1. This went down quickly, but decision was weeks in the making
Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos began his evaluation of head coach Mike Riley and the state of the football program with the Ohio State game on Oct. 14.
While Moos may have quickly made up his mind on relieving Riley of his duties at the end of the season, few others knew what was going to happen until early Saturday morning, including Riley.
Moos said he met with Riley at 9 a.m. and informed him of his decision, and then at 9:30 a.m. he met with the rest of the coaching staff. At 10 a.m. Moos announced the news to NU’s players and told them that linebackers coach Trent Bray would serve as the interim head coach until a full-time coach was hired.
As soon as Riley’s firing became public, the Huskers officially joined the national coaching search. But Moos made it clear that the wheels had been in motion for weeks leading up to Saturday, including third-party representatives reaching out to several potential candidates to gauge their interest in the job.
”I have had third-party people involved with the several agents representing representative search firms," Moos said. "That’s no secret. I said in my opening remarks that I was assessing things and checking all my options, and that’s the best way to do that is to have somebody else doing all that legwork on some of these people that I feel could be a good fit.”
2. Moos makes expectations clear
The big question now becomes who will replace Riley as Nebraska’s fifth head coach in the past 15 years?
Moos said there were six candidates who have emerged legitimate options during the past few weeks of third-party vetting, including a couple who weren’t previously on Moos’ famous list of coaches he keeps in his top right desk drawer.
While he wouldn’t go as far as to name those six coaches, Moos did give a pretty detailed description of the quantities he was looking for both in terms of coaching resumes and philosophies. Moos said the culture at Nebraska required “a unique fit” in personality, someone with “tremendous morals” who was an excellent teach and mentor for players.
He’s also looking for someone with “major college football experience.” However, he clarified that meant FBS-level experience, not exclusively at the Power Five ranks.
As for style of play, Moos said he was only concerned with a coach with “a winning style” and wasn’t caught up in the notion that you have to play a certain way to win in the Big Ten. That said, Moos added that he prefers a balanced offense with a dual-threat quarterback - “If you’ve got a good one, you’re impossible to stop.”
On defense, Moos said there was no question that Nebraska had to stop the run to compete for a conference title. “Let’s get the Blackshirts back to being the Blackshirts,” he said.
How long does he expect his new coach to be able to turn NU into a successful program again? Moos said his general rule of thumb was three years, depending on how big the schematic and personnel changes were.
3. Moos addresses Frost rumors
It was only a matter of time before Moos acknowledged the elephant in the room and addressed the rampant rumors regarding Scott Frost as Nebraska’s next head coach.
Moos confirmed that Frost, the former Husker quarterback who has remarkably turned Central Florida from a 0-12 team to 11-0 in his second season, was one of the six candidates he was considering for the job.
Moos said his “third-party people” had been in contact with Frost to some degree, and he was certainly well aware of the vast amount of NU fans pushing to have the Wood River native come home to the Huskers.
"I've never said I was going after Scott Frost. A lot of other people have," Moos said. "You know what, that's a tribute to Nebraskans. He's one of ours, played for us and has gone on and paid his dues, and he's got a good job that I believe he really likes. But he's got a lot of interest in him right now."
Moos was later asked about a rumor that he had personally met with Frost in Philadelphia to discuss the job while the Huskers traveled to Penn State and UCF was playing at Temple.
Because he was still searching for a condo to move into with his wife in Lincoln, Moos said he did not travel with the team to that game. That was as far as he would comment when further pressed on the rumor, adding only that they make some pretty good sandwiches in Philly.
4. If not Frost, then who?
Frost wasn’t the only potential candidate whose name came up during Moos’ press conference.
Chip Kelly, Bret Bielema, and Chris Petersen were just some of the coaches mentioned in some form on Saturday, though Moos stressed that Nebraska had not offered the job to anyone at this point.
Moos added that there were a number of coaches that he knew for a fact were interested in the Nebraska job, and reiterated that they have been actively working on narrowing down their list of candidates for some time.
Moos said ideally a new coach would be hired well before the early signing period on Dec. 20, but how quickly it happens would also depend on other teams’ schedules (i.e. UCF playing in the conference championship, etc.).
He also said Nebraska wouldn’t be operating on an unlimited budget as far as how much they would be willing to pay its next head coach.
“We have to be sensible, but also have to compete in this market,” Moos said. “Those are usually pretty big dollars.”
5. Familiarity, trust helped Moos turn to Bray as interim coach
The lone holdover from Riley’s staff was Bray, who will be in charge of managing the current players and making sure they keep up their work in strength and conditioning and in the classroom.
Moos said he didn’t have a chance to get to know Riley’s staff very well over the past few weeks, but it was a pre-existing relationship with Bray dating back decades that led him to appoint him as the interim coach.
It turns out Bray and his father, Craig, coached Moos’ son at Arizona State, and Moos developed a respect for Bray that has lasted ever since.
“I knew him, respected him, and to me, that was someone that I knew I could trust and had the respect of the players,” Moos said.
6. Rebuilding 'fractured' fan base a top priority
Aside from Nebraska’s failures on the field, one of the things that struck Moos the most over the final weeks of the season was how divided the Husker fan base was now 18 years removed from its last conference championship.
As he searches for NU’s next coach, Moos said mending the wounds of the fans was as important as anything in rebuilding the program back to the level it once was.
“Our fan base, our storied fan base, is fractured and fragile,” Moos said. “That’s very concerning to me. These fans have been through a lot over the last 20 years. They and certainly the university and all involved, in my opinion, deserve to be in a position to be back competing for championships in the Big Ten Conference and nationally.
“So that’s going to be the intent. I told the players today nobody wants to go 4-8. I want to get this program to where we’re disappointed if we go 8-4, and that can happen again."
7. Early signing period won't be deadline for search
This year’s round of coaching changes have taken on a new layer due to the introduction of the early signing period for National Letters of Intent, which runs from Dec. 20-22.
By making a change at the end of the season like Nebraska did, it leaves only a matter of weeks before a new coach would need to be in place to sign prospects during the early period.
Moos said he’s definitely taken that change into account during this process, and again would like to have the search completed well before that Dec. 20 deadline. However, he said NU would not rush things and risk making a bad hire just to help maximize one recruiting class.
“The early signing period is a factor, but not to the degree that we should make a bad decision just so we make sure we sign one or two players early,” Moos said. “I will say this: if we bump against that early signing period and we’re not there yet, the sky isn’t falling.
“It’s more important that this is a hire that provides stability and a true identity to our football program, and so, even though I do feel it is important, it’s not a priority in the grand scheme of things here.”
8. Any former staff retainment will be up to new coach
Shortly after the announcement was made on Riley’s firing, the coaches section on the Huskers.com roster was quickly updated to have Bray as the only coach still displayed.
Moos confirmed that because their contracts were tied to Riley’s, the rest of Nebraska’s full-time assistant coaches had been relieved of their duties as well on Saturday. Bray was the lone exception because he was given the interim title.
Now, that doesn’t mean any of the previous staff couldn’t come back to join up with the Huskers’ next head coach.
“I hire head coaches and head coaches hire their assistants and I would give the new coach every bit of flexibility to create his staff however he wants,” Moos said. “I think we’ve got some talented coaches here and I think we’ve got coaches that think very highly of Nebraska and feel we can recruit here.”
9. Moos determined to clean up 'disturbing' aspects of program
It wasn’t just the blowout losses that struck a nerve with Moos over the past five weeks.
What bothered him just as much were how many “little things” were going on that he felt were resulting in much bigger problems for Nebraska’s culture.
Simple things like players not properly wearing their uniforms or not cleaning up after themselves in the locker room or on the charter planes during road games were concerning signs of a much larger problem facing the Huskers internally.
“There are a lot of good things, but there were some disturbing things in regards to the morale and discipline,” Moos said. “Discipline isn’t just getting to practice on time; it’s how you wear your uniform. Are you consistent with your teammates or are you drawing on yourself. And those little things add up to big things…
“I think we have really good young men, but some of those things get out of hand when you’re starting to snowball the other way. The Nebraska uniform should be worn with tremendous pride. To me, that’s like wearing a Yankee uniform, Green Bay Packers, or Boston Celtics uniform. One way or the other, whether I made this move today or not, these things were going to be taken care of from my chair if nobody else’s. I’m a stickler on the little things that can make a difference.”
10. Moos has clear vision for Nebraska
Every day on his way to his office, Moos makes it a point to walk past Nebraska’s five national championship trophies to serve as a daily reminder of what the program he took over could and should be.
Moos said all top teams go through their share of ups and downs, but there was no reason NU should be going through such a prolonged low that it has since last playing for a national title in 2001.
“Nebraska needs to get back to being Nebraska,” Moos said. “What’s wrong with that? I’m not going to judge anyone because I was doing other things way back when, but I have an old saying, ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’ We want Nebraska to get back to being Nebraska, and when it is, we will catch right back on.”
During Friday’s loss to Iowa, Moos was on the sideline with his two sons, Bo and Benjamin, who play/played football at Arizona State and Cal, respectively.
“I had them down on the field and they’ve got their cell phone videos going the whole time saying, ‘Wow’ and ‘Would you look at that!’ And these are guys that are playing the game.
“I hope that this is never taken for granted. And for any young man to run out of that tunnel and out into nearly 90,000 red-clad fans, that’s a thrill of a lifetime. That needs to be coveted and that needs to mean something again. And we will get there.”