Sherman: With Trev Alberts out, Nebraska is left scrambling for answers — and stability (2024)

LINCOLN, Neb. — Overwhelmingly, the question posed most often Wednesday around the spinning inferno that engulfed Nebraska athletics started with one word.

Why?

Why would Trev Alberts leave Nebraska? Why now? Why would he consider a seemingly lateral move to Texas A&M? Why does this keep happening in Lincoln?

Word leaked before 9 a.m. via the Houston Chronicle that Alberts, the popular Nebraska athletic director and former Butkus Award-winning linebacker for the Huskers, was set to take over as the AD at A&M. Alberts notified staffers in Lincoln by email shortly before 5 p.m. that he was leaving.

To say this came as a shock in Nebraska qualifies as a gross understatement.

“What the heck’s going on?” four-time national-champion Nebraska volleyball coach John Cook replied in a morning text exchange.

Four months ago, when Alberts agreed to a salary-doubling contract extension through 2031, he said he considered his job at Nebraska as the best nationally for an athletic director.

“I love this place,” Alberts said in an interview with KETV. “I love the state of Nebraska. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

So what happened? Apparently, a lot.

Statements from Kabourek and Alberts. pic.twitter.com/e0BEAyeNmx

— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) March 13, 2024

Money rules the world. Texas A&M has a lot of it. But this was not entirely about money. Alberts was set to earn $1.7 million this year, placing him second highest among ADs in the Big Ten, and he was going to receive a $400,000 bump in 2026, with significant retention bonuses and salary reviews built into the deal.

If Alberts, 53, needed more money to feel secure at Nebraska, the university administration surely would have listened.

Foremost, this departure was about leadership. The fact that Nebraska doesn’t have the viable infrastructure in place above Alberts to responsibly hire his replacement says everything about the situation.

The campus chancellor in Lincoln, Rodney Bennett, came on board in July 2023 after Ronnie Green retired and the school handed guidance of Nebraska athletics to the university system president, Ted Carter. But then in August, Carter announced plans to leave for Ohio State.

Interim president Chris Kabourek has maintained oversight of Alberts and his department. The interim president said he plans to name an interim AD soon and begin a national search for Alberts’ replacement. “We will not hit pause,” Kabourek said in a statement released Wednesday.

Nearly seven months have passed since the University of Nebraska Board of Regents launched the search for a permanent president. Frustration is mounting over the delay — and the possible reasons for it, including a divisive political landscape marked by breadcrumbs that lead to the doorstep of the governor’s mansion.

Talented people (Ted Carter, Ronnie Green, Trev Alberts) leave a team when the leadership above them loses sight of the team's purpose. The team is the University. When the leadership cuts funding, and undermines the team's purpose with political dogma they leave. pic.twitter.com/kdbBhIDhvR

— Terry Pettit (@TerryPettit1) March 13, 2024

What else might have led Alberts to cast a wandering eye?

Last November, the Flatwater Free Press reported on allegedly shady accounting practices during Alberts’ time as AD at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Financial shortfalls occur regularly in college sports, and Nebraska operates in a different stratosphere than Omaha. Alberts left some problems for the Mavericks to fix, but they likely mattered little at Nebraska.

In February, former Nebraska women’s basketball player Ashley Scoggin accused former assistant coach Chuck Love of using his influence to groom her into a sexual relationship, according to a civil lawsuit that named Alberts among the defendants.

The lawsuit will follow him, though, and perhaps inflict as much damage against Alberts at Texas A&M as if he was found liable while at Nebraska.

Alberts’ star rose at Nebraska after his hire in July 2021 as he laid ambitious plans. The school struck a lucrative multimedia rights deal with PlayFly Sports. Alberts helped organize Volleyball Day in Nebraska last year.

He oversaw improvement on the basketball courts. The Nebraska men and women are set to play in the NCAA postseason next week, together for the first time since 2014. Of course, he pursued and hired Matt Rhule as football coach in 2022 and helped turn the momentum in a positive direction for the program that serves as Nebraska’s main revenue source.

Alberts conducted an exhaustive survey of fans about Memorial Stadium and launched an effort to overhaul the 100-year-old home of Nebraska football. The project is set to start in earnest after the 2024 season with a $450 million price tag.

Even if fundraising efforts hit a snag in this competitive environment for donor contributions, Alberts wouldn’t walk away for that reason alone.

His motivation to consider A&M was surely complex. Maybe Alberts saw the job in College Station as a stepping stone to something larger — a conference commissioner or leader in the next iteration of college football governance. While A&M is only slightly better positioned than Nebraska to win, its AD job rates as more prestigious nationally.

Still, it’s difficult for me to imagine a scenario in which two words spoken by Kabourek, the interim president, did not loom large for Alberts in this decision.

“Leadership matters.”

Now what? Well, Nebraska’s in a bad spot.

Kabourek recently described Alberts as “the right leader at the right time.”

“He understands this place,” Kabourek said. “He loves Nebraska. He understands the culture of our people. And he’s at the table on these really important discussions, whether it’s what’s happening with the football playoff or NIL or the changes in the NCAA.”

Kabourek helped Carter negotiate the deal that they believed would keep Alberts at Nebraska for years.

Without Alberts, Nebraska is well served first to identify a president. Functionally, it works to let the next president run the search for a new athletic director.

In 2002, Texas A&M took Nebraska’s AD, Bill Byrne. Byrne ran the show in Lincoln for a decade. He reached the mountaintop, but the Huskers in football and in basketball took steps back before he departed.

Alberts was still on the way up. Just getting started, in fact, in football. When he introduced Rhule in November 2022 and stood alongside Carter and Green, they presented a picture of unity.

Only Rhule remains. He likely would not have landed at Nebraska without the stability seemingly provided by Carter and Alberts.

It was a facade. And Rhule is left to build on his own. The school finds itself in a precarious spot with the second-year football coach. His future at Nebraska hinges in part on the decisions made by a transitioning administration that couldn’t satisfy an athletic director with three decades of history at the school.

Alberts’ exit casts a shadow above Nebraska’s run in basketball and the opening of spring football next week as five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola readies to debut on the practice field.

It calls into question the school’s ability to move forward on schedule with the Memorial Stadium renovation.

The Huskers might look inward to Cook, the 67-year-old volleyball coach, for stability and leadership.

Long term, Nebraska needs a strong leader to keep it relevant in the changing Big Ten. Garth Glissman, associate commissioner of the SEC and a dual-sport athlete for the Huskers 20 years ago, threw his name into the mix before the school hired Alberts.

Nebraska pursued Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard in 2021.

Rhule might want to have a word in this, too. But too many factions will likely only lead to unhappiness.

If Nebraska couldn’t find a path to harmony with the unified leadership in place less than a year ago, the task in front of it without Alberts is monumental.

(Top photo: Steven Branscombe / USA Today)

Mitch Sherman is a staff writer for The Athletic covering Nebraska football. He previously covered college sports for ESPN.com after working 13 years for the Omaha World-Herald. Mitch is an Omaha native and lifelong Nebraskan. Follow Mitch on Twitter @mitchsherman