It’s been more than four years since the controversial and opinion-laden Ole Miss chancellor search brought in Glenn Boyce as its leader.

Before the pandemic and before Ole Miss’ current level of across-the-board success, the task to replace Jeffrey Vitter, whose maligned tenure added to the lack of confidence in the process, seemed to be one of the biggest decisions for the university in the modern era.

The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, an appointed board in charge of all Mississippi public colleges and universities, had final say in the process and would eventually tab Boyce as Vitter’s successor months after hiring Boyce as a consultant to find the next chancellor.

Protestors halted Boyce’s introductory press conference, and the final days of the search seemed to break protocol and push cronyism with Boyce also previously being an IHL commissioner. Many university stakeholders, at that environment in time, wanted candidates with outside experience and resumes beyond Mississippi.

The favorite of a lot of people during that search — including hand raised — was Arizona chancellor Bobby Robbins, who is a Mississippi native and holds degrees from Millsaps and Ole Miss. He was previously the chair of the Stanford Cardiothoracic Department and the CEO of the Texas Medical Center before Arizona hired him in 2017.

This website — and primarily me — covered that search as comprehensively as anything outside of athletics in my time here, recognizing the seemingly fork-in-the-road moment that existed. We published stories (here and here) about Boyce’s lack of mandate in the days after his hiring, showing how time and success would be needed to move past the connotations associated with the search.

More than 50 months have passed, and Ole Miss recently announced another record student enrollment. The 2024 incoming class is expected to be another sharp increase, creating good problems such as infrastructure issues instead of student recruitment and brand struggles.

Boyce told me last year that freshmen retention is nearly 90 percent — one of the top numbers nationally.

Boyce, in 2020, navigated the Confederate monument move from the center of campus to the Confederate cemetery. Multiple times he issued statements saying the IHL had exclusive authority while pointing out the university had fulfilled its obligations for the move.

It was a key public relations win (even though the IHL followed suit without any severe issue once the vote was going to be unanimous), showing he was backing the university and not beholden to the IHL.

Earlier that year, Ole Miss secured funding for the new STEM building on campus, named for Tom and Jim Duff, who donated $26 million to the project. It opens later this year.

Ole Miss bringing back in-person classes when it did concerning the pandemic also contributed to the university’s enrollment rise.

On the athletics side, Boyce has supported and been a solid voice for athletics director Keith Carter during a transcendent time for Rebel sports. Key personnel decisions during this time period have led to success in the three major men’s sports.

There have been many times Ole Miss wouldn’t have hired Lane Kiffin and Chris Beard. He hasn’t been a stop sign for Ole Miss pushing through into this new era of college athletics. Vitter would have been a 100-foot titanium structure in the middle of the road.

I don’t pretend to be privy to all the university’s inner-workings or what all the faculty would say, but the chancellor job is a scoreboard business. Ole Miss is clearly in a better position than the day he was hired. It’s not close or debatable. His lack of public visibility is likely the largest critique to date. That says a lot.

Meanwhile, Robbins is currently embattled at Arizona, recently announcing that the university has a $240 million miscalculation in cash reserves that Robbins said left the university in a financial crisis.

The United Campus Workers of Arizona union, comprised of faculty, staff and student workers, called for Robbins’ resignation with a 90 percent majority. Arizona CFO Lisa Rulney stepped down in December but remains as a senior advisor at her CFO salary of $506,325, per the Arizona Daily Star, though it seems the arrangement will end in June.

Robbins fired athletics director Dave Heeke on Monday, saying the decision was made because of the department’s financial “disaster,” major donor loss and Jedd Fisch’s contract prior to him leaving for Washington. Reports say an Arizona Athletic Department audit will reveal major issues in the coming days.

Robbins and Heeke led the search for Fisch and navigated the federal investigation into the basketball program. Robbins has been known as a pro-sports president, but the early hours of this dismissal seem to have more fire on Robbins than Heeke.

Arizona’s move to the Big 12 is also a definite Robbins’ achievement, as Pac 12 programs were at risk of being castoffs in realignment. He made the one move that may allow the Wildcats to survive.

Arizona is considering cutting sports with its conference move and budget issues. The Big 12 programs sponsor fewer sports on average than the Pac 12.

Robbins is a talented fundraiser and has had a plethora of difficult things thrown on his desk in these seven years. Just like with Boyce, I have no idea at the inner-workings, but the public scoreboard isn’t kind to Robbins’ tenure currently. In this instant-gratification world, the conference move seems like ages ago.

History has been kind to the IHL’s decision on Boyce. No matter the method, it’s impossible to argue its positives and down-stream value as time has passed.

Who knows what Robbins would have been like in Oxford. His difficulty level in Tucson is immense and not anywhere near apples to apples. But it’s hard to envision that it would overall eclipse what Ole Miss has accomplished during this time.

Boyce has gone from maligned by a majority to a majority mandate. His record shows the success.