Nebraska Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst stands on the sidelines during a game April 11, 2015, in Lincoln, Neb. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, file)

Shawn Eichorst is returning to his home state and getting another chance to run a Big Ten athletic department.

Wisconsin’s new athletic director says he’s learned quite a bit since the last time he was in a similar position.

Wisconsin announced the hire of Eichorst on Wednesday, 2 1/2 months after Chris McIntosh stepped down to take over a newly created position in the Big Ten office as the conference’s deputy commissioner for strategy.

Eichorst had been Nebraska’s athletic director before getting fired in the fall of 2017. Eichorst has been working at Texas since 2018, most recently as deputy athletic director and chief operating officer.

“I’ve learned a ton about resiliency, being open-minded and curious,” Eichorst said Wednesday during a Zoom session with reporters. “All those things are what universities are all about. That’s why I’m so excited to come back to Wisconsin.”

Eichorst also was an athletic director from 2011-12 at Miami and from 1999-2003 at Wisconsin-Whitewater, his alma mater. He took over at Nebraska in 2013 after the retirement of Tom Osborne and began a tenure most notable for his 2014 firing of football coach Bo Pelini and subsequent hiring of Mike Riley.

Riley, who had gone 93-80 in 14 years at Oregon State, was 19-19 in three seasons at Nebraska and got fired after the Cornhuskers finished 4-8 in 2017. Eichorst was fired shortly after Nebraska’s football team fell to Northern Illinois early in the 2017 season.

“What I take away (from the Nebraska experience) is growth,” Eichorst said. “We all learn, especially in times of adversity, resilience, all those things we talk to our young people about. I’m looking in the mirror. I look at it as a positive experience, and moving forward, I’m going to use every ounce of my soul to learn and to listen and to continue to strive to get better.”