AUBURN – Despite a report suggesting otherwise, Auburn president Steven Leath is denying a report that says a decision has been made essentially ending the tenure of Jay Jacobs as athletics director at Auburn soon.

According to a AL.com report published Friday evening, Auburn's president Steven Leath and board of trustees are moving to removing Jacobs as the school’s highest ranked athletics official tenure as athletics director before the end of the 2017 football season.

“The report is inaccurate,” Leath’s statement reads. “Jay Jacobs is the Athletics Director, and I have had no such conference call with the Board of Trustees.”

It should be noted that the AL.com report never directly says Leath was on any such conference call but a spokesperson for the Leath's office told the Montgomery Advertiser late Friday evening that the university is contending that Leath has reached any such conclusion on Jacobs' tenure as athletics director. However, when asked directly via e-mail by the Montgomery Advertiser if Leath is denying Jacobs has negotiated with the university president and board of trustee members the terms and date of his resignation/retirement, a response was not immediately given.

Multiple phone and text messages sent to Jacobs by the Montgomery Advertiser Friday evening have yet to be returned.

Jacobs, a former walk-on football player under head coach Pat Dye, was hired as athletics director was named to his current position in 2004 after working in school’s athletics department for the previous 20 years.

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Leath, who was named the school’s new president in June, declined to give Jacobs any future assurances and declined to speak on the athletics director’s future at Auburn in a recent Q&A with the university newspaper.

“I'm supposed to be running the entire university. Athletics is just one component of it. And in athletics, I am completely focused on these charges of serious misconduct by a suspended coach,” Leath said to The Auburn Plainsman. “I don't have the time or the bandwidth right now to speculate on what might happen in the future. I'm running the university, making sure the students are successful and dealing with these serious misconduct charges right now.”

In the most recent board of trustees meeting, it took the school’s board 15 minutes worth of debate and penetrating questioning to approve just a vote on moving forward for a new video board in the North end zone of Jordan-Hare Stadium despite Jacobs saying during the question and answer portion of the debate that the funds for the video board were “already in the (athletic department 2017-18) budget.”

More:Auburn AD Jay Jacobs on softball investigation: 'I could have been more forthcoming'

In the last few months, the Auburn athletics department has seen scandals rock multiple sports including a Title IX complaint from a former softball player detailing an inappropriate relationship between then-assistant coach Corey Myers and a possible cover-up by his father and head coach Clint Myers along with other Auburn athletics officials. Clint Myers and Corey Myers were both allowed to retire and resign respectively within the last calendar year but Jacobs himself admitted he “could’ve been more forthcoming” in regards to questions about the Title IX investigation.

Currently Auburn is dealing with a scandal involving the men’s basketball program as men’s basketball assistant coach Chuck Person has been arrested and charged with six federal crimes including bribery conspiracy, solicitation of bribes and gratuities, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and travel act conspiracy.

More:Jay Jacobs wants to 'move forward' with Auburn softball program

Jacobs has had several recent coaching hires go awry and end in disgrace during his tenure at Auburn including Myers, football coach Gene Chizik, basketball coach Tony Barbee and baseball coach Sunny Golloway. Now with a new scandal involving the men’s basketball program, questions have begun to service about current men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl, another controversial hire as Jacobs tab him while he was still under a NCAA show-cause penalty. Pearl declined comment on seven different questions Friday while attempting to shift a 10-minute media conference to what he called “basketball-related questions”.

More:Bruce Pearl calls alleged Chuck Person conduct ‘unacceptable’ then repeatedly declines further comment

Auburn athletics department has retained the services of the law firm Lightfoot, Franklin & White to conduct an internal investigation of the men’s basketball program following the arrest and indictment of Person. Lightfoot, Franklin & White is the same law firm Auburn athletics has hired to conduct an investigation into the softball program and the school’s investigation into a former player’s Title IX complaint.