Nebraska finally admits Big Ten hasn’t worked and wanted out originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Former Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos said the Huskers “actively” explored leaving the Big Ten Conference and returning to the Big 12 Conference during his tenure in Lincoln. This is according to revelations in his new book “Crab Creek Chronicles.”
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Moos led Nebraska’s athletic department from 2017 to 2021 and wrote that fan frustration over long and costly travel to Big Ten road games prompted him to quietly gauge interest in a potential move back to the Huskers’ former conference home.
“Knowledge of this prompted me to implement my stealth approach to exploring possibilities by secretly testing the waters of returning to what was still known as the Big 12,” Moos wrote.
He said his plan involved asking former Oklahoma athletic director Pat Kilkenny to contact then-Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby to determine whether a reunion was realistic.
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Elsewhere in the book, Moos detailed his push to hire former Oregon coach Chip Kelly in 2017, only to encounter resistance from university leadership. Kelly was soon hired by UCLA. He ultimately hired Scott Frost, Nebraska’s former quarterback. He went 16-31 and was fired early in the 2022 season.
Whether or not Nebraska is still looking to get of remains to be seen. However, a move back to the Big 12 might happen sometime in the future.
