Bill Moos named next NU athletic director

[Handy Johnson]

Does that mean Mike Leach is on his way...

[Handy Johnson]

Or former Oregon OC #7 from Wood River?

[hhcmatt]

I don't think Miles can tank this season and feel safe but Moos to me looks like a guy who isn't going to try and enhance his brand by bringing in his guy at basketball or something like that.  To me Miles has just a little more rope than he did last month.

[runsoastowin]

56 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

I don't think Miles can tank this season and feel safe but Moos to me looks like a guy who isn't going to try and enhance his brand by bringing in his guy at basketball or something like that.  To me Miles has just a little more rope than he did last month.

I think it's also the case that as the football team does worse, Miles is a bit more secure. It's not impossible to make two major changes in your first year as an A.D., but I think a Riley firing makes a Miles firing less likely. 

[Huskerpapa]

Don't know whether he will be a good AD or not.  Time will tell.  But I did like what he said and how he said it.  He also will be much more accessible.  Make no mistake, the AD has one very clear and unencumbered job; bring the football program back to national prominence. 

[HB]

Looks like a good hire.  Very experienced, friendly, down to earth, says he'll be accessible.  All in stark contrast to his predecessor.  

[AuroranHusker]

4 hours ago, hhcdimes said:

He didn't hire Dana Altman, if anyone was wondering

 

No, he hired Ernie Kent (twice).

 

[AuroranHusker]

 

[49r]

14 hours ago, hhcdimes said:

I don't think Miles can tank this season and feel safe but Moos to me looks like a guy who isn't going to try and enhance his brand by bringing in his guy at basketball or something like that.  To me Miles has just a little more rope than he did last month.

 

13 hours ago, runsoastowin said:

I think it's also the case that as the football team does worse, Miles is a bit more secure. It's not impossible to make two major changes in your first year as an A.D., but I think a Riley firing makes a Miles firing less likely. 

 

While I suppose you both make good points about Miles' job security with the Moos hiring, I don't necessarily think I want the focus on football to be the sole reason that Miles is retained beyond this season.  I want him to win this year or else there should be accountability.

 

But that's just my opinion.

[HB]

48 minutes ago, 49r said:

 

 

While I suppose you both make good points about Miles' job security with the Moos hiring, I don't necessarily think I want the focus on football to be the sole reason that Miles is retained beyond this season.  I want him to win this year or else there should be accountability.

 

But that's just my opinion.

 

Seems like a reasonable opinion.  

 

I think its obvious that if we finish several games below .500 again this year, there will be a change, regardless of anything going on in football and the new AD.   It is equally obvious with the recent recruiting efforts and better stability with assistants that Miles will stay and get a contract  extension if we make the tournament (and from my standpoint, if we improve to .500 or better and make the NIT).    I suppose the dynamics raised by the posters are more applicable to the gray area--we improve several games from 12-19 but don't make a post-season tournament.    How much of an upward trajectory is required will be the issue.   So we're back to how do you define "winning" this year to determine the "accountability".  

Edited October 16, 2017 by HB

[Dead Dog Alley]

27 minutes ago, HB said:

 

Seems like a reasonable opinion.  

 

I think its obvious that if we finish several games below .500 again this year, there will be a change, regardless of anything going on in football and the new AD.   It is equally obvious with the recent recruiting efforts and better stability with assistants that Miles will stay and get a contract  extension if we make the tournament (and from my standpoint, if we improve to .500 or better and make the NIT).    I suppose the dynamics raised by the posters are more applicable to the gray area--we improve several games for 12-19 but don't make a post-season tournament.    How much of an upward trajectory is required will be the issue.   So we're back to how do you define "winning" this year to determine the "accountability".  

 

There's two factors that are most prominent in whether or not Miles is retained; wins (obviously) and any player defections.  If they're a bubble team and for whatever reason Copeland, Watson, and Palmer are all somewhere else the following year, then Miles' status would still be uncertain.  If they manage to finish around .500, but everyone in the core rotation (Copeland, Watson, Palmer, Tshimanga, Roby, Allen, McVeigh) is coming back, he's got a good chance to be retained.

 

If everyone is coming back then next year's senior class would be Nebraska's best senior class in a long time (and potentially, ever) and probably the best in the Big Ten.  That should factor into any decision made after this season.

 

[hhcmatt]

1 hour ago, 49r said:

While I suppose you both make good points about Miles' job security with the Moos hiring, I don't necessarily think I want the focus on football to be the sole reason that Miles is retained beyond this season.  I want him to win this year or else there should be accountability.

 

HB nailed it but I just wanted to clarify that my opinion wasn't really based on football.

First off, Moos is an established guy...he's not looking to make hires to add to a resume.

Secondly, it doesn't seem like Moos has fired a lot of coaches, specifically basketball ones.  The only basketball coach that I think he ever fired was Ken Bone after he went 13-19 and 10-21. 

He doesn't seem like a guy who wants to spend any time or effort forming cabals to Connie Yori anyone else at the U.

 

If Miles only wins 13..14..15 games I think Moos is more likely to retain Miles than SE would.  That doesn't mean he won't fire TM if he does that or worse.

[jimmykc]

[Norm Peterson]

Define progress.

 

I continue to believe last year's team was better than their final record would suggest.  And I will continue to believe -- sight unseen for now until I see things for myself -- that this year's team should be better than last year's team could have been had that team played at the end of the season the way they played at the beginning of conference play.  Last year's team should have been a .500 team at worst.  I can look back at last year's schedule and pretty readily find 3 losses just in conference play that should have been wins.*  That would have put us at 15-16.

 

This year, we have a slightly easier schedule overall.  Very slightly, but still.  We have a more favorable Big Ten schedule, especially at the finish.  That alone should account for a slightly better record.  So, to me, a few game increase over 12-19 wouldn't show progress.

 

But, again, as I've said before, come the end of this season, I don't think we're going to be talking about whether Miles should be retained, but how much more we need to pay him and how long to make his contract in order to keep him around.

 

*For the record, I'm not talking near misses that we might have won had we gotten a favorable bounce.  I'm not talking about flipping a 1-point loss to Wisconsin in OT into the win column.  Because then you could say we had no business beating Maryland on the road.  I'm saying there were teams we were better than and lost to them and shouldn't have, specifically: Illinois, @Rutgers and Ohio State. Had we taken care of business at home against Ohio State and Illinois and beaten Rutgers on the road like we most certainly should have, then we're 9-9 in conference and probably play Michigan in the 8/9 game in the conference tournament.  Had we done that, then we would have been a Gardner-Webb loss away from being a lock for the NIT.  IMO. 

[HB]

20 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

Define progress.

 

I continue to believe last year's team was better than their final record would suggest.  And I will continue to believe -- sight unseen for now until I see things for myself -- that this year's team should be better than last year's team could have been had that team played at the end of the season the way they played at the beginning of conference play.  Last year's team should have been a .500 team at worst.  I can look back at last year's schedule and pretty readily find 3 losses just in conference play that should have been wins.*  That would have put us at 15-16.

 

This year, we have a slightly easier schedule overall.  Very slightly, but still.  We have a more favorable Big Ten schedule, especially at the finish.  That alone should account for a slightly better record.  So, to me, a few game increase over 12-19 wouldn't show progress.

 

But, again, as I've said before, come the end of this season, I don't think we're going to be talking about whether Miles should be retained, but how much more we need to pay him and how long to make his contract in order to keep him around.

 

*For the record, I'm not talking near misses that we might have won had we gotten a favorable bounce.  I'm not talking about flipping a 1-point loss to Wisconsin in OT into the win column.  Because then you could say we had no business beating Maryland on the road.  I'm saying there were teams we were better than and lost to them and shouldn't have, specifically: Illinois, @Rutgers and Ohio State. Had we taken care of business at home against Ohio State and Illinois and beaten Rutgers on the road like we most certainly should have, then we're 9-9 in conference and probably play Michigan in the 8/9 game in the conference tournament.  Had we done that, then we would have been a Gardner-Webb loss away from being a lock for the NIT.  IMO. 

 

Norm, with all due respect, I am more of the "you are what your record says you are" with regard to last year's team.     You're right on Rutgers, and perhaps Ohio State, but at the time we lost to Illinois, it was a better team.   We were a really bad team right then.  Lots of things were going on.  but it added up to not very good.    And don't forget Iowa at home could have easily gone the other way, not to mention Indiana and Maryland.   I know from prior posts you believe part of the collapse the last few weeks was due to the team getting demoralized and some chemistry problems, especially from a particular player.  I would factor in a really poor shooting team, poor perimeter defense, and really inexperienced post play.    We were bad through many points of the season.   You don't lose to Gardner Webb and barely beat Southern if you're  a lot better than your record.  We got hot for a few games in late December, early January, but mostly we weren't good.  

 

Anyway, it's in the past and I look forward to being improved this year, and surprising the prognosticators who have us 13th in the league.    But if we do finish 13th, I would be shocked if their isn't a change. 

Edited October 17, 2017 by HB

[HB]

Jimmy, all i can say is that some's funny stuff right there.  Bringing your A game in retirement!

[Norm Peterson]

14 minutes ago, HB said:

 

Norm, with all due respect, I am more of the "you are what your record says you are" with regard to last year's team.     You're right on Rutgers, and perhaps Ohio State, but at the time we lost to Illinois, it was a better team.   We were a really bad team right then.  Lots of things were going on.  but it added up to not very good.    And don't forget Iowa at home could have easily gone the other way, not to mention Indiana and Maryland.   I know from prior posts you believe part of the collapse the last few weeks was due to the team getting demoralized and some chemistry problems, especially from a particular player.  I would factor in a really poor shooting team, poor perimeter defense, and really inexperienced post play.    We were bad through many points of the season.   You don't lose to Garner Webb and barely beat Southern if your a lot better than your record.  We got hot for a few games in late December, early January, but mostly we weren't good.  

 

Anyway, it's in the past and I look forward to being improved this year, and surprising the prognosticators who have us 13th in the league.    But if we do finish 13th, I would be shocked if their isn't a change. 

 

I agree with this.  I'm giving some benefit of some doubts as far as how good I think they should have been last year, I admit that.

 

A 13th place finish is not going to be satisfactory and, I agree, I would be shocked if there wasn't a change if that happened.

 

But, like I've said before, I don't think we're going to have to worry about that.

[Handy Johnson]

20 hours ago, jimmykc said:

And how can anyone named Moos not own a cattle ranch?

Let's just hope he's NOT all hat and NO cattle...

[Swan88]

I don't believe Moos will be in a hurry to replace Tim Miles.  Here's why:

1.  There will be coaching casualties in the foreseeable future, so demands for a clean-and-quality coach will be high.

2.  The current basketball coach at Washington St. has a poor record during his three seasons at Washington St.  Consider this record:

2014-15:  13-18 .419 overall; 7-11 .389 in conference

2015-16:  9-22 .290 overall; 1-17 .056 in conference 

2016-17:  13-18 .419 overall; 6-12 .333 in conference.

 

So . . . here's guessing Moos will be rooting for Tim Miles to succeed, rather than looking for an excuse to give him the boot. 

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Swan88

[throwback]

Don't want this to come off the wrong way, as I really like Miles and want to see him continue. But having a new AD is probably best for the long term health of the program.

 

With all of the mixed signals he was sending out, it's tough to figure out what the Ginger Ghost was trying to do with hoops. Because he was in so much trouble with his football decisions, I think he was frozen in place. He wasn't going to be allowed to do anything with hoops. He had no political clout to do anything else, in other words, until football rectified itself one way or the other. It almost felt like the entire department was in limbo.

 

Not that he's gone, things can return to normalcy. 

 

It will be good to have a fresh set of eyes on the hoops program, allowing it to be fairly judged at the end of this season, whichever way it goes. I hope NU wins enough this season to allow Miles to have a nice contract extension. But if the wins don't come, I think the new leadership will get done what needs to be done. No more limbo. 

 

Moos sounds like the kind of AD that will let Miles know where he stands, be direct, which I believe meshes far more with Miles' personality. I don't expect this AD to hide behind an end-of-season Tweet, followed by 7 weeks of radio silence. 

 

The Ginger Ghost & Miles were polar opposites, obviously. It seems like he was letting Miles twist in the wind for most of last season, which caused a ton of unnecessary drama and a loss of focus. I don't expect that to be a problem with the new leadership, which hopefully will allow the coaching staff to focus more on the court and less on the mixed signals out of the AD's office.

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by throwback

[khoock]

I dont think the new AD will matter at all when Miles has a 17-19 win season this year.

[tcp]

1 hour ago, khoock said:

I dont think the new AD will matter at all when Miles has a 17-19 win season this year.

 

rec for showing proper school spirit early.

[tcp]

So do we get Squirrel for Ass't AD? 

[uneblinstu]

4 minutes ago, tcp said:

So do we get Squirrel for Ass't AD? 

Funny, because "Boehm" is Yiddish for Squirrel.

[tcp]