlantic. While the Owls had a quite a bit of success athletically during his tenure, his crowning achievement was athletes setting records in GPA, academic success rate and academic progress rate.

In 2018, Chun took over the Washington State athletic department. He's since had to hire new coaches in football and basketball. Football coach Nick Rolovich went 1-3 in his first season in 2020, so the jury is still out on him. Basketball coach Kyle Smith, though, is one of the main reasons Chun has a reputation as a great hirer. In Smith's first season (2019-20) the Cougars finished 16-16, their best record since 2011-12. This past season Smith's team finished 14-13 for the school's seventh above-.500 season in the last 25 years.

Chun has also set fundraising records in each of his three years on the Palouse.

One of the reasons that candidates are interested in Northwestern is that it is quietly one of the best AD jobs in the country. It is in a great spot right next to Chicago, the third-largest city in America, and it isn't a high-pressure environment like many other Big Ten schools, where it's win or else (though two Big Ten Championship Game appearances in three years have created some high expectations for the football program). The Big Ten's big annual payouts to schools help, too.

The job also pays very well. Dr. Phillips was the second-highest paid AD in the country, trailing only Jack Swarbrick of Notre Dame. Chun's current salary at Washington State is $650,000 and Knowlton's is $275,000 at Cal, while Phillips reportedly made $1.57 million per year.

Northwestern also has a brand new state of the art practice facility and a newly renovated basketball stadium. The only major capital project left for the new AD is giving Ryan Field a facelift at some point in the near future.

Head football coach Pat Fitzgerald is also a big selling point for Northwestern. Whoever takes the AD job in Evanston will have a highly regarded coach under contract for 10 more years.

Fitzgerald will be the face of Northwestern athletics for the foreseeable future, and as long as the new AD keeps Coach Fitz winning and happy, most Northwestern fans will be happy, too.