The Weekly Rundown: NIL is here and what will Nebraska do at AD?

Name, image and likeness is here, and we discuss Nebraska’s Athletic Director opening and more as we start your Monday off with the Weekly Rundown column.

You have to feel pretty good about these things right now:

Nebraska will be ready for Thursday: Name, image and likeness officially opens up for business on Thursday. It will be interesting what we learn this week heading into Thursday and how interim Athletic Director Garrett Klassy comes at it. I fully expect an aggressive approach by Nebraska leading into Thursday.

Bill Moos did what he was brought in to do: We can sit here and wonder why things ended the way they did for Athletic Director Bill Moos, but the bottom line is he did what he was supposed to do. Moos was never brought in here to be a long-term AD.

He’s 70 years old, and in 3.5 years he hired new men’s football, basketball and baseball coaches, and was involved with a $156 million football facility project that broke ground last month.

That’s how Moos should be remembered. He walked into a very tough situation and in 2018 he brought the fan base closer together than we had seen in years after the hiring of Frost. You can say what you want now, but Moos put everything in place for the Athletic Department to take the next step.

A fast AD hire: By the tone of Friday’s statement from UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green, this has the feel of a pretty fast search. I don’t expect Green to take several months to hire a new Athletic Director. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he already has a pretty good idea of what he’s going to do.

These were my surprises of the week:

How the Moos announcement was handled: My surprise of the week was just how the Moos situation was handled in general.

The University evidently let some key people know there was going to be a “major” announcement made by the end of the week on Wednesday. Very few people internally had any idea what that meant, and they surely didn’t know it meant Moos was going to retire.

Looking back at things, I felt like Nebraska let this story get out of control. Instead of being on the offensive, they were scrambling after the first report got out that Moos was “out.” Several people still had to talk to Moos, including his head coaches.

The NU Board of Regents also met on Friday for their regularly scheduled meeting. My guess is they were going to be told Friday morning before Green made the news public. Then the plan was a 2 pm press conference. As we know the 2 pm press conference never happened, and we saw separate statements from the Athletic Department, Green, Scott Frost and Fred Hoiberg all on different emails. Nobody appeared to be on the same page on such a big announcement.

Nebraska let this story take on a life of its own, where looking back they probably should’ve said something by Thursday evening to get out in front of it.

Athlete Jaden Mangham: Nebraska had one final official visitor before the dead period. Four-star athlete Jaden Mangham came into Lincoln this past weekend and, from all accounts, the Husker blew him out of the water.

Mangham has made four official visits to NU, Georgia Tech, Illinois and West Virginia. A decision could be coming any day now. The Huskers appear to have a very good chance of landing Mangham, which is something nobody a week ago even had on their radar.

Questions still surround these things:

What does this all mean for Scott Frost?: I’ve always said until there was a major shake-up in leadership at NU, Frost was on very stable ground at Nebraska.

Well, now Frost is going to have a new boss. Since we didn’t get to talk to Green on Friday, it’s hard to know what that all means?

Did the decision to have Moos retire have anything to do with the long-term outlook of the football program?

I was told on Friday Green and NU System President Ted Carter both remain very much behind Frost. When a new Athletic Director is named, it will be interesting to get their take on the state of the program heading into Frost’s fourth season.

Spot No. 25: We are a month away from the start of fall camp and technically the Huskers still have one open scholarship for their 2021 recruiting class.

What direction will they go with that final spot? I still expect them to try to make a move with it, but generally, transfer portal recruiting is kept fairly quiet.

Moving forward, this has my attention:

John Cook: When you look at an internal candidate for Nebraska’s Athletic Director opening, volleyball head coach John Cook might be the strongest one at this point.

His name has long been mentioned as a candidate, even back in 2019 when rumors started to come out about Moos’s future. Cook also brought back Tyler Hildebrand in what appears to be a “head coach in waiting” type role.

If Green came to Cook with this opportunity, would he consider it? Cook currently makes $675,000 per year, while Moos made $1.15 million. That’s a fairly significant jump that would get anyone’s attention.

If Green went with the Cook hire, it would fit more the Barry Alvarez hire at Wisconsin, having a high-profile former coach be the head of the department, and then have a very good No. 2 next to him that would run the day-to-day.

Moos’s final payout: How will Moos’s final payout be figured out? Technically he “retired,” but I think we are all smart enough to know he’s still going to get some or all of the money he’s owed through 2022. The other big piece is the $1.25 million retention bonus he is walking away from at the end of his 5-year contract.

Closing on recruits before the holiday: What will this week bring as we head into July 4 on Sunday?

Can we expect a few fireworks to pop on the Huskers commit list? At this point, I think the safe answer is “yes.” I believe you are going to see several commits happen this week nationally. Schools are going to get on the phone with prospects on Monday and try to close on who they can, especially before coaches everywhere go on their vacations.

In-state recruiting for 2023: Nebraska is off to a great start on the in-state front for the class of 2023. They have already landed commitments from tight end Ben Brahmer and offensive lineman Gunnar Gottula. They also have offers out to edge rushers Maverick Noonan and Teium Tuioti.

The Huskers are way ahead of the game for 2023 in-state recruiting, compared to a year ago where they didn’t get the chance to have any face time with the top four prospects in the state for the class of 2021 due to COVID.

Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET’s Big Red Wrap-Tuesday’s at 7 pm.