The Nebraska football program, and the Nebraska athletic department in general has been in kind of a weird place for the last several years. There was a time when the Cornhuskers were one of the best programs in the country, no matter the sport. There was the time when the football team and the volleyball team won national titles the same year. There was the time the football team was contending for titles at the same time the basketball team was going to the NCAA tournament. The baseball team was making trips to the College World Series as well.
Nebraska football was saved, but might not have saved Bill Moos
Those days are long gone and in their place has come an era where no job in the department is very safe. Having said all that, it's still surprising and confusing for most Husker fans to see rumors of a relatively new Nebraska AD being in trouble. Bill Moos has largely been met with support and good will since he arrived in Lincoln in the fall of 2017.
Moos came from Washington State, where he had successfully rebuilt the Cougars' football program. It appears he's started doing the same with the Nebraska football program after the hiring of Scott Frost. In the end, it may not mean all that much as there have been some nebulous behind the scenes incidents that have whispers swirling around Lincoln that Moos isn't going to be able to finish out the month.
As is the case in college sports, for now, there isn't anything all that concrete. For now, most of those rumors are coming from social media. That's the platform where it doesn't take much more than a couple of people confidently announcing they know what they are talking about. Say it enough times on Twitter and people start to believe it's the unvarnished truth.
The interesting thing about these rumors is that they aren't stopping. It appears more and more Husker fans are at least wondering if there is indeed smoke and then there is indeed fire.
Not making it through March
The biggest blow and the thing that has fueled the rumors the most is a Reddit poster named IDontBelieveInIsms.
This particular poster is well known in that community as someone who is an "insider." They posted, "I will just make this statement now. There will very likely be some stuff that comes out in the very near future from around the AD. It has been an ongoing issue. It has very likely come to its logical end. The same McKweon article today was a man digging a PR grave. Someone’s body is going to end up in that grave. It is unfortunate that sometimes help doesn’t help and people have their demons. To give you an idea, I expect Tim Miles to outlast Bill Moos."
From @swmckewonOWH: #Husker fans stay loyal. They show up, get loud. They do all the right things.
— World-Herald Big Red (@OWHbigred) January 28, 2019
Still — not much winning. And it’s here where you wonder if Athletic Director Bill Moos is fully aware of just how lean times have been.
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The Sam McKewon article the poster was referring to was one where the Omaha World Herald author pointed out that Bill Moos has been quite silent even as the Nebraska basketball season spirals out of control.
McKewon didn't hint one of the reasons for the silence is that he's about to lose his job.
There have been rumblings of something bad having happened involving the man who could still be credited with reviving the Nebraska football program behind the scenes. Those rumors point to a couple of rather embarrassing episodes that could end up leading to Bill Moos' firing. If they come true, it would be yet another blow to an athletic program that has had a truly bad decade and a half.