Say what you want about Nebraska.

The state cares too much about football. The drive down I-80 is anything but scenic. Runzas are glorified Hot Pockets.

You could take either side of those takes.

What cannot be denied is that the football program has made some mistakes in the 21st century. Firing Frank Solich and hiring Bill Callahan didn’t work out. Neither did letting Shawn Eichorst go rogue to bring in Mike Riley. The “Calabraska” movement blew up in the program’s face, and Scott Frost putting his faith in true freshman Adrian Martinez instead of recruiting grad transfer Joe Burrow will go down as one of the bigger personnel blunders in recent memory.

(Personally, I don’t think it was a mistake for Nebraska to bang the drum for playing football last year. If the Huskers weren’t a national punching bag, they would’ve been praised instead of getting mocked for that. If you still view that as a mistake after the B1G reversed course because it didn’t want to get left out while other Power 5 conferences played, that’s a “you” problem.)

The latest mistake involved Bill Moos. What that mistake was remains to be seen. All we know is that hiring an athletic director who “retires” less than 4 years into getting the job — for whatever reason — is a tough look.

In many ways, Moos’ tenure is a microcosm of Nebraska’s 21st century struggles.

Even when the Huskers appear to do the right thing, it’s still wrong. Looking back on Moos’ tenure, what did he really do that didn’t have the vast majority of public support? Yeah, the guy said that Michigan and Ohio State were “running a little bit scared” before Frost coached a game. Not ideal. Beat Iowa first, guy.

But with the exception of an occasionally slipping into buzzed booster mode with a microphone in front of him, Moos did exactly what Nebraska fans could’ve hoped for, and it still looks like a disaster.

Go back to 2017. The list of candidates to replace Riley was 1-deep. It was Frost, AKA the National Coach of the Year who turned down Florida like he was passing on dessert at the end of a gut-busting dinner. Moos had that locked in before Frost’s regular season at UCF came to a close. It was the home-run hire. It was the only move he could make. Anybody but Frost and Moos would’ve instantly been in Eichorst territory among the fanbase.

We can talk about graduation rates and hiring coaches for non-big revenue sports, but in this era of big revenue sports, an athletic director’s tenure is defined by hiring head coaches. Go back to when Moos hired Frost. Was there a single negative word to be said? Nope. At least not one of any significance. Moos was credited for correcting Eichorst’s mistake, and he was going to eventually get credit for returning Nebraska to national relevance. Or so we thought.

Shoot, what about Moos’ other big-time hire of Fred Hoiberg? Sure, he wasn’t poached like Frost, but Hoiberg came from the Chicago Bulls, who had previously poached him from Iowa State.

Needless to say, the 2 big-time hires of Moos’ tenure haven’t exactly worked out so far:

  • Win-loss
    • Frost — 12-20 (.375)
    • Hoiberg — 14-45 (.237)
  • B1G record
    • Frost — 12-20 (.375)
    • Hoiberg — 5-34 (.128)
  • vs. AP Top 25
    • Frost — 0-7
    • Hoiberg — 0-16

That last stat might be the most stunning. Think about that. That’s just shy of 5 combined seasons in which Frost and Hoiberg were at Nebraska while Moos was, and neither beat a ranked team. Even the biggest Nebraska skeptics couldn’t have predicted that type of start.

And as much as some want to continue to blame Riley for the long road to rebuilding that Frost inherited, he still had a team that started off ranked and was picked to win the B1G West in 2019 … only to lose 5 of the final 6 games and miss out on a bowl.

In the middle of that late-season free fall, Moos gave Frost a 2-year extension through 2026. It was seen as a nod that the rebuilding job was perhaps a bit steeper of a climb than originally expected. Moos looked like the athletic director who was all in.

“We’re all a little frustrated, I know, because of our record, but we’re in it for the long haul and building a program, and it’s going to take several years,” Moos said Nov. 16, 2019 (via Journal Star). “It just made sense to do it now — I was going to do it anyway. And this, I think, is a good piece for some good morale and good energy in our program.”

Momentum was what Moos wanted. Even though Frost followed that up by signing 2 more top-25 recruiting classes (all 4 of his classes ranked as such), Moos was rewarded with a 4-7 record.

Is it fair to punish Moos for Martinez’s lack of development under Frost? Or is it Moos’ fault that Nebraska just had its 5th consecutive NFL Draft without a player selected in the first 2 days? And what about the fact that since last September, 17 Nebraska players entered the transfer portal?

That stuff, I’d argue, is on Frost. Moos bet on the extension working in the program’s favor, and now, it just looks like Nebraska added $10 million to a contract of a coach without any other suitors. Having said that, that extension was never going to make or break Frost’s Nebraska tenure.

Some would argue that another decision from a decade ago had a more lasting impact than any contract extension. Leaving the Big 12 for the B1G, in hindsight, looks like a move that hurt the program. Former players like Will Compton attributed that as to why the Huskers are in their current predicament.

But at the time, the move made perfect sense. The Big 12 was in limbo following the departure of Colorado and Texas was seriously discussing leaving the conference. In 2010 after the move to the B1G was official, Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman told the AP “the Big Ten offers stability “that the Big 12 simply cannot offer.”

To be fair, he was right. At least financially. Beginning in 2017, Nebraska began receiving full TV revenue shares. That was a $54 million payout for the 2017-18 school year. In 2019, the Big 12’s average TV revenue distributions per school were $38.8 million (excluding local Tier-3 media rights that are owned by the school).

Two things can be true at the same time. Nebraska made the wise financial move by jumping ship when it did. Nebraska also had a clearer identity recruiting and playing against programs in the Big 12 geographical footprint. The latter has obviously become a more pressing issue. The fact that more money didn’t coincide with a more successful decade is the baffling part.

Moos spearheaded a fundraising campaign that raised enough money for Nebraska’s new $155 million football and athletics facility project. It was delayed a year because of the pandemic, yet Moos didn’t lose any funding from donors. It was a short 2 months ago that Nebraska finally broke ground and Moos praised the loyalty of those involved.

In many ways, Moos was exactly what Nebraska fans could’ve wanted. No athletic director in America was more outspoken about the desire to play football last year, he banged the drum for relaxing crowd capacity restrictions, he cried foul when Nebraska’s adjusted all-B1G schedule became more challenging than any fellow West team and he was undoubtedly loyal to his fan favorite hire Frost. Almost to a fault.

Frost actually said in 2019 that he probably wouldn’t have come back to his alma mater if not for Moos. Two years later, Moos “retired” with a year and a half left on his contract. That word is in air quotes because not only was Moos 4 months removed from saying “I want to stay here until we get back,” the Nebraska AD said after last week’s sudden announcement came that he was “informed” that he would be retiring.

Read into that what you will. What’s clear is that in the 21st century, even when it looks like Nebraska is right, it’s wrong. The 20th century dominance will always prevent the masses from feeling any sort of pity for the Huskers’ current struggles. Maybe it’s the college football gods’ way of evening things out. Or maybe it’s simply a byproduct of a cutthroat business with little margin for error.

Whatever the case, Moos will leave Nebraska even messier than when he found it, yet his name likely won’t accompany expletives from the Nebraska faithful in the way his predecessor’s did (and still does). That’s because Moos did what most in his shoes would’ve done.

To quote Outkast, “you can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.”

The cloud is still hanging over Nebraska, and there’s no sign when the rain is letting up.