Derek Johnson Muses

It is my daily goal to make everyone around me better people, thanks be to God.

Tag Archives: Sports

Suzanne Venker on Title IX: Time to Revise?

Leave a Comment Posted by on April 4, 2013

Sometime when I was watching ESPN in the last year, I saw a commercial where girls where playing sports together outside, and then, one by one, began leaving the field, their uniforms changing into beautiful dresses and formal business suits. At the end of the commercial, there was a brief message trying to convince young women to stay in athletics. Implication: if you have to convince girls to stay in athletics, you’ve got too many programs.

Title IX, while it was necessary at the time it was implemented to make sure athletic departments offered women’s sports, has since over-proliferated a women’s programs when the cost of all sports has exploded. Suzanne Venker, a conservative author and speaker, has written about the affects of Title IX in her book The Flip Side of Feminism.

“Enrollment in academic courses is now approaching 60 percent women to 40 percent men…athletic teams must enforce this same ratio. This rule is absurd because it’s a fact of human nature that men are more interested than women in participating in competitive sports….”

Also skewing this ratio men who want to work in trades like plumbing, mechanics, or construction, are more likely to go to a two year college and never set foot in a D-1 school. Venker continues:

“When the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 2010 recommended colleges use a survey to determine student interest in athletics as the ‘best method available’ for complying with the law without requiring arbitrary gender quotas, the Obama administration-predictably-rejected that helpful suggestion, sticking to the proportionality rule…Demanding equal participation in college sports is absurd-and it’s wholly unfair to men.”

In addition to using a student interest survey, sampling participation in high school and junior high could be a fair way to determine which programs a college has to offer.

Due to radical feminism, Title IX is that it is Teflon when it comes to the rising cost of college athletics. Every now and then, a”serious journalist” will gasp over million-dollar football budgets…without mentioning the fact that there’s a federal law mandating universities carry programs that are destined to loose money. This is why you can’t a reasonable conversation about paying college football players because a chunk of every dollar every scholarship football player brings the university automatically gets cut off and sent to support another athletic program at the university, even though the money is better spent on the track teams rather than a linebacker’s weekend binge.

Let’s consider how the culture has changed since Title IX: major college sports aren’t just a ten-hour a week, extra-curricular activities. They are full-time jobs that involve regular travel (and longer travel because of conference realignment), plus off-season workouts, on top of being a student. When Title IX was implemented in the early 1970′s, woman’s college sports were underfunded or non-existent. Now the market has been over-saturated.

Cutting back on woman’s programs could actually help the competitive balance in woman’s sports. Consider how woman’s college basketball has been largely dominated by two programs, UConn and Tennessee, over the last several decades. Consider UConn’s long winning streak a couple of years ago: women’s college basketball is often the top women’s sport on campus,and takes little money to compete in, because they share a facility with the men. How can UConn carry on such a streak in this earth-is-flat, even-resources world? Cutting back the number of woman’s teams can help the school focus its resources.

Granted, Title IX can’t be scrapped completely, and indeed, there is a very fair component to it: making sure woman’s programs have funds. Many unions in this country began when workers were vastly underpaid, overworked (think sixty hour work weeks), and sent into unsafe working conditions. While their overall value is debatable now, worker’s unions are still needed to ensure safe working environments (as is necessary in a mining or construction business). Title IX is needed to ensure woman’s sports can have the resources they need to provide a positive experience to their participants. And with the advent of conference networks, all non-revenue sports aren’t going to lose the money they did ten years ago.

But still, society’s evolve. Given how much it takes to field a competitive team, let’s not saddle athletic departments with teams that the girls don’t want anyway. There’s no shame in admitting that boys want to play sports more than girls.

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Beating A Want-to-Be Rival was Fitting Way to Close Out the Devaney

Leave a Comment Posted by on February 28, 2013

A note on these post: as I announced on Twitter this past Monday, I will now be contributing to the website HuskerMax.com. It’s been a bit of a drought between the end of Husker Locker and joining Husker Max, and I’m grateful to David Max and Joe Hudson for the opportunity.

I’ve decided to continue to post Husker content here, because I can use my photos here. But I would appreciate it if all of you here click over and read my work on Husker Max, as I am paid by pageviews for my work on that site. Thanks to all for continued readership and support.

Tim Miles watches over his team.

Tim Miles watches over his team.

Last Saturday, I went to the Nebraska-Iowa game at the Devaney Center on a bit of a whim. It was the third Nebraska basketball game I’ve been to this year, and in all cases, I have wanted to care about going to Nebraska basketball more than I actually wanted to go to the games themselves. And even after the game, I felt like I didn’t learn anything towards whether or not Tim Miles will be the right coach long-term, only that he’ll have one nice conference win on his resume for next year.

Fittingly, the opponent was a team that I wanted cared more about beating than I actually did care. I want to rout against the Iowa Hawkeyes, want them to be Nebraska’s blood rival. But, for whatever reason, they haven’t seemed to be that, in football or otherwise, maybe because beating them has come easy. When I stopped for a quick lunch at Runza, there were numerous Iowa fans there, and as I made my way into the arena, the generous number of black-and-gold clad fans made me upset. But given the product that Nebraska’s put on the court of the last year, it wasn’t like I had a right to be mad at my fellow fans.

There were plenty of Iowa fans up in the rafters and throughout the arena, although not close to the Nebraska-at-Northwestern ratio in football this past year. But it was embarrassing in terms of how much noise was made in the first half. As a whole, it was nowhere close to the sellout it was said to be with were blocks of empty cushioned seats across the arena, the apathy the Bob has become known for. Given the abrupt change in date from Thursday to Saturday, there were bound to be some no-shows.

In typical Devaney Center fashion, I didn’t pay attention early in the game. It was obvious Iowa’s rooster, while not vastly superior, was better. All of their players were thicker, and were looking to step out and shoot. Nebraska’s roster is full of tightly muscled guys who wish to do nothing more than cut to the basket, except none of them are good enough to do it consistently. While Nebraska got behind by the number of free throws they missed, I worked on my to-do list for the upcoming week and took a few pictures. With Iowa leading by 18 at halftime, I went out to the concourse, sat writing in a corner, and didn’t realize that the second half started until they were two minutes in.

I went back to my seat, wondering when Husker fans would start exiting the building. (Answer: the first did so around the ten minute mark). Eventually, the Huskers made a run and got the game back to about ten points, and I thought, Okay, this will be a nice memory of the last time the Bob kind of rocked.

Except that Miles’ crew didn’t stop with just getting the game back to about ten. They got it to seven, and at that point, people started getting out of their seats when Iowa brought the ball to the other end of the court on offense. As the duel carried on, I never expected Nebraska to come back, but I didn’t think that they were not able to come back either. Turns out, they got the better of Iowa, and the nothing-but-net three ball to give Nebraska was a fitting great moment.

I grew up when Nebrasketball was a viable team every year. Not great, but at least they were making the postseason every year in the 1990′s and had shots at the NCAA’s. Success in college basketball at Nebraska wouldn’t be as meaningful as the football success, but given how college basketball has been watered down, it is success that is seen in a different light. Leaving the Bob last Saturday with the silenced Iowa fans, it was nice moment, but it will be a while until any Nebraska fans know if it was the start of anything. I’m not even going to judge how good of a coach Miles is off this year, because of his history suggests he takes more overlooked, great plains players. But early signs suggest it’s not a disaster.

As far as the rivalry with Iowa, I don’t know if it’s going to get chippy just because some Iowa fans from Omaha got disappointed for driving an hour to see their team loose on

Gallegos before attempted the free throw to put Nebraska up for. Curb your enthusiasm, please.

Gallegos before attempted the free throw to put Nebraska up for. Curb your enthusiasm, please.

the road on a Saturday afternoon. Yes, Nebraska’s dominating Iowa in all sports, but I think Nebraska fans assumed this. (As someone who occasionally has to stand Des Moines sports radio, I know whose standards are higher.) I don’t know what’s going to have to change to make this a better rivalry or make me care more about it, but then again, maybe nothing needs to change. Maybe it just needs to give us final minutes like on Saturday.

With ten minutes to go, I moved down to some of the cushioned seats that were a few rows up from the exits. Even with the late game drama, there were still fans who made their way to the exits right after Dylan Talley made the go-ahead three, and left as soon as Ray Gallegos made the free-throw to put them up four with 2.3 seconds to go. I hope that tradition of leaving early ends with the move to Pinnacle Bank Arena.

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A Husker Recruiting Thought, & Will Huskers 2012-2013 Seasons Resemble 2001-2002?

Leave a Comment Posted by on February 7, 2013
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Will they keep it going?

Have to be honest-I don’t really follow college football recruiting as closely as I used to. I know this year was a better year for the expert, and I know that part of why Nebraska hasn’t done as well the last two years is that their top recruits have left the program early (Cody Green, Todd Peat, Tyler Moore, Aaron Green, etc, etc). The success or failure of a recruiting class will depend on how many of the top recruits max out.

I’m a little surprised that Nebraska as a state doesn’t have more than one signable player for Bo Pelini. I know it’s not 1985, and that you have to import players, but it goes back to what I raised in January: does Pelini have the mentality to develop blue collar players from small high schools and get the most out of them? You don’t have to be an elite athlete to start at linebacker in the Big 10. Go out to Tecumseh and find someone who can dominate on special teams, an area where you really lagged behind in 2012.

While Nebraska football has suffered more than its share of bad losses over the last ten years, 2001 Colorado and 2012 Wisconsin both have similarity in that, both the 2001 and 2012 teams overachieved due to favorable schedules: namely, hardest games at home (Oklahoma, Kansas State, and Texas Tech in 2001; Wisconsin, Michigan, and Penn State in 2012), traditionally good opponents having done years (Kansas State in 2001, Michigan State and Iowa this year). So, after a devastating loss to end the year, Husker fans should wonder if 2013 will feature results similar to 2002.

Record-wise, I don’t think Nebraska will have a year like 2002 in 2013, mainly because that team lost the talent and leadership of Eric Crouch, which covered up a lot of Frank Solich’s flaws. That year also featured a tougher schedule early, tougher than this team will face with five home games to start the year (thanks, Southern Miss). But the issue of complacency remains, and for all the work that Taylor Martinez has set about improving his game, his attitude has never said, “I lead from the front.” Also, this team’s best leader, Rex Burkhead, is sadly moving on.

So, will 2013 be a let down? My personal prediction is that Nebraska will be no worse than 9-3 after they play Iowa, barring major injury of course. But should fans expect 11-1? Even if Penn State falls off the face of the earth by next November, Michigan State and Iowa will improve, and UCLA has been revitalized under Jim Mora. It’s not going to be easy.

What will determine the Huskers success in 2013 is how hungry they are in spring practice. Watch the video below for a few examples of where the Huskers may be lacking.

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Mack Brown to the Longhorn Network: Ask My Lawyer

Leave a Comment Posted by on January 30, 2013

So this fall it came out that Mack Brown isn’t exactly happy with the Longhorn Network. All those trips across town to tape The Mack Brown Show three times a week, that’s wearing on poor ol’ Mack, coupled with the fact that all those practice highlights on LHN is giving our opponents the advantage. This is the point where Husker fans ask, “So Texas, that was worth nearly destroying the Big 12? By the by, that’s for giving us the push we need to go to the Big 10.”

Brown’s complaints about his commitment to the network is, in part, a by-product of longevity in the coaching world. I remember watching him on the sidelines during the 2010 Texas-Kansas State game, belching at his players while a Wildcat returned an interception. I remember thinking to myself that this coach who wore a sophisticated mesh workout shirt with the Longhorn head on it, just looked tired of being a hands-on coach. Since 1985, Brown has been in a head coach of a FBS program, twenty-seven years without a break. Even though Colt McCoy got UT to the 2009 National Title game, the Big 12 was extremely watered down and Jordan Shipley was the only skill player of note on that team. With McCoy’s leadership gone, Brown had to take it over, and even with elite coordinators, Texas has hit a ceiling.

So it’s not surprising that Brown’s now complaining about his LHN commitments. Texas is in an on-field funk, and suddenly, their gem of a network is a problem. To get conference games on the network, they have to show the game on over-the-air channels in the market of the visiting team. According to Blair Kerkhoff, more people in Kansas than in watched last year’s Texas-Kansas game (whose LHN telecast was announced in glamorous fashion by Brett Musberger during the Red River Rivalry), and this year’s Cyclone-Longhorn game was even shown on the local ABC affiliate in Omaha. The vehemence is palpable.

But my advice Nebraska fans: let this one go. If Pat Fitzgerald, Dan Mullen, Chris Pederson or any young coach, takes the Texas job when Brown retires, either one of them will have the energy to take care of the LHN commitments. That coach will, after all, have one of the best jobs in America. (BTB, if Fitzgerald ends up at Texas, he’ll have one of the best ten to twenty year runs of a coach at one school ever.) Just be thankful that you have a good new conference, even if you haven’t had the highest success on the gridiron.

So, what does the long-term future hold for LHN? It’s only been a little over a year, and remember, it took a while for the Big 10 Network to catch on, although there were a lot more markets that wanted BTN’s content. If LHN continues to flounder, it could hasten Texas’ potential trek to the Pac-12 with Oklahoma. The Longhorns will continue to profit, but it likely be more work than they expected, and the network won’t be the gem everyone thought it would end up being. Smile slyly, Husker fans.

Hold on…

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Finally, a Bill Callahan Story

Leave a Comment Posted by on January 22, 2013

Yesterday, Bill Callahan pops up in a national story, likely against his wishes. Since getting fired by Tom Osborne in 2007, Callahan took the buyout Steve Pederson prepared for him and retreated to NFL filmrooms. He did quite well as the Jets offensive line coach, turning D’Brickashaw Ferguson from a bust into a three-time Pro Bowler and resurrecting the Jets’ running game. He even helped Matt Slauson, a former Nebraska protege, become a good NFL player. But in five years, he offered only a small congratulatory comment to Osborne upon the latter’s retirement and made no other statements about his time at Nebraska.

I don’t think that most Nebraskan want to hear from Callahan. Callahan hasn’t hurt Nebraska football long-term; instead of winning just enough to keep his job (ALA Tommy Bowden or even worse Ralph Fridgen), Callahan graciously failed quickly and got out of town. In fact, he left Bo Pelini better players than he got from Frank Solich.

But now, there is an intruing story involving Bill Callahan magically changing a game plan on the Raiders the Friday before the Super Bowl in a “sabotage” attempt, according to Tim Brown. My Husker reaction: who cares. We here in Nebraska already knew that Bill Callahan wasn’t a great coach. The two people who hired him to be a head coach were Al Davis and Pederson, both of whom are known to hire yes-man coaches who they can feel free to meddle with. (It won’t be a surprise if, at this time next year, Jerry Jones taps Callahan to replace Jason Garrett.) If anything, Callahan changing his game plan two days before a game is inconsistent with his stick-to-the-playcalling-sheet-at-all-costs nature.

But one thing in the story that does seem to be consistent with Callahan’s nature was that Barrett Robbins snapped under the weight of information that Bill Callahan was giving him. Whether it was because Callahan changed the game plan or not, Nebraska fans can always remember the Huskers’ offensive players looking like they were stuck in concrete with all the routes and checks they had to run. Given how much information a center has to handle anyway, one could see how Robbins could easily become overloaded with the over-prepared Callahan as his head coach.

“Sabotage” was thrown around Nebraska numerous times during 2007, and certainly Callahan didn’t fight as hard as he could have to keep his job, if it’s true that he refused Kevin Cosgrove’s resignation. There’s the image of him without his headset on after the loss to Missouri, showing up to press conferences in business shirts as opposed to Husker gear after Pederson’s firing. I don’t think he quit so much as he didn’t mind going back to being an NFL assistant as much as coaches who are willing to adapt and change.

So, here it is, the lowly Bill Callahan sighting. I don’t bring up to mock him, just because he so rarely pops up on the radar. It may another five years until another good story about him comes out.

Exactly William

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Manti Te’o Hoax: The Naive Guy from the Back Island?

Leave a Comment Posted by on January 19, 2013

Manti Te’o-fake girlfriend hoax that Deadspin broke this week, is one of the most bizarre stories in sports or popular culture, mainly because there wasn’t a clear motive for the perpetrators, other seeing how long they could make the prank go on. The girl’s picture was a girl Te’o was different than the girl he he talk to on the phone? Quite complicated.

But in Te’o's defense-yes, he lacked judgment in this manner. But given his background, it’s plausible that he could have been hoaxed in this manner. Te’o came from a small island culture which are generally more inclusive, and from a religion, Mormonism, that is a very inclusive, which religious bodies are to some extent. He choose rural, isolated Notre Dame over Mormon Mecca BYU and USC, who imports numerous Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders, so clearly he was looking for an out of the way community. He was in a different, rural place, away from his family and the people he loved. Could he have been so blind to fall for this scheme?

Let me share a bit of personal experience. Like Te’o, I went to a private school away from where I grew up, Concordia University Wisconsin, a school nestled into the burbs north of Milwaukee. The large chunk of the student body had been raised in smaller communities and gone to Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod schools, and a few were even homeshooled, as I was. Most of them were well-adjusted and had discernment, but there were that ten percent of students who you wouldn’t have been shocked to see them fall for the Nigeria e-mail scam. Very disappointed, yes, but shocked, no.

In this particular story, there is a bit of gap I see in the media, having mostly to do with values. Not only is a lot of the media considering that Te’o is a bit socially awkward, but they find it inconceivable that Te’o would fall in love without a physical element. Yes, he should have been suspicious, but does anyone want to consider the fact that some people do actually remain chaste and are capable of having a relationship based more on communication rather than raw physical desire?

There has been speculation that Te’o was using the girlfriend story as a cover for homosexuality, a line that the original Deadspin report didn’t say but lead the reader to believe. I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand; frankly, nothing that comes out about Te’o after should surprise anyone. Maybe he invented Lennay Kekua so he could turn down girls and stay a virgin.

The biggest problem for Te’o in this story is that he was shown to be way too naïve. Major college football players, and stars specifically, are told that they are targets. The fact that he and Kekua never Skyped face-to-face or that she always canceled when they were supposed to met should have made Te’o suspicious, and he should have called the relationship off after the first time she didn’t arrive at a pre-arranged meeting. Just a story of young Jack leaving home for the first time.

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Shrinking the NCAA Basketball Tournament

Leave a Comment Posted by on January 14, 2013

College basketball isn’t something I care about deeply, partly because the college basketball program I grew up following (Nebraska) isn’t very good. I like March Madness, although I don’t make a point to fill out a bracket every year. I don’t write this post in bad will, but I assert a common point: the quality of college basketball is not as great as it was fifteen to twenty years ago because of how quickly stars bolt to the NBA. That’s not the fault of the schools that care about basketball: Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina are always interesting, and put out great shows on game day. But March Madness has diminished, and I have unconventional solution.

Cut the NCAA Tournament to 32 teams.

Such a solution would go against the nature of college basketball, a sport whose pundits want to make the selection committee cry because of the last five teams left out of the Tournament, most of which haven’t beaten a good team on the road or scheduled hard enough. College basketball’s inclusive mentality (the polar opposite of football) hasn’t help the sport gain more public support, and if anything, the tournament is going to get bigger rather than smaller. But let me make a case for it.

Play a 32-team NCAA Tournament over two weekends, keeping the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday and Wednesday-Friday-Sunday format that used now with the First Four. The Final Four will be the next weekend. Around this tournament, have a bunch of smaller, consolation, 8-team tournaments that wrap up by the Sunday/Monday/Tuesday that the NCAA Elite Eight wraps up. These 8-team tournaments can be considered the “minor bowls” of the college basketball postseason, and pod seeding can keep teams closer to home. The Final Four can be played in the same manner it always is.

Benefits: More drama in late regular season games. This is the most obvious reason to reduce the NCAA Tournament. Yes, there is currently drama among the last teams in, but the debate is always about who is better, the ninth team in the ACC or the seventh team in the Big 12. Reducing the tournament would make a February matchup between the second and third teams in a particular conference all the more meaningful, as the looser likely would be out.

:Eliminate Automatic Bids and Get a Better Field. There would have to be a new selection process, and no disrespect to Missouri Valley Champ or the A-10 Winner, but you more often than not have no shot to win the Tournament. Guarantee that the Tournament will include a certain number of conference champs (20, 22), and leave up to the schools to play a tough enough schedule.

:The Lesser “Bowl Game” Tournament Would Direct Agreements with Conferences,
which would lead to the conference and teams getting more money directly. And unlike the bowl system, cold weather cities wouldn’t be excluded, so you could have tournaments in Chicago, New York, and Boston.

:Lesser College Teams get More Chances to Improve. Remember that streak of NIT winners reaching the NCAA’s the next year? All those games help teams get better. A lot of teams in the middle who exit the Tournament in the first round loose an opportunity to get better. With 8-team tournaments, college basketball teams have the opportunity to win a tournament and go into the off-season with momentum for the next year, as their counterparts in football do.

:Making the Tournament Mean More. The great programs won’t celebrate appearance, but when Iowa or Pitt hang banner for making the tournament, they will represent special teams. And all the teams who are annually good can get in.

Biggest Unknown: How will the Lesser Tournaments Fair? Will NC State fans care about winning the Capitol One Tournament in Orlando? Will Iowa State fans head to Chicago to watch the Cyclones play the MAC Champ? What would be really telling is if Kansas fans would drive to Omaha or Oklahoma City after a disappointing year.

Biggest Myth: Coaches will have Less Job Security. For the record, college football coaches have much less security than college football coaches, save for a handful of basketball first jobs, because of the money in football. If anything, winning one of the “Bowl Tournaments” will do more to help a coaches image than just going out in the first round of the NCAAs or in the third round of the NIT. Keeping your job will still come down to recruiting and filling your arena.

This formula isn’t perfect, and yes, the great 5/12 upsets will be gone from the NCAA’s. But the Tournament is expanding itself into oblivion, because college basketball is nothing but a good ‘ole boys network that will put routine over what’s best for the sport any day. This system increases the value of the regular season, the urgency of the postseason tournament, and keeps more teams involved longer. It won’t happy, but I’d love to see it

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Where Pelini Should Have Succeeded

1 Comment Posted by on January 7, 2013

Last year, Terrence Moore was a Blackshirt who impressed. He wasn’t elite, but he’d made the most of what he was-a former three star player who redshirted, stayed with the program, and became a very solid contributor who finally had a chance to start when Jared Crick got hurt. Bo Pelini got the most out of him. Up until this year, there were points in the careers of Cameron Meredith, Eric Martin and Will Compton where I’d thought Pelini had gotten the most out of them. Funny how that works.

Pelini had a number of seniors who had been contributors since they were freshmen or sophomores-Cameron Meredith, Baker Steinkulher, Eric Martin, Will Compton, Sean Fisher, PJ Smith, along with JUCOs Joseph Carter and Damion Stafford, and Courtney Osborne on the bench. Mel Kiper Jr. notes that one of the things that has separated the players that Bret Bielema and Kirk Ferentz have sent to the NFL is their polish, that their respective coaches got the most out of what they had. The same cannot be said of Pelini with these players; you can’t be as horrid as Nebraska was at time this year on defense when you have experienced player, not one of whom has maxed out. Compton at times has been Nebraska’s “playmaker”, and Martin somehow had 16.5 tackles for losses. Smith looks like he had the most growth potential, but never reached it.

Why does all this matter? It matter because, when a fan base talk about firing a coach, the reason they would is because he hasn’t succeed when he has had the material to do so. If you have so many defensive players who haven’t developed and you are a defensive coach, that’s an area where you should do better.

There is an irony to it-all these players being freshmen on the iron wall, Ndamukong Suh-lead defense that stood up to the spread offenses of the Big 12, carrying the offense-less Huskers. If only all these guys would have molded their attitudes and work ethics after Jared Crick’s than Suh’s, as Suh’s displays of lawlessness since he entered the NFL shows what kind of a leader he must have been at Nebraska. Matt Slauson blasted Suh a year ago for two incidents at Nebraska and said Suh “wasn’t well liked”. Slauson didn’t say when those incidents occurred, but it’s fair to question the legacy Suh left for the Blackshirts when you see their fall.

But the Blackshirts struggles stretch beyond anything Suh has done and any of the recruited players Pelini has or hasn’t developed. Where Pelini has failed is to find chip-in walk-ons to contribute. Even the bad Cosgrove defenses have had overachieving guys who have played key roles, like Stewart Bradley and Ben Eisenhart. And give Cosgrove some credit (yes, I just wrote that) for developing Tyler Wortman and Matt O’Hanlon, the latter of whom made more timely plays than anyone else on Nebraska’s 2009 defense. Other than nickle/dime back Justin Blatchford, there isn’t a single, rounded out walk-on senior among the 2012 Blackshirts.

When you are a major college coach at a northern school that doesn’t have a lot of FBS prospects, it’s understandable if you are thin at certain positions like corner or wide receiver, positions where athleticism matters. But if you can’t find linebackers or safeties via your walk-on program, there’s no excuse. Iowa State had two three-year starter, all-conference caliber, senior linebackers. Kansas State’s 1998 11-2 was built on linebackers, and its resurgence the past year rest strongly with safety Ty Zimmerman. Wisconsin has good linebackers, as has Iowa over the years. In 2009, I was watching a game with a couple of guys who were remarking about how inconsistent Sean Fisher was linebacker. In three years, Pelini couldn’t find a better player to put in than Fisher.

But the good news for Husker fans: Pelini lost all those eight starters, and in spring and fall practices, will be able to hold essentially open tryouts for starting positions. Unlike the last two year, Pelini likely won’t have to replace multiple defensive. Of course, given that Pelini was so “loyal” to bad players man not give the good players incentive.

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The last home game for these Blackshirts….

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Are Nebraska Fans Too Sensitive to Getting Blown Out?

Leave a Comment Posted by on January 3, 2013

Since Nebraska’s embarrassment in the Big 10 Title Game, the issue of getting blown out has come up time and again with Husker fans. Some fans are probably just relieved that Georgia didn’t run Nebraska off the field until the fourth quarter. Hearing Nebraska fans howl, “We’re tired of blowout losses!” is a statement that I tired of, not because I like Nebraska getting blown out, but because it doesn’t mean that fans aren’t getting the program they paid for.

First, let’s ask a basic question: why do blowouts happen in college football? They can happen for a number of reason: one team simply has more talent than the other (AKA, most September non-conference games), one team has more experience than other (due to injuries or senior graduating, AKA Iowa this year) one team is a bad matchup for another team (a spread option against a Big 10 team, like Florida against Ohio State in the 2006 National Title Game), or one team is at the end of a string often of tough games and is simply exhausted (Michigan State at Nebraska in 2011, or at Iowa in 2010). Often, these reasons happen simultaneously.

I have from the list above, omitted coaching. Not that some teams are poorly coached, but in college football, fans tend to blame the coach above all else, because he’s the one they can go out and replace. Coaches do poor jobs, but let’s deal with these natural flows before we get there.

Consider this, Husker fans: you have a finesse offense. Personally, I don’t like to use that term, but it is true. It is an offense that is quirky, built to run outside, let the quarterback run when need be, and have linemen who can pull and move in space. Now, this offense gives you a key edge, namely, when you are down in games, you feel like you have a chance to come back. It makes you a difficult team to prepare for. Team make take your smallish offensive line lightly (the PSU black shoe effect, if you will), but unfortunately, if another team’s front is bigger than yours, you are left exposed if they play their hardest, which Ohio State did this year.

With the exception of Wisconsin this year, every team that has blown Bo Pelini out has been very good, except for the Washington team who beat Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl rematch. The teams that have blown Nebraska out? The worst was the 2009 Texas Tech team that went 9-4. The other teams were Missouri (10-4) and Oklahoma (12-2) in 2008, Wisconsin (11-3), Michigan (11-2), and South Carolina (11-2) in 2011, and Ohio State (12-0) this year. Of course that does leave the Wisconsin team this year.
What does all this mean, Husker fans? For one, it means you’re not doing any worse than you should. If you are getting blown out by good teams, it has less to do with your coach than it does with your players. And since 2010, Nebraska has beat five teams who won at least nine or more games: Oklahoma State and Missouri in 2010, Michigan State and Penn State last year, and Northwestern this year.

And consider Michigan State: this past year, their biggest loss was by 14 points, at home to eventual unbeaten Notre Dame. All their other losses were by a touchdown or less, and they are 6-6. The two years prior to this one, Michigan State went 22-5 and got blown out four times. They weren’t a better team this year, and one wouldn’t take a 6-6 team that didn’t get blown out over a ten-win season any day.

But still, getting outdone in such a public fashion hurts, and leads to the “fragile and soft” labels. The pain of those won’t go away, and yes, Wisconsin was the anamoly this year. There isn’t an excuse for getting manhandled on a neutral field by a team that would finish 8-6 with a third-string quarterback. It would have been an embarrassment if Nebraska had lost that game by a touchdown. What they should have observed was that Wisconsin, in spite of their record, didn’t loose a game by less than seven all year.

In line to get that perfect shot of the Huskers

In line to get that perfect shot of the Huskers

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Huskers Loose, but Get Some Capital

1 Comment Posted by on January 1, 2013

A lot was at stake in the Capital One Bowl for Bo Pelini. Two nationally televised blowout losses going into the off-season make the workouts and film study longer, not to mention a discontent fan base. But, for the fifth time in six tries, Pelini’s Huskers came out of the tunnel and made plays, and even got a little chippy with it, a welcome sight after several despondent post-game pressers. For the first time perhaps since Colorado 2005, the Huskers played to raise their reputation. All that SEC-is-king material made for great bulletin board material.

But ultimately, the Huskers fell short, and while there was more buy-in on the field then there has been in years past (maybe more than at any other time under Pelini). They lost respectably to a better SEC, but Pelini still made one really questionable decision.

Tim Beck changed he offense significantly since the Big 10 Title game, adding new formation (dual-protectors lined up directly behind the tackles in a three wide set) and tweaking old plays. The Burkhead-touchdown reception wrinkled Nebraska’s play action game, having running back go to the inside instead of the out. For the first time in a lot of years, the Husker offense seemed like it was more than a collection of random plays that were supposed to work, and the players looked they were executed a plan that made sense to them.

End of the matter?

Burkhead himself made sure that he wouldn’t be forgotten as a Husker. He ran with his trademark passion, but had the advantage of looking the healthiest he had perhaps been since the beginning of his junior year. The offense at times maximized its tempo, and made some lazy Dawgs run a little.

On defense, the passing yards given up weren’t great, but remember that Nebraska’s numbers in the secondary was helped a lot by the Big 10 conference oblivion to the forward pass. (Minnesota, similarly, was ranked in the top 25 nationally in pass defense.) The Blackshirts had good coverage on three of Aaron Murray’s touchdown passes; Murray’s TD at the start of the fourth quarter, a running throw that had to be laid over Will Compton, was a throw some NFL quarterbacks can’t make. Yes, there were mistakes, but there were several big plays that Georgia earned when Nebraska did everything right. Even the defensive line was active behind the line of scrimmage.

Which makes Pelini’s call to blitz Georgia on a third-and-twelve down by a touchdown baffling. A blitz on third-and-long in that situation basically said, if we go down, we go down swinging, not consistent with Pelini’s conservative, make-them-earn-their-chunks defense. While it looks bold, such a call demonstrates insecurity more than bravado. Yes, maybe even get a sack or an interception; backing Georgia up another eight yards would have meant a punt for the endline. But Pelini had already made his point when he blitzed on the first down of that drive; the smart call would have been to blitz one wisely, or drop everyone in coverage.

I’ve seen such insecurity a number of times in Big 10 teams in bowl games. The first time was when Ohio State kept blitzing Colt McCoy at the end of the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. On the play the Longhorns took the lead back, it was obvious that McCoy would find a hot read. Minnesota allowed a touchdown in a similar situation in their bowl game against Texas Tech this year. While it looks like you’re trying hard to stop the opponent, you’re not playing smart.

Thus, let’s count this as our official ingratiation into the Big 10, Husker fans: we’re aggressive on defense out of the fear of being embarrassed.

Nebraska had a real shot to win this game, more so than last year against South Carolina. The Gamecocks played with more intensity in the second half that day than Georgia did today. The Husker maximized more, but they still weren’t able to do enough. Like the rest of the Big 10, Nebraska watches an SEC team give half-effort versus their full-effort and still celebrate a double touchdown win.

So, how should this bowl game be remembered, Husker fans? Another loss, but one with not as many negatives as Nebraska’s bowl losses the last two years. Pelini showed that, with time to prepare, he could deliver a solid effort. But was this win just a product of time to prepare and desperation? Will Pelini, Beck, and the other coaches be changing every week in the Big 10 next season as much as they changed for this bowl game? Or will this just be shades of a B-coach rising for half-a-game when he had to turn down the heat? (Why Pelini isn’t a perfect fit at Nebraska)

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Is Husker Nation Travel-ed Out?

4 Comments Posted by on December 13, 2012

Today, I checked flights from Omaha to Orlando around the time of the Capital One Bowl on a whim, and surprisingly, there were now some flights for under $500. Guess some bigwig must have noticed Nebraska fans weren’t buying their allotment of bowl tickets.

If the Big 10 Title Game was under-attended last year, this year’s attendance poor showing by Nebraska and Wisconsin (two-thirds of last years attendance) makes the early woes of the ACC Title Game look trivial. Carrying low momentum into bowl season, numerous Big 10 teams are selling paltry amounts of their ticket allotments. Granted, Nebraska, Michigan State, and Purdue are in worse bowls and/or have less momentum than a year ago, but still, the decline is startling.

Perhaps Jim Delany now questions adding a couple of East Coast outliers to his conference; just examining the travel habits of Nebraska fans, one of the country’s top traveling fan bases, should give the bowls attached to the Big 10 cause for concern.

Traveling fans are a huge part of the college football, both to bowl games and to opposing stadiums. I’ve made many of these trips myself, and while they’re memorable, they are also expensive and time consuming. The average tab for two from Omaha to Chicago runs around $1500-$2000; when my father and I went up from his apartment in Ames to go to Minnesota game last year, our expenses were around $300, but that was without hotel.

While fans in the past had short drives Lawrence, Manhattan, Columbia or Ames when Nebraska was in the Big 12, now Husker Nation has only two conference neighbors that are within a six hour drive. A large reason that Husker fans didn’t journey to Indianapolis was similar to why the NCAA had to go to pod seeding for March Madness: they were saving up for the bigger game. But beyond that, it’s clear from Nebraska’s huge presence in both Minneapolis and Chicago meant that fans now madk their plans further in advance, when costs were less. It also could indicate that traveling Husker fans are more likely to congregate at the easiest road game for them to get to with a surplus of tickets. This year, it was Northwestern, last year it was Minnesota, next year, it could probably be Purdue.

It will be interesting to see if schools like Minnesota and Northwestern start to follow the plan of Iowa State and make it harder for visiting fans to buy tickets to their team’s game without scholarship donations. This is doubtful; Northwestern is so bashful about their bowl ticket sales they don’t even release such data.

Looking at the Big 10, travel is even more of a concern for schools like Wisconsin and Ohio State, who look as if they will be giving up an annual road game in the Midwest to take a trip to Rutgers or Maryland. This arrangement will likely not hurt Nebraska, as they will only make the Rutgers or Maryland trip once every ten years, assuming the Big 10 stays at eight conference games as the SEC and ACC are doing. Still, with the Big 10 opening east coast offices, the question has to be asked, is it too much travel?

With the disappointment at the Big 10 Title Game coupled with the travel anxieties of Nebraska fans mean that Nebraska’s travel reputation will be taking a hit in the coming years? For the first few years of the Big 10, that’s possible, as Husker fans feel out the new locales. But after seven or eight years, Husker fans should once again rule the bowl scene. As I wrote last year, inevitably Nebraska will be getting drop in the Big 10′s bowl order to go to Phoenix and play a Big 12 team in what used to be the Insight Bowl. But super-conference are about the television eyeballs and not about fans waiting in long lines at Eppley Airport.

Memorial Stadium East?

Memorial Stadium East?

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Why Pelini’s SEC Interest is Keeping Nebraska Stuck in Neutral. And Why Certain Coaches Stay Under the Radar

3 Comments Posted by on December 5, 2012

Bummed Bo

Another end to a Husker season, another round of Bo Pelini-leaving-Nebraska rumors. This year, the rumor was less reliable than in years past (Football Scoop tweeted Arkansas was on the verge of hiring him), but still, Pelini was again linked to another high profile job. After Nebraska’s meltdown in the Big 10 Title Game, Pelini’s constant flirtations for the SEC causes begs the question if Pelini’s wandering eye is hurting the program. To judge that, one has to ask what Nebraska is and what works there, and what Bo Pelini is, and where he works.

Nebraska is an outlier, both from major cities and major recruiting hotbeds. Major changes in college football have gone against Nebraska: more games being on TV, fewer recruits wanting to come north because of the weather, more committed programs in the middle of college football. But to succeed at an outlier, you need to find a coach who gets the outlier. Consider Tom Osborne and Bill Synder: both grew up in smaller cities in smaller states and went to smaller, non-DI colleges. Both achieved long-term success by molding average players into stars. Who else fits that profile? Chris Petersen, who grew up around Sacramento and went to UC Davis, and Charlie Strong, who went to Central Arkansas, in his native state. Pedersen has stayed at Boise State (in a city that is the exact mirror of Sacramento), and Strong looks like he’s turning down Tennessee to stay at Louisville.

Now look at Pelini. Pelini went to a large Catholic high school in Ohio, then to Ohio State, a major program in a state with lot of FBS-ready talent. He’s friends with Bob Stoops, who turned down his alma mater (Iowa) and instead found longevity at Oklahoma, surrounded by the best high school football talent state in the country, Texas. Pelini worked for Michigan alum Les Miles, who has now twice turned down his alma mater to stay in talent-rich Louisiana. Pelini knows he’s got a rawer deal then Miles and Stoops by the players who sign for him.

Husker fans, why do you think Nebraska’s seniors laden defense got completely worked by Wisconsin on Saturday night? Kansas State’s defensive talent is no better, and the Wildcats were shutting down offensive juggernauts in the Big 12. Reason: Pelini had a fire when he first came to Nebraska, and the players then had the motivation to embrace discipline after the Bill Callahan-debacle. After an initial burst with Callahan’s recruits (and Ndamukong Suh), Pelini was left with a bunch three-to-four star recruits who needed coaching. For stretches in 2009 and 2010, Nebraska had to play perfect on defense just to stay in the games, including two against Oklahoma. After nearly three years of having to win without any mistakes, Pelini was exhausted from coaching up Prince Amukamara and Phillip Dillard, and had no energy to develop Sean Fisher and Alonzo Whaley.

Consider also how Pelini’s post-game press conference demeanor has changed: in his first few years, there were times after losses he looked like he wanted to fight a reporter. Now, he looks relieved after wins and despondent after losses. Watching this change, I have wondered if he’s the kind of coach who burns bright for a couple of years, but burns out after seven or eight years because he’s all motivation and no innovation. He has innovated: changing Nebraska’s offense after the 2010 season gave the program a huge edge coming into the Big 10. But again, look at the defense, where Pelini puts in most of his time. There isn’t one star, sure-fire high NFL draft pick on that unit.

This leads to the question of whether or not Turner Gill would have been a better hire than Pelini. Indeed, some have written that Gill should have replaced Osborne as head coach in 1997. (Perhaps Osborne forgot how Bob Devaney choose him as Nebraska’s next head coach over many of his veteran assistants). At the time, Pelini was a hotter commodity and Gill had only a 7-17 record at Buffalo, but that wouldn’t have been a determent to a Husker fan base who remembered Gill for his playing days and his work with Tommie Frazier, Scott Frost, and Eric Crouch. As Osborne and Gill were such good friends (Osborne was the best man at Gill’s wedding), it may not have been the ideal situation for Osborne to hire a coach he was so close to. But given Gill’s steady hand, he may have been the better fit long-term.

Pelini’s not headed to the SEC if he continues to have looses like he did on Saturday. But in any case, fans have to wonder if his heart is in his job 100% and how many sorry press conference they may have to endure.

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