College Football

Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts set to take same job at Texas A&M

Updated Mar. 13, 2024 12:13 p.m. ET

Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts is being targeted to take the same job at Texas A&M, according to FOX Sports college football insider Bruce Feldman.

Alberts would replace Ross Bjork, who was A&M's athletic director for five years before recently being hired away by Ohio State.

The deep-pocketed Aggies were expected to make a major move to fill their open athletic director position after Bjork's departure was announced. Still, Alberts' decision is somewhat of a surprise given that he is a Nebraska alum and a former star Cornhuskers linebacker. Alberts' 2021 return to Nebraska as athletic director was seen as a homecoming for the man whose No. 34 is retired by the school's football program.

Alberts signed a contract extension through 2031 last July, and Nebraska would be owed $4.120 million in damages if he were to resign this year. His annual base salary this year is $1.7 million.

Alberts was an All-American linebacker for the Cornhuskers’ football team in the early 1990s, was the fifth overall pick in the 1994 NFL draft and retired in 1997 after three injury-plagued seasons for the Indianapolis Colts. He went into athletic administration after a stint as a TV college football analyst. He was athletic director at Nebraska-Omaha from 2009 until his hiring at Nebraska in July 2021.

"Other than my faith and my family, everything I have materially and otherwise is a result of an opportunity to be a student at the University of Nebraska," he said at the time. "I don’t take this responsibility lightly."

Alberts' overarching task at Nebraska was to revive a football program that had fallen on hard times in the two decades since its dominant run through the 1990s. His most notable move after his return to the the school as athletic director was to fire his former teammate and fellow ex-Cornhuskers star Scott Frost as head football coach in 2022, eventually replacing Frost with former Temple, Baylor and Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule.

The well-regarded Rhule led Nebraska to a 5-7 record in his first season at the helm and oversaw a strong defensive turnaround under new coordinator Tony White, then after the season landed top class of 2024 quarterback recruit Dylan Raiola — the son of yet another former star Cornhuskers player, Dominic Raiola, and nephew of current offensive line coach Donovan Raiola.

Alberts also oversaw fundraising for a $175 million football building and last year announced plans for a $450 million renovation of Memorial Stadium.

At Texas A&M, Alberts will take over alongside new head football coach Mike Elko, the former Aggies defensive coordinator and Duke head coach who Bjork brought back to College Station last December after the firing of Elko's former boss, Jimbo Fisher.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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