Nebraska’s Trev Alberts targeted to become Texas A&M’s A.D.

By Wednesday afternoon, the situation appeared to be less clear as officials in both Lincoln and College Station denied that a final decision had been made.

From Nebraska’s perspective, NU executive associate athletic director Doug Ewald told the Journal Star that Alberts had not yet decided as of 1:45 p.m. Earlier in the day, the same sentiment was shared from NU’s interim president, Chris Kabourek.

“Trev has not told me he has accepted the A&M position,” Kabourek said.

From Texas A&M’s perspective, A&M associate athletic director Alan Cannon told the Journal Star that as of 2:50 p.m., he had not received any notification from Texas A&M President Mark Welsh or anyone on the seven-person committee pertaining to the search being finalized.

Either way, Alberts — who makes $1.7 million per year as Nebraska’s AD — has not responded to a request for comment from the Journal Star nor has he called an emergency meeting within the athletic department to address his potential departure, according to a source within the building.

Alberts, the former star Husker linebacker, has been at the helm of the Nebraska Athletics program since 2021, coming to his alma mater after the surprising retirement of Bill Moos. Before taking over at Nebraska, Alberts was the athletic director at the University of Nebraska Omaha for 12 years.

This athletic director limbo comes months after NU lost its system president, Ted Carter, to Ohio State. Carter then filled the OSU A.D. job with A&M’s Ross Bjork, who will take over this summer for a retiring Gene Smith. It also comes less than a year after the retirement of Nebraska chancellor Ronnie Green and a little over a year after Alberts hand-picked Matt Rhule to be NU’s football coach.

According to a report from ESPN, Alberts’ presumed deal at Texas A&M would be a five-year contract that will put him “near the top of the SEC and among the Top 10 athletic directors nationally.” 

For context, Bjork was making $1.5 million annually at Texas A&M before his departure for Ohio State. Bjork, at Ohio State, is set to make just over $2 million per year, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

This is not the first time Alberts has thrown his hat into the ring for another position since taking over Nebraska’s athletics department in 2021.

According to sources familiar with the situation, Alberts was a finalist for the College Football Playoff executive director position and also previously interviewed for the vacant Big Ten Commissioner job before the conference hired Tony Petitti last May. 

Just last year, then-NU President Ted Carter opted to double Alberts’ salary and sweetened his contract with a series of potential bonuses in an effort to keep the athletic director at Nebraska in the long term.

The extension, which runs through 2031, doubled his base pay from $853,882 to $1.7 million; provided a $500,000 retention bonus if he stays at Nebraska through September 2025; and an annual bonus of $300,000 for every year he remains in the job through the end of his contract.

If Alberts stays the full eight years, he would be eligible to receive a $3 million completion bonus, as well as performance bonuses if Husker athletes meet academic and athletic goals.

The contract also includes liquidation damage buyouts to be paid to Nebraska if Alberts left before the end date. According to the contract, if Alberts leaves before the end of 2024, he’ll owe the university $4.12 million.

The Nebraska Board of Regents did not need to approve the contract extension, but several regents gave their full support to the measure. Last year, the Board opted to move responsibility for the Husker athletic director out from under the UNL chancellor to the NU system president, giving that position broad leeway to incentivize Alberts to stay put.

Alberts is also currently a defendant in a lawsuit filed in February in U.S. District Court, alleging that he failed to ensure the Nebraska women’s basketball coaching staff, namely former associate head coach Chuck Love, maintained appropriate boundaries with former Nebraska guard Ashley Scoggin.

In the lawsuit, Scoggin accused Love of using his position and influence with head coach Amy Williams to groom Scoggin into a sexual relationship. After the team discovered Love and Scoggin’s inappropriate relationship, Love was placed on paid leave and Scoggin was dismissed from the team.

According to the lawsuit, Scoggin later had a meeting with her parents, Williams, and Alberts, in which she said the university employees “were motivated to avoid scandal and embarrassment” to the women’s basketball team instead of protecting a student-athlete.

The lawsuit states Alberts did not acknowledge it was improper for coaches to pursue sexual relationships with athletes, and there was no discussion about whether or not Love had acted inappropriately leading up to Scoggin being in his hotel room.

According to the lawsuit, Alberts later told Scoggin and her parents that Williams would decide how the situation would be handled, in which the punishment was affirmed. Scoggin said in the lawsuit no investigation was ordered until she started a Title IX complaint on March 11, 2022. Nebraska dropped the Title IX investigation after Love resigned in May.

Alberts would be the second athletic director to leave Nebraska for Texas A&M. Bill Byrne did so in the early 2000s.

» This is a developing story. Check back for updates