Nebraska AD Troy Dannen shares bold vision for Huskers

A who’s-who of familiar faces sat waiting to hear from the new Nebraska athletic director Tuesday. Recognizable coaches like football’s Matt Rhule and basketball’s Fred Hoiberg and Amy Williams settled in. Former linebacker Nick Henrich wore a suit for the occasion. Matt Davison, president of NU’s main name-image-likeness collective, was on hand.

In the front row to stage left was Governor Jim Pillen, a few spots away from interim AD Dennis Leblanc. Other athletic department staffers and supporters packed into the same space that also once hosted welcomes for former athletic directors Bill Moos and Trev Alberts and coaches Mike Riley and Scott Frost.

So began a whirlwind afternoon for Dannen that really started nearly a week earlier when he signed an electronic agreement at 3:51 a.m. to become Nebraska’s next department leader.

He spoke on the past — he wants to meet with former football coach Tom Osborne this week to learn what long made the Huskers a college football standard. The 57-year-old laid out how the hiring process quickly came together for him and his family to make one more surprise move from Washington to Lincoln. He described a college sports future that may not resemble the current landscape.

All of it centered around how to be successful now in an ultra-competitive athletics environment.

“It wasn’t just about coming home,” said Dannen, who lived in Iowa for 48 years. “It was about coming home and winning.”

Dannen’s 17-minute introductory speech — and 36-minute session with media members inside the Hawks Center soon after — came following a crash course in Husker fandom since his hire last Wednesday. He flew to Memphis to meet Hoiberg at the NCAA men’s tournament and did the same in Corvallis, Oregon, with Williams on the women’s side soon after. He dropped by Haymarket Park and Bowlin Stadium to catch a few innings of baseball and softball.

“Fan bases make stuff happen,” said Dannen, who saw thousands of red-clad backers at each stop. “I call it the give-a-darn factor. The give-a-darn factor has to be high and sometimes that means people get out of shape pretty quick when things don’t go their way. So be it. It sure beats them not caring.”

Dannen met passion and interest again on Tuesday. Former Nebraska football players Joe Buda and Mike Beran — senior offensive linemen in 1969 and 1972, respectively, and now leaders of the Husker Football Letterman’s Association — asked Dannen during his media session what he thought of groups like theirs.

His answer was quick: Don’t forget who made the place what it is. Administrators and current Huskers — until they graduate — rent.

“The players playing today don’t own the program,” Dannen replied. “You do.”

Dannen spoke on the upcoming expanded 12-team College Football Playoff — he loves it — and his relationship with Rhule, which goes back to when Rhule was at Temple. They share a mutual close friend in current Penn State AD Pat Kraft, who was Rhule’s AD at Temple and knew Dannen when Kraft was AD at Loyola and Dannen at Northern Iowa in the early 2010s.

Dannen recalled his reaction when Nebraska hired Rhule in November 2022: “Put that guy in this goldmine and great things are going to happen.”

With Rhule and every other sport, Dannen said, he will lean on the three R’s. Resource. Recruit. Retain. The No. 1 priority for NU coaches is the No. 1 priority for him, he said.

Exactly how that looks, though, is changing in the NIL era. It’s no longer just coach contracts and facilities but now championing the funding of a collective to attract quality student-athletes — in a statement his predecessor, Trev Alberts, wouldn’t have uttered, he said he’ll wear apparel for The 1890 Initiative as much as Nebraska gear. Dannen predicted a day coming when line items in the athletic department budget are for players sharing in financial profits.

“If you think the last five years of college athletics have been wild,” Dannen said, “the next five years will put it to shame.”

So there’s work to do, Dannen said. He needs to learn more about the $450 million South Stadium renovation project before deciding how to proceed. His first one-on-one meeting with a Nebraska coach will be this week with John Cook — the John Wooden of college volleyball, Dannen said with a grin. As favorable as his impressions of Nebraska have been, he’s never actually lived in the state until now.

Tuesday was, perhaps, an outlier. He received a No. 17 Nebraska football jersey honoring his appointment as the school’s 17th AD Nebraska Regent Rob Schafer stood at the podium looking at Dannen and said he was reminded of former football coach and AD Bob Devaney, wishing Dannen the same success. Dannen shared an embrace with Pillen, who helped affirm Dannen’s glowing impression of the state during a phone call as he considered the position.

Nebraska has everything required to win at a high level, Dannen said. He finished his second — or maybe third — bottle of water, pulled his sport coat tight and left the Hawks Championship Center for his next stop of listening and learning about the brand for which he is now a high-profile leader.

“Alignment is about the willingness of everybody to get stuff out of the way to allow the whole to succeed,” Dannen said. “…Alignment is everybody willing to move mountains to put people in a position to succeed. That’s alignment. The alignment here is as good as I’ve seen any place.”