Texas A&M is close to hiring Nebraska’s Trev Alberts as its next athletic director, a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Wednesday.The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was still being finalized. Alberts did not respond to a text message seeking comment.Alberts would replace Ross Bjork, who was A&M’s athletic director for five years before recently being hired away by Ohio State.Alberts signed a contract extension through 2031 last July, and Nebraska would be owed $4.120 million in damages if he were to resign this year. His annual base salary this year is $1.7 million.Alberts was an All-America linebacker for the Cornhuskers’ football team in the early 1990s, was the fifth overall pick in the 1994 NFL draft and retired in 1997 after three injury-plagued seasons for the Indianapolis Colts.He went into athletic administration after a stint as a TV college football analyst. He was athletic director at Nebraska-Omaha from 2009 until his hiring at Nebraska in July 2021.“Other than my faith and my family, everything I have materially and otherwise is a result of an opportunity to be a student at the University of Nebraska,” he said at the time. “I don’t take this responsibility lightly.”Alberts’ overarching task at Nebraska was to revive a football program that had fallen on hard times in the two decades since its dominant run through the 1990s.He fired coach Scott Frost in 2022 and brought in Matt Rhule, a popular hire who will be entering his second season. He also oversaw fund-raising for a $175 million football building and last year announced plans for a $450 million renovation of Memorial Stadium.___AP College Football Writer Eric Olson in Nebraska contributed to this report.___Get alerts on the latest AP Top 25 poll throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football