Moos 'Perfect Fit' To Lead Huskers

Believe it not, Oregon’s athletic program once existed without Nike dollars, without the hundreds of different flashy football uniforms, without the glitz and glamour that recruits from all sports embrace.

Bill Moos knows. That’s why he quickly corrected a reporter who erroneously assumed Moos once directed an Oregon athletic department where “money grew on trees.”

Ahem.

“Well, let me set the record straight just a little bit on that,” Moos said to begin his response. “When I got to Oregon, if money fell off trees, the trees were pretty barren.”

This, of course, was 1995, when first-year football coach Mike Belotti was taking over a program that had gone 31-28 over the previous five years. The men’s basketball team had produced just its second winning record in six seasons.

Not the Oregon of today.

“A lot of things had to be addressed. I felt it needed to be re-branded,” said Moos, who served as Oregon’s Director of Athletics from 1995-2007. “We needed to change the culture. We needed to get the building blocks in place to be successful, and it was my responsibility to go out and find those resources. They were not available then.”

Moos helped increase Oregon’s annual budget from $18.5 million in his first year to more than $40 million by 2007, and the athletic department became self-sufficient.

What’s more, the Ducks started winning – 13 Pac-10 Championships across all sports, including a football team that developed a far-reaching identity and brand, and a basketball arena that began filling seats.

“Before you knew it,” Moos said, “that culture had changed.”

Nebraska’s culture, financially speaking, is very sound. Moos, announced Sunday as Nebraska’s new Director of Athletics, takes over a fiscally responsible program. What fans hope to see next from Moos is his ability to help the Huskers win more often on the field of play.

Moos, who comes to Lincoln from Washington State University, where he served as Director of Athletics since 2010, remembers Nebraska’s football program once being among the ‘haves’ of the sport, with the ‘have-nots’ making progress over the last decade or so.

“Now, having said that, there’s no substitute for tradition and legacy, and Nebraska certainly has that,” Moos said at his introductory news conference at Memorial Stadium. “What we need to do is make sure that that is polished and back there, and we need to compete in all of our sports.”

Speaking of football, Moos wants Nebraska back among the hunted.

“We need to get back into that position," Moos said, "where everybody’s circling Nebraska on the schedule, ‘That’s going to be one tough game, whether we’re going to Lincoln or they’re going to our place,’ and I believe that’s the Huskers’ rightful place, and we’re going to see what we can do to get back there."

In his seven years at Washington State, Moos secured a 10-year, $35 million marketing rights agreement with IMG College and led a $130 million addition and remodel of WSU’s football stadium. As the dean of Pac-12 athletic directors, he was in a leading position in securing the conference’s 12-year, $3 billion television contract with Fox and ESPN.

Moos, 66, has agreed to a five-year contract with Nebraska with a base annual salary of $1 million, plus incentives. He retired from Oregon intent on living on a ranch and watching his son play football at Arizona State, then discovered his competitive juices were still flowing.

“Any of us who actually played the game, and especially at the collegiate level, your pilot light never goes out,” Moos said. “It’s begging for fuel and getting that adrenaline up. Dave (Rimington) can tell you, on game day, there’s no greater thrill. I missed that, but most importantly, I missed the student-athletes. What I missed was the opportunity to have a positive impact on their lives at a critical time.”

Rimington, the former Nebraska All-American center, served as Nebraska’s Interim Director of Athletics beginning Sept. 26. He’ll continue in that role until Moos begins his new job on Oct. 23.

Nebraska’s first football game with Moos at the helm will be that following Saturday at Purdue. The Huskers are 3-4 overall, and 2-2 in the Big Ten, after their 56-14 home loss to Ohio State.

Moos knows third-year Nebraska coach Mike Riley from when Riley coached at Pac-12 school Oregon State. He said he hasn’t talked to Riley much since Riley moved to Lincoln.

“But, as we speak right now, he’s my football coach, and I’m going to support him,” Moos said. “I certainly hope for some victories here towards the latter part of the season. I’m eager to sit down and have a chance to visit with him.”

Riley said he and his wife, Dee, had a chance to meet briefly with Moos and his wife, Kendra.

“It was great to reconnect,” Riley said. “I’ve known Bill for a number of years from our time in the Pac-10 and Pac-12. I have great respect for the job he did at both Oregon and Washington State, and the success he built at those schools. I look forward to working with him in the near future and to talk about our vision for the Nebraska football program.” 

Moos had a short meeting early Sunday afternoon with Nebraska’s head coaches. At least one of them, men’s basketball coach Tim Miles, attended the introductory news conference.

“I really enjoyed listening to him. He seemed like a guy I could learn from,” Miles said. “When you’ve got a guy who looks at this as a legacy type of job, look what he did at Oregon? Oregon was not Oregon years ago, and now we think it’s this machine. It wasn’t always like that. I think we’re all excited about a guy like that with his experiences.”

Moos said he will be open to fans and media, as he wants everybody to see the blueprint he’s building for future success.

“I wholeheartedly wanted to run to this job," Moos said. "From the time I was a small boy on a cattle ranch in Eastern Washington, I always tuned into the Nebraska-Oklahoma game on Thanksgiving weekends. I never missed one. I even did it in college when I was a player myself. A storied, storied athletic program and a very prestigious institution."

Nebraska-Lincoln Chancelor Ronnie Green has numerous times mentioned the importance of fit for any job, but especially for a position held in such high regard by Nebraskans. He told of somebody who commented that it seems like Bill and Kendra Moos are native Nebraskans who’ve been living elsewhere for decades and now returning home.

That’s not true, of course.

Well, at least not entirely.

“I’m not one that would take a job in an urban environment," Moos said. "I’m a rural boy. I feel like Eastern Washington is so much like the state of Nebraska. Good wholesome people with a great work ethic, down to Earth and love athletics and really love football."

Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.