LINCOLN, Neb. — Bo Pelini was fired as Nebraska’s football coach on Sunday after a seven-year stint marked by an inability to restore the program to national prominence and too many embarrassing defeats.

Pelini extended his streak of winning at least nine games every season with a 37-34 overtime win at Iowa on Friday but he never won a conference championship and his teams lost four games in every season he completed.

Pelini was 66-27 and led the Cornhuskers to three league championship games in the Big 12 and Big Ten.

“Earlier this morning I informed Coach Bo Pelini of our decision to move forward in a new direction,” Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst said in a statement. “Coach Pelini served our University admirably for seven years and led our football program’s transition to the Big Ten Conference.”

Eichorst will hold an afternoon news conference.

Asked for comment, Pelini wrote in a text to The Associated Press, “I’m good. Thanks for asking!”

Quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. tweeted, “Biggest mistake you ever made…. Bo was the best coach I’ve ever had and I’ll always appreciate the things you taught me.”

Pelini was under contract through February 2019. The university will owe him a settlement of about $7.5 million, which can be reduced by a certain amount once he lands another job.

Pelini brought the Huskers out of the depths of the failed four-year Bill Callahan experiment that ended in 2007, his four-losses-a-year habit and frequent bad losses on the national stage wore on a fan base that has filled Memorial Stadium for every home game since 1962.

Those fans have been conditioned to expect excellence. Nebraska ranks fourth in all-time victories and has won five national championships, including three in the four years before Tom Osborne retired as coach after the 1997 season.

The dominant run of success in the mid-1990s has been an albatross for the coaches who followed – first Frank Solich and then Callahan and Pelini.

Bad losses started to haunt Pelini after Nebraska moved to the Big Ten, and they became the program’s identity. There was the 70-31 beatdown by unranked Wisconsin in the 2012 conference championship game, and last year there were one-sided losses to UCLA, Minnesota and Iowa.

Pelini’s undoing might have been the 59-24 loss at Wisconsin on Nov. 15 when Melvin Gordon ran for a then-FBS record 408 yards. The next week the Huskers squandered a 14-point halftime lead at home while losing 28-24 to then-unranked Minnesota.

Nebraska, as a ranked team, lost seven games by 17 or more points since 2011. No other ranked team has lost so many games so lopsidedly over that span, according to STATS.

“I fully support Shawn’s decision to make a change in the leadership of our football program, and wish Bo and his family all of the best,” chancellor Harvey Perlman said. “I am confident that Shawn will find the best coach, teacher and fit for this university and for our football program.”

Pelini, criticized for a defensive scheme that couldn’t seem to stop the run, also drew detractors for his volatile temper.

He also was reprimanded by Perlman for sideline meltdowns where he ripped into officials and quarterback Taylor Martinez during a loss at Texas A&M in 2010. After cameras in 2012 captured a couple of Pelini tongue-lashings, Perlman said the coach was a “victim of his reputation” and that “within reason (fans) have to accept him for who he is.”

Last year, though, Perlman and Eichorst had to put out a fire after the website Deadspin released audio of Pelini’s profanity-laced tirade against what he called fair-weather fans and two newspaper writers.

Pelini had initially endeared himself to Nebraska fans when he served as Solich’s defensive coordinator in 2003. Pelini was interim head coach after Solich was fired in 2003 after going 9-3 in the regular season, and he was in charge for the Huskers’ Alamo Bowl victory over Michigan State. As he walked off the field in San Antonio, Husker fans chanted, “We want Bo!”

Callahan was hired instead, and Pelini took defensive coordinator jobs at Oklahoma and LSU, winning the 2007 national title with the Tigers.

Osborne, as athletic director, picked Pelini to replace Callahan, saying the program needed an immediate defensive fix.

After the Huskers shut out Arizona 33-0 in the 2009 Holiday Bowl, Pelini famously shouted, “Nebraska’s back and we’re here to stay.”

Pelini’s proclamation proved premature.