Dave Feit: What Herbie Husker’s Remake Says About Trev Alberts’ Decision-Making Process

Nebraska’s athletic director has followed a clear process when making potentially controversial changes

Steven Branscombe/Getty Images via Wibbitz

Blond Herbie Husker is back!

On Monday, Nebraska released a video showing the new mascot logo. The new costumed mascot will debut during Saturday’s Red-White game.

The new logo is immediately recognizable to passionate fans of the old-school Herbie: blond hair, overalls, a partially husked ear of corn sticking out of his pocket.

I love the new and improved Herbie – much, much, more than his predecessor.*

*My fondest memory of polo shirt Herbie was writing his obituary. RIP and good riddance.

More specifically, I love what the new Herbie symbolizes about Trev Alberts’ approach to his job. In his 21 months as Nebraska’s athletics director, Alberts has followed a very clear process when making potentially controversial changes:

1. Listen to stakeholders and fans.
2. Make a plan.
3. Communicate the plan.
4. Execute the plan.

Back in November 2021, during his monthly radio appearance, Alberts responded to a caller’s concerns about grey basketball uniforms by saying he wanted to “centralize” Nebraska’s look and branding. At the time, Alberts said “The reality is we can’t have nine different athletic departments and nine different logos and looks.”

Fans were vocally passionate in their love of blonde Herbie. But that Herbie hadn’t changed much in 50 years, and had a hand gesture that some associate with hate.

Trev could have commissioned a brand-new Herbie image to evoke a bunch of buzzword traits selected by a focus group: strength, grit, hard-working, and so on. Maybe that new mascot would have been a hit. More than likely, it would have been a failure.

Instead, Alberts kept it simple. The beloved original was gently refined into a 21st century design. Alberts is not going to undertake an elaborate vanity project when simple improvements will get the job done.

While NU technically still ended up with “nine different logos,” they there are all consistent and can be used across the entire Athletic Department.*

*Hopefully the athletes and fans of Nebraska’s gymnastics, tennis, track & field, cross country, swim & dive and rifle teams get their own sport-specific Herbies too.

We saw the same thing previously with the modernization of the Blackshirts logo. The original version is beloved by many - including, I would assume, a certain former Blackshirt in the AD’s office - so there was no reason to reinvent the wheel.

But if we’re being honest, the original version looks like it was drawn by a guy who printed unlicensed Husker T-shirts in Omaha.* The skull is slightly off-centered. The bones are oddly shaped. We love it because of the memories it evokes, not because it a great piece of graphic design.

*Which is true, as this excellent Hail Varsity story explains.

The new Blackshirts logo has a centered skull and clean lines. Yet, the new one is still easily recognizable as an evolution of the original version.

Moving beyond mascots and logos, we’re seeing Alberts’ decision-making approach on full display with Matt Rhule. After Frost was fired, I wrote: “Trev has a unique opportunity: For the first time since Tippy Dye hired Bob Devaney, a Nebraska athletic director has the chance to lay out his vision for the future of Nebraska football and hire a coach to fulfill it.”

As a former player, Alberts had first-hand knowledge of what was successful at Nebraska. There was no need for him to hire his own Bill Callahan or Mike Riley. Take what had worked previously, tweak it for the modern age, and build it from there.

In the press conference after Frost’s firing, Alberts laid out what he wanted in a new coach: Accountable. Grinder. Detail oriented. Culture builder. It is wild to re-read his quotes and see how many of them seem to be describing a guy who was coaching the Carolina Panthers at the time. It is too soon to tell if the resurrection of Nebraska football will be as successful as the return of blond Herbie, but the early indicators are promising.

Listen to fans and stakeholders. Make a plan. Communicate the plan. Execute the plan.

That is Trev Alberts’ blueprint for big decisions.

Speaking of blueprints, I’m really excited to see how Alberts applies his process to the next big item on his to-do list: Memorial Stadium renovations. That is a project with a ton of potentially controversial decisions. The “listen to fans and stakeholders” phase was accomplished with the ticket holder survey last year. Now, the plan is being formulated, and will likely be made public this fall.

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