Nebraska Football: Mickey Joseph reportedly assured he’d be retained

When Nebraska football Interim Head Coach Mickey Joseph’s new contract details were released, one particular aspect raised quite a few eyebrows in that it said when a new coach was hired, Joseph would be returned to his previous Associate Head Coach position. It was assumed that was simply language that would determine his buyout amount should the next coach decide not to keep him on staff. However, there are whispers that might not be the whole story.

A new report by Sports Illustrated‘s Ross Dellenger claims that the reason Joseph accepted this new restructured contract and agreed to be the Interim Head Coach in the first place is that Nebraska football gave him assurances that he’d be retained by the next guy, if he wasn’t named to the permanent position.

While this report might strike some as unlikely, it’s not a situation that is entirely out of the realm of possibility. The writing has been on the wall for some time that Trev Alberts wasn’t happy with the job former Nebraska football head coach Scott Frost was doing.

Alberts required Frost to fire several of his assistant coaches towards the end of last year, in what seemed to the entirety of the college football world as the last chance for Frost to keep his job. It seemed a bit strange at the time that someone like Mickey Joseph, who is one of the most respected wide receiver coaches in the sport right now, would jump onto the sinking ship that was the Huskers under Frost.

There was talk last winter that indeed, the former LSU WR coach might have received some sort of assurances that if Frost was fired, Alberts would do everything he could to get his replacement to retain Joseph.

There’s also been plenty of talk that Nebraska football has made these kinds of deals with their hires in the past. Usually it seemed like the reasoning was to make sure someone with Husker ties remained on staff. Sometimes it felt like certain people kept their jobs when they didn’t deserve to.

There’s absolutely cause to be a bit alarmed if Alberts is allowing an assistant to dictate whether or not they stay or go when the next regime arrives. It’s even possible such a stipulation could scare away potential candidates.

I don’t love the idea that Alberts might be paring down who he could hire based on whether or not the next man running Nebraska football is ok keeping an assistant from the previous staff on. I am however, willing to see how this all plays out. It’s entirely possible Dellenger simply has it wrong. As Alberts himself has said, there are going to be a lot of rumors about the Nebraska football coaching search and almost all of them will be wrong.