Wisconsin is targeting former Nebraska and Miami athletics director Shawn Eichorst as its next AD, according to a report from ESPN on Tuesday. Eichorst would replace Chris McIntosh, a former Badger who took a job as the Big Ten's deputy commissioner for strategy in April.
In football circles, Eichorst is best known for his decision to fire Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini following the conclusion of the 2014 regular season. At the time, Pelini and Nebraska's fan base had something of a toxic relationship with each other; in seven seasons under Pelini, the Huskers had gone either 9-4 or 10-4 seven times, and sat at 9-3 after a 37-34 overtime win over Iowa to close the '14 regular season. Still, Eichorst fired Pelini anyway. "In the final analysis," Eichorst said. "I had to evaluate where Iowa was." Since then, Nebraska is 1-10 against Iowa, and has won nine games in a season just once.
Eichorst replaced the combustable Pelini with the affable Mike Riley, who went 19-19 in three seasons.
Eichorst himself was let go by Nebraska in September 2017, and since 2018 he's been the deputy AD and COO for football at Texas.
Of course, there's much more to Eichorst's career than the Pelini decision. He was Miami's AD for a year and a half before taking the Nebraska job in 2012, and prior to that he spent 2006-11 as the chief operating officer at Wisconsin, overseeing an eye-popping-at-the-time budget of $90 million.
At Wisconsin, he inherits a football program that's stagnated in recent years. The Badgers won the Big Ten or played for the conference title seven times in the 2010s, but have not done so since 2019. Likewise, a program that reached 10-plus wins 10 times from 2005-19 has yet to do so in the 2010s, and in three seasons under Luke Fickell has seen its win total start at seven, and then drop to five and four in subsequent seasons.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.