Wisconsin’s reported move to hire Shawn Eichorst as its next athletic director has a very Nebraska feel to it, and not in a good way.
The Badgers have long worn their desire to mirror Nebraska like a badge of honor. Barry Alvarez acknowledged that years ago.
But there’s a difference between borrowing an identity and importing the part of the Nebraska story that blew up in everyone’s face. This, on paper, looks a lot closer to the latter.
Eichorst is currently the deputy AD and COO at Texas, and Pete Thamel reported June 30, 2026, that Wisconsin is targeting him for the job. For Wisconsin fans, the appeal is easy to see.
He once worked under Alvarez, which gives the hire a familiar ring. Nebraska, after all, took a chance on him in 2012 when he had only spent two years running an athletic department at Miami.
But his five-year run in Lincoln is exactly why this feels so strange.
His first major football decision was to fire Bo Pelini, a coach with real flaws but also one who never won fewer than nine games at Nebraska. Eichorst then hired Mike Riley, a move that raised eyebrows immediately because Riley had done strong work at Oregon State, but did not look like a fit for the scale and pressure of Nebraska.
The concerns didn’t fade. They grew.
By the time Eichorst’s successor moved on from Riley four years later, the whole thing had already gone sideways. Before that final season, Eichorst had pushed Riley to dismiss longtime friend and defensive coordinator Mark Banker.
He also required Riley to bring in Bob Diaco, even though Riley and Diaco had no prior connection. Eichorst went as far as telling a room of boosters that Diaco was “the best coach on campus.”
John Cook, the Hall of Fame volleyball coach, was on campus at the time.
That label aged badly in a hurry.
Diaco’s defense gave up 35 or more points seven times in 2017, more than half of Nebraska’s games. Arkansas State hung 36 on the Huskers in the opener.
Oregon beat them 42-35. Northern Illinois followed with a 21-17 win.
In that entire season, Diaco’s unit held only one opponent under 14 points.
Eichorst was fired not long after that disastrous start to the year. Later, Diaco said Eichorst had “mandated” a tackling approach under Banker that made the Huskers worse at tackling.
That’s the part Wisconsin should be staring at. Not the Nebraska connection, not the familiar résumé, not the easy nostalgia. The warning sign is the atmosphere that followed Eichorst around in Lincoln - one where football decisions got tangled up, and the results got uglier by the week.
Wisconsin seems determined to keep walking down Nebraska’s road. The strange part is that it looks like they’re heading straight for the wrong exit.
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