Report: Trev Alberts expected to become Texas A&M's athletic director
Trev Alberts, who seemed destined to be Nebraska’s athletic director for years to come, apparently is headed elsewhere.
The 53-year-old Alberts has emerged as Texas A&M’s target for athletic director, according to the Houston Chronicle. The news organization cites an East Coast insider familiar with the process.
Alberts is expected to take the A&M job, according to the Chronicle. He would take over for Ross Bjork, who left for the same position at Ohio State in January. A&M has had four athletic directors over the past decade: Eric Hyman, Scott Woodward, Bjork and now likely Alberts, according to the report.
Alberts didn’t return calls seeking comment.
At least two long-time Nebraska athletic department employees were blindsided by the news. On the other hand, a source told HuskerOnline that the deal has been in the works for weeks.
Alberts, who would be leaving his alma mater where he starred as an outside linebacker, would inherit a new football coach at A&M in Mike Elko, hired in December from Duke, where he was head coach two years.
Nebraska’s athletic director since the summer of 2021, Alberts in late 2022 hired Husker football coach Matt Rhule, who was 5-7 overall in 2023 in his first season at the school.
Alberts received a new contract at NU in November
This past November, Alberts received a new contract that doubled his salary and was designed to keep him at Nebraska through 2031. Then-NU president Ted Carter announced the deal. Carter, though, since has taken over as Ohio State’s president.
Under terms of the deal, Alberts’ annual base salary jumped from $800,000 to $1.7 million and increased to $2.1 million in 2026.
Alberts would be paid a $500,000 retention bonus if he stays at Nebraska through September 2025, with an annual $300,000 retention bonus every following year he stays. He would receive a $3 million bonus if he completes the entire eight-year agreement.
Liquidation damages would be paid to the university if Alberts were to leave for A&M or anywhere else.
Nebraska has endured marked leadership instability in its athletic department since joining the Big Ten in 2011. Alberts is the school’s fourth athletic director since 2012, and Rhule is the team’s third football coach since the end of the 2014 season.
Alberts was hired by Nebraska in July of 2021 after serving as athletic director at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He was an All-America football player for the Huskers and won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker in 1993.
A&M news surely comes as shocker to most NU fans
The A&M news comes as a shocker to Nebraska fans, particularly in the wake of news of a $450 million renovation project to Memorial Stadium that was announced in September. The project would reshape the 100-year-old home of the Huskers’ football program.
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“We had one chance to do this,” Alberts said in September during a news conference to announce the project. “If we’re going to do this right, we’re going to do this entirely.”
It appears someone else is going to have to head up the project.
As Nebraska’s athletic director, Alberts has made a sizable impact. Among his notable achievements were the “Volleyball Day in Nebraska” event that drew 92,000 fans to Memorial Stadium, the largest attendance ever recorded for a women’s sport, and landing a 15-year, $300 million multimedia rights agreement with Playfly Sports.
Both of Nebraska’s basketball teams are NCAA Tournament-bound, with the Husker men (22-9) heading to the Big Ten Tournament this week as a No. 3 seed.
Alberts proud of NU’s academic success
Nebraska’s athletic achievements in 2022-23 included NCAA top-10 finishes by wrestling, rifle, bowling, women’s outdoor track and field, men’s gymnastics and men’s indoor track and field. In all, 10 Husker teams posted top-20 national finishes, while the men’s track team captured the Big Ten outdoor title under first-year coach Justin St. Clair.
Academically, Nebraska student-athletes continued to shine with a school-record 95 percent graduation rate across all sports for the second straight year — an achievement that Alberts highlights. All of Nebraska’s programs had at least an 88 percent GSR score in the most recent report.
Alberts also makes sure to always stress that winning on the playing fields and courts matters greatly.
His department did encounter adversity last month in the form of a former Husker women’s basketball player’s civil lawsuit accusing head coach Amy Williams and Alberts of failing to take appropriate action when her sexual relationship with an assistant coach came to light.
But the lawsuit wouldn’t be a factor in driving Alberts to another job, according to a source.
“Today’s college athletics landscape is complex and ever-changing,” Carter said in November while announcing Alberts’ revised contract. “We need exactly the right person leading Husker Athletics forward. In Trev Alberts, we have found that leader.”
