The Departure of Trev

If you’re anything like me, you were frustrated and confused when news broke that our athletic director would be leaving and heading to College Station. A guy who has his name on our stadium and seemingly had our athletic teams heading in the right direction was apparently frustrated with multiple things, enough to have him seeking employment elsewhere. We go into what we’ve heard and what finally drove him to head elsewhere.

I’ll apologize in advance about all the links to other articles we have written, but it’s more to show that things that we have talked about and said to us are/were still an issue whether that was just for Trev or not is for you to decide. And in some cases, the issue did a complete 180.

First, we did an article about our NIL, boosters being confused, and the AAU a few months prior to all of these developments and if you haven’t read it yet, we will reference a lot of these things that eventually ended up having Trev leave. Article here:

Nebraska and The Collective

We also had an initial reaction to Alberts leaving and some things that had been brewing here:

The Departure of Trev Alberts

But let’s get into what we’ve all heard. When things like this happen people try so hard to make sense of things that rumors spread quicker than a Kardashians legs with an NBA player around. We heard Alberts was mad there was no President (we referenced why that could be an issue in one of the above articles). We also had people saying that Alberts was frustrated on who the next President was going to be. But then you have someone like Mike’l Severe saying that Gold who Nebraska selected was who Alberts was pushing for to get the President job as he had worked with him at his previous role at UNO. So he was mad, or he was happy? From what i’m told, WHO was going to be President wasn’t the concern.

You also heard how the political landscape as well as the Board of Regents may have had a hand in what was transpiring with Alberts. While I do think there’s some issues there such as length of time to get things done, then Alberts leaves and it’s all done in a week, from what I have been told that’s not exactly the reason he left. We have things we need to correct on that end, but it’s not inevitably why Alberts is gone. It’s much easier and quite frankly an easier fix than a massive systemic problem from what i’m told.

The Stadium Project
As we referenced in the above article(s), the stadium project that Alberts began getting funding for prior to the football facility completion was running behind. The high profile person that told me they believed it would continue to get shaved down for lesser and lesser dollar amounts and scope of the project said as much to us before other things started coming into play. Alberts wanted his brick and mortar project to cement his legacy here, but he was far short of his goal to get that done in February of 2024.

Another article we wrote back in 2022 talked about how Davison gave a speech that spring when he was still on Frost’s staff how lucky we were to have had the football facility project approved before NIL came around due to the fact some teams are now having to choose between upgrading facilities or paying players. That article is linked here:

NIL Reality for Nebraska

Interesting… I reference A&M quite a bit in that article how they don’t have near the constraints that Nebraska has. And remember I wrote that prior to Davison being with 1890 and prior to Alberts leaving. While Ole Miss put a project on pause, A&M continued to pour money into not only buying players but upgrading their facilities. They weren’t having to pick and choose like what was happening in Nebraska.

Alberts vs The Collective
While I won’t name names, Alberts and our collective didn’t quite see eye to eye on many things. He believed that the majority of the dollars that could have been coming his way were getting put towards the collective, while people on the 1890 side believed that is what will help us win as opposed to a better South Stadium. Then you have a 7 figure NIL deal going towards a prized QB recruit and Alberts gets a little frustrated.

The 180 we talked about at the beginning of this article is how Davison was saying how fortunate they are to have the facility now built while he was a part of the football staff. He did a lot of heavy lifting for the funding with the now newly opened facility (which is unreal fwiw). Fast-forward to 2024 just two years later and Davison is now taking money AWAY from facility projects in an effort to bring those dollars to Nebraska’s collective. That’s gotta be frustrating for Alberts.

And how many times did you hear Alberts outwardly promote 1890 to people? Not often, that was Rhule doing the majority of talking for that. While Alberts did mention them on occasion as you can’t just forget them all together if you want to win, Trev wanted the NIL stuff in-house so that he could have a better handle on the finances. Now our new AD is saying things like he wants to wear 1890 shirts… quite the contrast.

AD Dannen just said if you think the last 5 yrs was wild in college athletics, the next 5 years are going to put them to shame.

That said, NU is positioned as well as any school to succeed today.

Dannen went on to say you'll see him wearing 1890 gear as much as Husker gear.

— Go Big Redcast 🎙 (@GoBigRedCast) March 26, 2024

Essentially what was going on is you had Davison vs Alberts for donations, you had a dynamic where Alberts had actually fired Frost and Davison, and it was just weird all around for that. No doubt in my mind that when things would have came in-house it would have shifted who was heading the NIL aspect for Nebraska. I think they could have worked around this, but the totality of other things I talk about made it just another reason he was looking around.

The AAU
But here is the crux of the deal… Alberts failed to reach his donations for the stadium project, he was in constant battles against 1890 trying to get funding for the project vs NIL, and now Nebraska has made getting back into the AAU a massive priority.

Funds from the University are going to need to be sent towards re-establishing our place within the AAU, not going to 450 million dollars for a South Stadium project. So now Alberts is not only battling a collective who has a main person getting funds from boosters/donors that believes you have to choose between the two, but also a University that is going to put priority on getting back to the AAU which will take more dollars than what they are currently spending.

A massive amount of AAU status is how much spending you are doing with research dollars. Here is where Nebraska ranks in the B1G for research dollars:

#4 Michigan ($1,770,708,000)
#6 UCLA ($1,536,197,000)
#8 Wisconsin ($1,523,513,000)
#11 Ohio State University ($1,363,388,000)
#19 Maryland ($1,228,550,000)
#20 Minnesota ($1,202,084,000)
#27 USC ($1,039,905,000)
#28 PSU ($1,019,940,000)
#29 Northwestern ($1,000,695,000)
#39 Illinois ($765,909,000)
#40 Michigan State ($759,229,000)
#41 Purdue ($754,627,000)
#42 Indiana ($751,309,000)
#46 Rutgers ($712,231,000)
#52 Iowa ($594,215,000)

#87 Nebraska ($340,260,000)
#131 UNMC ($205,253,000)

https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingBySource&ds=herd

So if you take a look at that spending, even if you combine Nebraska and UNMC, we are dead last within the B1G. More money that is already being spent within our University is going to have to go towards research to get back within AAU status. With that said, we probably are already spending enough to be AAU members, it’s about getting back in their good graces.

Would the B1G really kick us out without AAU status?
I’ve seen this tossed around a bit, that Nebraska is too influential to be kicked out due to that. But Nebraska hasn’t been relevant in football in a long time. I think Rhule has us on the right path, but what if we stay what we are and still don’t have AAU status? Staying off the radar is paramount and showing that you care about something that every other school does within your conference goes a long ways.

As I talk to some reps about all the time, will I really fire you if you aren’t logging your SalesForce entries? Probably not, especially if you’re hitting your number. But if you miss a couple years in a row, and you aren’t doing the things everyone else is doing, the microscope gets dialed in.

Stadium Project Falling Short and AAU Status Taking Priority
Again, we were writing the articles about how the stadium project was falling well short of the 450 million that they were looking for. Estimates were saying it was going to be closer to 600 million. And with things looking like getting AAU status were going to take priority on top of the fact that NIL was taking donations, Trev needed to look for ways to make it seem like this stadium project didn’t just benefit athletics or the football team, but academics as well.

In the fall of 2023 Trev made numerous visits to campuses to see how he could increase revenue streams, emphasize the fan experience, but the big one was heading to Notre Dame so he could learn about academic integration into the stadium. Trev knew that if he was going to get the money he needed, this couldn’t be just a football upgrade (as it was being seen now). He tried letting people know that this stadium wouldn’t just be used on the 7 home football games.

He was falling short, the marketing campaign was in full effect that this isn’t just a football upgrade.

So A&M is where he ends up
Trev had an interesting quote:

What i’ve heard it came down to was the fact that if Trev really wants to make his mark with facilities and other things at the University he is the Athletic Director for, he was going to need to head elsewhere. Besides hiring/firing/extending coaches, the athletic department wasn’t going to be able to move the needle in his eyes. Without a President things were just difficult for him, and with Nebraska needing to head to get back in the good graces of AAU and gain back that membership, things weren’t going to get easier. After all, his big stadium project was the staple of what he was trying to do, and it was falling on its face.

Meanwhile, you have Texas A&M that believe that athletics play a vital role in the success of academics, so they align with Trev’s theory there that he was struggling with while in Lincoln as more and more money was going to be taken from him:

While Nebraska was trying to just move academics to the front of the line for resources, and Trev still having to fight it out with NIL for money with what he was trying to do, it got tough. You also have clips like this from the Manziel documentary and A&M less than a year ago:

https://videopress.com/v/JrkhOoPF?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

So you have an administration that wholeheartedly believes that athletics play a vital role and isn’t fighting off the ropes to gain membership somewhere. But then you also are moving to the 2nd largest pool of money in the country (behind Oregon).

Nebraska sits 42nd behind Iowa State:

So when we circle this back to what Trev was struggling with, I remind you of the “my heart said something then my head would step in.” This didn’t come down to political games, hating or liking the new President, BoR taking too long, a lawsuit from women’s basketball, etc. In a time where revenue and donations are tougher than ever, heading to A&M gives him an endless pile of cash at his disposal that won’t be compromised so that a new academic building can be built. If they need money for a top recruit, it won’t come out of a project he is working on. For as much as we love the Peeds, A&M has close to 100 of those families. It’s just not even close.

Moving Forward
I can’t wait to see what the new AD does in conjunction with 1890. Ideas are already rolling to help with that, and I think you will see a more outward platform from oour athletic department in regards to this.

I think Trev did a great job here, athletics were trending up as our Directors Cup standings were the best they’ve been in years. But I don’t think it’s something that can’t be done by another person (sorry for the double negative). The South Stadium needs to be renovated, I still expect that to happen. However, I think they will narrow the scope down to closer to 250-300 million just to try and connect the concourses and not get as over the top with it.

Join us on Friday when we start our spring football position breakdown after we’ve seen 3 practices. We will start with quarterback and move on from there!