Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos told The Associated Press on Tuesday night that his comment earlier in the day that the Big Ten's two highest-profile football coaches are "running a little bit scared right now" of the Huskers, was "a bit tongue in cheek."
Speaking Tuesday at a luncheon at the Omaha Press Club, Moos, who hired Scott Frost months after he arrived from Washington State, said Nebraska football is ready to recapture the "golden era" under its new coach.
"We're gonna run that up-tempo offense we saw [at Saturday's spring game], and we're gonna get the Blackshirts [defense] back to being Blackshirts. And that's extremely important," Moos said, according to the Omaha World-Herald. "You've got Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh thinking, 'We better put a little more into that Nebraska game coming up.' And that's the way we want it. They're running a little bit scared right now. And they won't admit it. We'll leave that at that."
Frost's first Big Ten game as Nebraska's coach will be against Harbaugh and Michigan on Sept. 22 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the teams' first meeting since 2013. Nebraska will visit Ohio State on Nov. 3. Meyer is 3-0 against Nebraska as Ohio State's coach, and the Buckeyes have averaged 60.3 points in the games and won the past two by a combined score of 118-17. Harbaugh has yet to face Nebraska since he became Michigan's coach.
Nebraska is coming off of a 4-8 season and seeking its first conference title since 1999, when it played in the Big 12. The Huskers entered the Big Ten in 2011 but have won their division just once.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.