Bowl cancellations show why Moos’ pitch was a good one and why Huskers may not have played anyhow | Football

Part of an athletic director’s job is to help create potential postseason landing spots for his school’s program, so Moos, who had just arrived from the University of Montana, went big.

“I told the Cotton Bowl that we’d bring 25,000 fans, and (Cotton Bowl CEO) Rick Baker spit his coffee out,” Moos told the Journal Star last week. “As it ended up, we got the bid and we brought 12,000. But we were in a New Year’s Day bowl game. I wasn’t trying to be deceitful, but I thought we could.

“At Nebraska, we don’t have to worry about that. We’d fill the stands.”

Indeed, under normal circumstances, Moos would have a pretty easy sell these days. Only problem, of course, is that the Huskers didn’t qualify for a bowl game in either of his first three seasons dating to his hire in October 2017. This year, he was working the phones knowing that everybody would be eligible, but his pitch changed dramatically.

The Sea of Red was not going to be able to travel to a bowl destination, and certainly not in the normal numbers for a December date in a warm-weather locale.

“What I resorted to was the Nebraska brand, one of the top five, six, seven still in the country and the viewership. People still tune in to watch Nebraska football,” Moos said. “More important — and I hope it’s never important again — is how clean we were in regards to COVID and that our testing protocols and our approach to it with our fabulous staff and the help from UNMC and all of the things lined up and how we’ve bubbled within North and West stadium. …