Bill Moos out as Nebraska athletic director, NU confirms retirement effective June 30 | Football

Nebraska and UNL leadership confirmed Friday morning that Moos is retiring, effective Wednesday. 

Moos did not immediately return a request for comment from the Journal Star. 

While Moos’ departure is a retirement according to NU, he made it clear as recently as last month that he had no intention of leaving his post atop the department before his contract expired on Dec. 31, 2022. 

“We’re going to move the dial here, and I don’t want to be looking at that success from afar,” he said in December. “I have every intention of fulfilling the contract.”

“Each stop had a little bit different scenarios,” Moos said of his career, which has included athletic director posts at the University of Montana, the University of Oregon and, before Nebraska, a 2010-2017 stint at Washington State. “But I couldn’t come back here (to his ranch in eastern Washington) and sit and leave the department on anything but solid footing and in a winning position. It’d drive me crazy.”

UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green said in a statement that senior deputy athletic director for external relations Garrett Klassy will serve as the interim athletic director while the school searches for a permanent successor. 

“I respect Bill Moos’ decision to retire and I want to thank him for his service to Husker Athletics and our university,” Green said in the statement. “Under his tenure, Nebraska has gained tremendous talent with outstanding new coaches and senior administrators. I particularly appreciate his steady and capable leadership during the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. He and his team were able to help mitigate those impacts and ensure that Husker Athletics came through this challenging year in good shape.

“The positive financial position of our Athletic Department is the envy of many across the nation.” 

Moos, who was originally hired in Oct. 2017 and led the hiring process for football coach Scott Frost, men’s basketball coach Fred Hoiberg and baseball coach Will Bolt and championed Nebraska’s in-progress $155 million football facility project, had a contract that ran through Dec. 31, 2022. 

The outgoing athletic director is expected to meet with NU head coaches through the late morning on Friday, a source told the Journal Star. 

Paul Kinney, University’s Board of Regents chairman, said he learned of Moos’ retirement at the end of Friday’s Regents meeting. 

“He’s been a good friend to the university,” Kinney said. 

Moos told the Journal Star in recent months that leading NU through the coronavirus pandemic was the most taxing, most difficult period of his long career in athletics administration. 

“It was the highest morale this place maybe has seen since the national championships. … It was super,” Moos said in Aug. 2020 of what he thought he and his staff had built before the pandemic. “People were feeling good and we’re getting it back and hey, all right! And then bam. All this.

“I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked. And I’ve worked hard, but this is tough.” 

His departure times closely with the end of NU’s fiscal year on Wednesday. 

“To understand just how special Nebraska is, you need to spend time here, meet our people, visit our cities and towns and sit in Memorial Stadium in a sea of red on a Saturday afternoon in the fall,” Moos said in a statement Friday. “I step away completely content, knowing that our athletic program is reborn and rebuilt and that it has a solid, stable foundation.”

Neither the football program nor the men’s basketball program have been able to generate much momentum under Moos’ two highest-profile hires, and each enter pivotal seasons in the fall and winter, respectively. Now, somebody else will helm the department as those campaigns unfold. 

Moos’ salary for 2021 sat at $1.15 million and was set to bump to $1.2 million in 2022. 

The designation of Moos’ departure as a retirement by NU is interesting in part because Moos was due a deferred compensation payment of $1.25 million if he remained the athletic director through the end of his contract. In the event of a disability or if Moos was fired, he would have been due a prorated portion of that payout based on the amount of his five-year deal that he fulfilled. 

However, the provision in his contract governing the retention payment says, “In the event you (i) voluntarily resign your position or (ii) are otherwise no longer employed as UNL’s AD prior to the Vesting Date due to reasons other than permanent disability, death or involuntary termination of your employment as UNL’s AD …. no additional payments will be made to you following your resignation.” 

Klassy, the interim athletic director, came to Nebraska from the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he was the athletic director, in July 2019. 

This story will be updated.