Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos is reportedly on a long list of preliminary candidates the Pac-12 Conference is working through as it looks for a new commissioner. 

Moos, 70, is listed as a preliminary candidate in a San Jose Mercury News report along with several others, including former XFL executive and West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck and current West Coast Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez. 

Moos downplayed his involvement in a text to the Journal Star on Friday morning. 

“Flattered to be mentioned, but merely media speculation,” he said. “Have not been contacted.” 

The report says as many as 10 to 12 may have already been discussed and none of the candidates “would qualify as finalists.” 

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One source cited in the report said, “They’re floating a lot of names to get reaction from the (conference) presidents.” 

Moos, of course, has a long history with the conference, having served as the athletic director at both Washington State and Oregon. 

He also has a long history with TurnkeyZRG, the firm helping the Pac-12 identify candidates. It’s the firm NU used in the athletic director search that ended with Moos coming to Lincoln. When head football coach Scott Frost was introduced in December 2017, Moos called Turnkey partner Gene DeFilippo “my good friend.” 

Moos also has repeatedly expressed his will to stay at Nebraska — though mostly while considering retirement as the alternative, not a lucrative and powerful commissioner position — through at least the end of his contract, which runs through Dec. 31, 2022. 

Moos has ample reason to stay at Nebraska, too. Not only does he make $1,150,000 this year and $1.2 million in 2022 as a base salary, but he is due a deferred compensation payment of $1.25 million if he is still employed by NU at the end date of his contract. 

That means he will make at least $3.6 million over the course of 2021 and 2022 at Nebraska. And that’s before factoring in up to $1 million in potential bonus money, about half of which is attainable without football reaching championship levels of achievement.