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Nebraska president backs Scott Frost, Bill Moos, said school never threatened to leave B1G

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

University of Nebraska System President Ted Carter is coming to the defense of head football coach Scott Frost, athletic director Bill Moos and Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor Ronnie Green. After a media frenzy last week that painted Nebraska as the “bad guy” in the B1G, Carter wanted to clear the air.

Last Tuesday, the University of Nebraska issued a joint statement from Carter, Green, Moos and Frost indicating that they were disappointed with the B1G’s decision to postpone fall sports, including the football season. In the statement, the Huskers said that they would explore options for competition this fall.

That statement was blown out of proportion — primarily by analysts and hosts at ESPN.

Michael Wilbon, Desmond Howard and Paul Finebaum all blasted Nebraska over that comment, saying they should be “kicked out of the B1G” for “threatening to leave” the conference. The problem is, Nebraska never actually threatened to leave the B1G.

Carter cleared the air on Monday morning, while also defending those who received serious backlash for the statement.

“I think I speak for everyone in the state of Nebraska, it’s been really frustrating,” Carter said on KLIN News Talk. “All we said — and I support Scott Frost, Bill Moos, Ronnie Green and myself, all the way up to the governor — we all want to compete. And I think that’s what we were really saying. We want every opportunity to compete as members of the B1G. I think it’s been pretty obvious that we didn’t agree with the vote that occurred. So, that’s not a secret anymore.

“But we never said that we were threatening or that we would leave the B1G to try to achieve some sort of football schedule. This university worked so hard to get into the B1G in 2010. …We are members of the B1G and we intend to stay members of the B1G. …The media took advantage of some statements that were made and turned that into something that it wasn’t.”

Nebraska initially joined the B1G as a member of the football conference in 2011, coming from the Big 12 Conference.

While Nebraska were involved in plenty of headlines last week over the B1G’s decision, a lot were unwarranted. The Huskers were searching for all opportunities to play football, and that was really the end of the story.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB