Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.

That’s perhaps the most appropriate way to describe John Johnson and Garrett Klassy -- the two newest members of the Nebraska athletic department’s senior staff.

As part of a restructuring by athletic director Bill Moos, Johnson in July was named senior deputy athletic director -- chief of staff, a newly created position. He’ll work closely with Moos on all aspects of athletic administration, oversee men’s basketball, and direct the department when Moos is at out-of-town functions. That essentially makes Johnson the No. 2 man in the department.

Also in July, Klassy was named senior deputy athletic director for external operations, with oversight over ticketing, fund-raising development, communications, marketing, HuskerVision, and digital programming and new technology. He succeeded Marc Boehm.

Neither would go into details about their marching orders since they’re still new to their jobs. But, here’s something worth noting: As the athletic department reportedly is close to announcing plans for a massive new football athletic facility, Johnson brings extensive experience in facility construction and planning to his job, while one of Klassy’s strong suits is fundraising and working with the donor base.

While they don’t suit up and will never make the post-game stat sheet, Klassy and Johnson see themselves as being every bit a part of the team.

“I’m Nebraska 100 percent,” Klassy said. “This is a people-based business, and I will put my blood, sweat and tears into the job every single day.”

The senior administrators have extensive experience at big-time college athletic programs, and both have worked before with Moos.

“I’m familiar with how Bill thinks,” said Johnson, 59. “We might think three steps ahead. Bill thinks five.”

Before coming to Lincoln, Johnson spent 15 years at Washington State University, including seven under Moos’ leadership. After Moos left Pullman for Nebraska in October 2017, Johnson served as interim athletic director. He considers Moos an early mentor in his career path.

Klassy’s familiarity with Moos dates to his eight years at the University of Oregon, including six years as assistant athletic director for development. In that role, he more than just crossed paths with Nike founder and Oregon superbooster Phil Knight. Along the way, Klassy also got to know a certain young football staffer named Scott Frost.

Shortly after Frost joined Oregon after a stint at Northern Iowa, Klassy was assigned to pick him up at the Eugene airport to usher him to a fundraising golf tournament.

Klassy, 43, got his first taste of Nebraska sports and its supportive fan base at the 2001 College World Series in Omaha. There as ticket director for Tulane University, Klassy watched his Green Wave eliminate Nebraska in a tense 6-5 victory.

“It was my first experience with Nebraska nice,” Klassy said. “After the game, all these Nebraska fans congratulated me and said they’d be pulling for us to win the championship.”

Klassy didn’t envision a career in sports management when he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin. He grew up on his family’s now 150-year-old dairy farm in New Glarus, Wisc., near Madison, and planned on majoring in communications.

To help pay for school his freshman year, he worked for the university’s foundation, a desk job that required making phone call after phone call. “I wasn’t a big fan of that job,” Klassy said.

But in his sophomore year, he answered an ad in the student newspaper and was hired to work in the athletic department’s ticket office. That’s when he realized he could make a career in sports administration.

Since graduating college in 1998, Klassy’s career journey has taken him to athletic departments at Tulane, Oregon, George Washington University and the University of Illinois at Chicago where he spent the last two years as athletic director overseeing 20 sports and more than 100 coaches and staff.

One of his biggest accomplishments at the Horizon League school was negotiating and creating a naming rights partnership for what’s now the Credit Union 1 Arena. That $9.3 million deal came with a twist -- an additional $750,000 gift over 15 years from the credit union for scholarships.

Klassy said he had kept in touch with Moos over the years, so when his former boss called about the job at Nebraska, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

“I’d love to work for Bill Moos,” he said.

Big picture, Klassy said he has no plans to reinvent the wheel. It’s a matter of fine-tuning.

Still, Klassy said he has asked all the staff he oversees to come up with ideas, projects, and goals to help the athletic department move forward.

One area of emphasis might be how to better use technology to communicate and improve the game-day experience with fans, especially the students.

“We have to reach them more efficiently,” Klassy said, in reference to the students. “It’s not just about getting them to games, but it involves recruiting” and attracting future students interested in attending the university.

Nebraska is hardly alone in looking for new ways to entice college students to fill seats on game days. Alabama, for example, is experimenting with geofencing technology designed to identify users who remain in the stadium for the full game.

Users who swipe into the game receive 100 points for attending and 250 bonus points for remaining the four quarters. Tide Loyalty Points can be redeemed for tickets for post-season games and other events.

Klassy said his team is monitoring what Alabama is doing. “We’re looking at how we can improve every part of the game day experience,” he said.

For example, the athletic department could use technology to alert fans to the fastest way into the stadium or that there’s no waiting for Runza’s at Gate 20.

“Nothing is off the table,” Klassy said.

*Tickets and donations: As for finding new sources of revenue, Klassy said that because every home football game is sold out, there are not a lot of new opportunities through ticket sales and premium suite packages.

“Moving forward,” he added, “we’ll have to look at more of a philanthropic view point” to attract donors.

*Facilities expansion. All I know is that they are going through cost analysis,” Klassy said. He stressed that he has not been part of those discussions.

*Marketing and branding. “We need to figure out different ways to tell our story,” he said, referring to Nebraska’s long list of athletes who’ve been named Academic All-Americans, and the life skills program.

*Naming rights. “Given the history and uniqueness of Memorial Stadium, Klassy said naming rights are “not part of the discussion” at the stadium or at other venues.

“Never say never, but that’s probably the last place we’ll look for more revenue,” he said.

John Johnson has known Moos since his early 20s when the former Eastern Washington University receiver and defensive back was breaking into athletics administration and Moos was at Oregon. Johnson said he turned down a job offer to work on Moos’ staff at Oregon.

Johnson had already spent six years as Washington State’s associate athletic director when Moos was hired as the Cougar’s athletic director in 2010.

Under Moos, Johnson concentrated on external operations, facility development and strategic planning. He drew up the department’s athletic facilities’ master plan, which prompted a stop in Lincoln to tour Memorial Stadium and discuss premium seating strategies.

“We knew we had to improve our facilities,” the Spokane native said.

The result? Washington State spent more than $170 million over about eight years to upgrade every athletic facility on campus.

Johnson managed the design and construction of the football stadium renovation, a $120 million project that included a new press box, club seating, a suite area, and a new football operations building.

He also oversaw the renovation of the soccer complex, the track and field facility, an indoor hitting facility for men’s and women’s golf, and new locker rooms for men’s and women’s basketball.

While Johnson said many athletics officials might be fortunate to be the lead manager on one facilities upgrade, he has actually been involved in two.

Prior to Washington State, Johnson was athletic director from 1997 to 2004 at Weber State University in the Big Sky Conference.

While at Weber State, Johnson oversaw all aspects of the athletics program. He was responsible for the upgrading of the university’s facilities, including the construction of football skyboxes, meeting rooms, a reception area, and a new press box. He also secured funding for the nearly $5 million project, and directed the renovation of the athletic department offices, football locker rooms, weight room and training room.

During his tenure, he also help boost corporate sponsorships by 70 percent, increased annual giving by 50 percent, and secured the first $1 million-plus gift in department history. Weber State athletes also excelled on the field and in the classroom.

Johnson got his start in sport management through an internship in Eastern Washington University’s athletic department while also working toward a master’s degree in business administration and playing football.

He was Eastern Washington’s first athletics’ marketing director, and served as athletic director at the Big Sky school from 1993 to 1997. One of his biggest accomplishments was guiding the athletics program from Division II to Division I.

For all of his construction management experience, Johnson said he has not been involved in discussions about a possible new football training complex near Memorial Stadium.

Generally speaking, said Johnson, an athletics department “is always involved in planning and construction of new facilities. You are always looking to improve something and Nebraska is no different in that regard.”

Since his arrival, Johnson said he has spent most of his time becoming familiar with the athletics program -- its history, the culture, the fan and donor base, how sports integrates with the university, and understanding the landscape of the Big Ten conference.

He hopes to bring to the boardroom a perspective of having worked at smaller programs, and a first-person understanding of what it’s like to be a student-athlete.

There’s one more benefit to having Johnson on staff.

His wife, Lisa Johnson, was hired as Nebraska’s women’s golf coach earlier in the summer. And for the record, he can’t beat his wife in golf.

Steve Rosen writes about the business of sports for HuskerOnline. Questions, comments, story ideas? Reach Steve at sbrosen1030@gmail.com.