Ex-Nebraska AD Claims He Plotted to Remove Cornhuskers From Big Ten

If you can believe it, Nebraska has been in the Big Ten for nearly a generation.

When the Cornhuskers kick off conference football play against Michigan State on Sept. 26, it will be the start of their 16th season of Big Ten football. At that point, Nebraska will have been in its current conference longer than it played in the Big 12 (1996 to 2010).

Life in the Big Ten has made the Cornhuskers fabulously wealthy, but it has had a debilitating effect on what once was one of the nation’s proudest football programs. Nebraska has won 10 games just once while in the conference (2012), and it missed a bowl game every year from 2017 to ‘23.

Recognizing this fact—coupled with the Cornhuskers’ alienation from traditional rivals such as Colorado and Oklahoma—former Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos tried to steer the team back to the Big 12 during his tenure, he claims in his recent memoir.

Moos published Crab Creek Chronicles, which covers his rise from a rural Washington upbringing to a long career in college athletics administration, Monday via Story Bridge Agency. In an excerpt posted to social media by Matt McMaster of KOZN-AM in Bellevue, Neb., Moos—the Cornhuskers’ athletic director from 2017 to ‘21—recalled approaching Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby about a return.

“My scheme centered around having my old friend Pat Kilkenny reach out to Bob Bowlsby, the Big 12 conference commissioner, whom I had befriended during our time together in the Pac-12,” Moos wrote.

Moos then arranged a meeting with Bowlsby while attending a Cowboys game in the Dallas area. Bowlsby was receptive, but the idea seems to have died on the vine.

The ex-Washington State offensive tackle retired from his role in 2021 and was replaced by Trev Alberts, who has since departed for Texas A&M. Troy Dannen now holds the role, and Nebraska—for better or for worse—is still a member of the Big Ten.

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