AD Alberts' departure dredges up familiar questions about NU athletics

Just how chaotic are things at Nebraska given AD Trev Alberts chose Reveille over Runzas?

How good do you think the University of Nebraska leadership believes Nebraska athletics should be? It’s a simple question with a lot to consider, including financial health, academic performance, fan satisfaction and, of course, wins and losses.

For now, let’s keep it to the fields, courts and everywhere else Huskers compete. How good does Nebraska think Nebraska should be?

We don’t have to guess. It’s been written into at least the last two Athletic Director contracts.

The National Association of Collegiate Athletic Directors debuted the Directors’ Cup in 1993–94 as a way to measure overall competitive excellence across men’s and women’s sports. It’s a simple scoring system—I won’t bore you with the details, it scores programs on how highly they’re ranked, essentially—but what matters is that it’s how the trade organization for ADs has decided to keep score.

Nebraska finished 18th in those first rankings, then spent the next four years inside the top 10, climbing as high as fourth in 1996–97. Over the first 10 years of the Cup, ending with the 2002–03 seasons, Nebraska’s average rank was 12.5. Over the next 10 years that average rank dropped to 27.5. In our current 10-year window, including this year’s in-progress rankings, the Huskers average out at 36.4.

AD Trev Alberts, who shockingly left Nebraska for Texas A&M Wednesday, had a Director’s Cup incentive in his contract. If the Huskers finished in the top 20, he received a $200,000 bonus. Finish in the top 15 and Alberts received 110% of that amount, between 21st and 25th earned 90% of the base amount, 26th to 30th earned 80% and anything outside the top-30 meant no bonus. Bill Moos had the same structure.

How good does Nebraska think Nebraska should be? Those numbers suggest top-20. Top-15 would be really getting it done.

Husker athletics hasn’t ranked in the top 20 in the Directors’ Cup since 2010 and it hasn’t reached the top 15 since 2001.

Why? I have an idea.

If you look at Nebraska football and wonder why it hasn’t been able to get back on track, having five different coaches over the past 20 years can’t be a good sign. Hard to build something good, much less good and sustainable, through that much change.

It’s been even worse for the Huskers with the AD’s chair. When Nebraska hires its next athletic director it will be the department’s fifth since joining the Big Ten in 2011, sixth if you count Dave Rimington’s interim stint in 2017. Eight of the conference’s now-18 teams have only had two ADs over that span. Ohio State and Oregon—the two most successful Big Ten athletic programs during that stretch—have only had one.

USC is the lone Big Ten team that’s gotten to four ADs over the last 14 years, and the Trojans are not the company you want to keep if you’re a functional athletic department. Pat Haden resigned in 2016, but his five-year tenure was most remembered for firing Lane Kiffin on a tarmac in 2013 and then firing his replacement, Steve Sarkisian, barely two years later following reports of Sarkisian’s alcohol abuse.¹ Lynn Swann resigned in 2019 after multiple scandals marred his brief tenure. Mike Bohn landed Lincoln Riley, a major coup at the time, but resigned abruptly last spring just ahead of damning reports of creating a hostile work environment.

Nebraska’s revolving door at AD hasn’t come with those kind of scandals or tawdry details, so that’s good, but isn’t the practical effect of that much change essentially the same either way? You’re still effectively talking about a business that does more than $100 million in revenue every year, yet it’s constantly under new ownership? Not exactly the surest sign of overall health. Each change comes with a new management style, new goals, new initiatives.

I’ve never tried to do it, but this seems like a terrible way to build and maintain consistent winners. It makes the programs that have succeeded consistently at Nebraska during the Big Ten era—pretty much just volleyball and wrestling among the major spectator sports—stand out. They might be succeeding despite what, in light of Alberts’ departure, only looks more like chaos.

Incidentally, or perhaps not, those two programs have had the same head coaches for all of the 21st Century.

Nebraska doesn’t have that luxury as it again goes in search of a new AD. The new hire won’t make the Huskers’ recent history of continual change go away on day one, but Nebraska needs to put stability at the top of its desired traits this time around.

Of course, the University probably thought it had that with Alberts. I did. That’s why Wednesday’s news came as such a surprise.

Texas A&M has had a better athletic program over the past decade. If we want to revisit the Directors’ Cup as our baseline measure for competitive success, the Aggies ranked 19th on average over the past 10 years, about 18 spots better than Nebraska. Of note, however, Nebraska (29th) finished just five spots behind A&M (24th) in 2022, and the Huskers (33rd) led the Aggies (43rd) in this year’s fall rankings with NU set to get a decent boost from men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling.

Beyond the on-field comparison, it’s hard to see a lot that’s different between Alberts’ old job and his new one. The Big Ten and SEC both offer as much power and earning potential as a program can have today. Alberts will reportedly make $2 million per year in College Station, $300,000 more than he was set to make annually at Nebraska.

What happened? That story will continue to be fleshed out in the days ahead and it’s sure to be full of even more palace intrigue, but I think a pair of statements point toward the potential issue.

In his statement released by Texas A&M, Alberts said, in part (emphasis mine), “My interest in Texas A&M is not only due to its prestigious reputation but also because of President [Mark] Welsh’s compelling vision…”

The Alberts statement released by Nebraska read, in part (emphasis mine again), “Tough decisions will need to be made and unity of vision and high execution will be necessary, but I am confident that leadership in Nebraska will rise to the occasion.”

Based on what? What from the Huskers’ Big Ten era inspires confidence in the decision ahead?

Everyone invested in Nebraska athletics, either officially or even just as a fan, wants the same thing—a return to prominence. But Alberts’ departure shows yet again that the sum of a bunch of individual desires still isn’t as strong as leadership that can combine them into a singular plan.

I thought Alberts was on that path. Now I’m left to wonder why he, presumably, didn’t.

1. To be fair to Haden, Kiffin and Sarkisian are currently leading successful stints at Mississippi and Texas respectively.