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Rochelobe

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Everything posted by Rochelobe

  1. The best part is how he tries to portray himself as being altruistic toward the players that have lost their season. Makes me curious - has Kiffin already tried to contact some players under the table? He's not exactly a "by -the rules" kind of guy. Apparently Ole Miss did not learn their lesson from having their previous sleazy coach, Hugh Freeze. Or maybe they just like it that way.
  2. Looks like Lane Kiffin needs players to shore up Ole Miss for this season. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29696072/ole-miss-rebels-coach-lane-kiffin-wants-transfer-waiver-players-postponed-seasons Lane - if the SEC or Ole Miss has to cancel their season due to an outbreak, but the Big XII and ACC are able to keep playing, you'd be ok with having your team raided for players, right?
  3. The next time that Nebraska hosts a ESPN Gameday in Lincoln it will be interesting. Nebraska fans are like elephants when it comes to being insulted. Howard may not enjoy the trip. It has been several days now since Howard's stupid statement. He hasn't walked it back yet, despite players and some coaches from several other teams saying similar things to what Frost said. I don't think Nebraska fans will forget about it even if Gameday isn't in Lincoln for a few years.
  4. The best part is that Howard wants Nebraska kicked out for not being a "team player" in the conference. From a guy that trolled Notre Dame by striking a Heisman pose during a game - making things all about him. I guess his lack of being a team player is ok. Edit: looks like it was against Ohio State (unless he did it multiple times that year)
  5. And don't think Wilbon hasn't forgotten that. He views Nebraska as evil since they hammered Northwestern into oblivion in that game. Never mind that Northwestern did as you said - acted like a bunch of jerks. Wilbon has no problem with that level of cognitive dissonance. There are still Minnesota fans with a seething hatred for Nebraska because of 84-13. What is the common thread? Both Northwestern and Minnesota sucked and had to play pretty good Nebraska teams. It would be like Nebraska fans holding a grudge against Texas Tech for 70-10. I don't think there is any big contingent of Nebraska fans with seething hatred for Texas Tech. Most realize (certainly now) that the fault lay with Nebraska, not Tech as to why the score got so out of hand. All we've seen in this exercise is stuff we already knew - sports "commentators" are mostly jerks looking to drive clicks and cause controversy to generate discussion so that they can be at the center to show their "importance". Wilbon and Howard both have that kind of job. In addition both are old school Big Ten guys - they probably hate the fact Penn State joined the league, let alone Nebraska, Maryland, and Rutgers. Sports commentary is the height of "non-essential" service. Everyone can watch and still enjoy games without any commentary either leading up to the game or during the game. In a pandemic some of these guys are probably starting to panic wondering if they will still have jobs if we go a whole year without college football. To me I view it as amusing to read, but they aren't going to change who I support.
  6. Agree. While not formally COVID-19 deaths, they could be considered COVID-19 adjacent - those deaths would not have happened at that rate had we not been going through a pandemic.
  7. Agree, seems to be hard to find. Here is a paper from July that includes an 8 week period from Mar 1 to Apr 25: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768086 To my (non-medical eye) this seems to indicate that there is a large amount of under reporting in COVID-19 deaths, unless a whole bunch of other diseases just went through a simultaneous excess death spike - which seems pretty unlikely. Granted some of the increase could be legitimate for say, diabetes. Some people that died in the increased 356% may have not had COVID-19 and decided to forgo going to the emergency room to get treated due to the danger of contracting COVID-19 in NYC during that time. However, I doubt the entire spike is due just to that.
  8. The scenario I was talking about was deciding to play, getting kicked out and then having games get shutdown and still losing the money, along with conference affiliation. In that scenario I doubt my $1300 would make much of a difference. As soon as the Big Ten said they were shutting down, the loss became real. It looks like NU made some preliminary exploration of how to mitigate some of that loss - which is prudent. Maybe don't say anything publicly, but nothing wrong with checking all options. Once the Warren made his statement the next day, it was time to re-evaluate. It doesn't mean they still won't try, but my thought is only because they've mitigated the risk as much as possible - by knowing they can go to the Big XII starting in 2021. Virus risk is a whole additional issue. Yeah, if we don't figure out how to move forward this will basically destroy college sports. In some ways, with the movement toward quasi-unionization (not sure how real that is yet) things were going to change anyway, at least for football, maybe basketball. The combination of pandemic, players banding together, and expansion of player benefits, college sports and college football in particular will probably be very different five years from now. This is probably the largest upheaval to college sports since they were formed. In that scenario, I think going for maximum academic benefit (staying in the Big Ten even with a large financial loss to athletics this year) is the most prudent choice.
  9. I think stupid is being kind. https://omaha.com/sports/college/huskers/teams/football/shatel-is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-nebraska-in-the-big-ten/article_ef5bd995-3b11-5967-8e32-6d6cff4a1cab.html A couple of gems: He wrote this, most likely on Tuesday morning with a couple of tweaks the next day. (It says original pub date of Aug 11, which was Tuesday). This was within most likely a couple of hours of Frost speaking out and Warren's initial sort of rambling response on the Big Ten Network. I think Shatel thought he really got out in front of something and would look like a genius. Now that we are another day a out from that and the statement NU put up on the website about being committed to the Big Ten, it makes him look just silly. I suppose NU could still force the issue, get kicked out and move to the Big XII. However, I doubt it would be due to anything that he tries to depict in this article.
  10. I can't imagine a worse scenario than Nebraska forcing the situation to set up a new schedule - say they get games with some ACC/SEC/Big XII teams as well as, say NDSU. Then, by late September/early October the season gets shutdown so Nebraska still loses most of the revised TV money. Meanwhile the Big Ten expels Nebraska and the Big XII says no thanks. That would demonstrate really poor planning. The only way you risk that is if you already know the Big XII will take you on a contingency basis. I suppose that is possible, but not the greatest way to set the stage going back to a conference that you previously left just 10 years ago. I suppose Nebraska might possibly get some going away money, depending on how the bylaws read for expelling a member. I would think the level of risk aversion within the upper reaches of UNL is going to avoid that kind of a scenario. Publicly embarrassing, financially damaging, and academically disastrous. All to play maybe a couple of games? They may get a 10 game schedule with the other teams doing the +1, but what are realistically the chances the whole season gets played by anyone? Nebraska is going to lose a lot of money this year. So will (most likely) every other team. Certainly all other Big Ten/Pac 12 teams will.
  11. I think others have used the reasoning that players would view the SEC/ACC much more dedicated to football, while the Big Ten was more willing to suspend their careers. Meaning that the Big Ten would be more likely to do the same thing again in the future. So, those that were in favor of that were of the impression that it could be used as negative recruiting against the Big Ten schools by telling the kids "don't go there, they aren't concerned with your career". I'm not sure I completely buy into it, but it would probably work on 5 stars which tend to be more treated like the most important people on campus. I doubt it would have hardly any effect on 3 and 4 star recruits who don't get the same 10 top programs recruiting them that the 5 star guys tend to have. It always seems many of the undecided 5 stars always have 4 or 5 of the ~10 most successful programs on their consideration list.
  12. Agree - Big XII is still probably not stable. Basically a big factor in our leaving in the first place. Plus the conference is not the one we left - 3 other teams are gone. One of the replacements is West Virginia, not any better than trips to the PSU/Maryland/Rutgers campuses.
  13. This is a good point. SEC will drop all the3 and 4 stars like hot potatoes to get a full class of 5 stars. Those kids will go elsewhere then, but it would leave the Big Ten with a talent deficit for a few years.
  14. I wonder if that is one reason why the Big Ten said "we will play in spring, if we can." I could see the NCAA allowing for immediate eligibility if your team/conference officially cancelled the season and said "no football until fall 2021". By saying we will play in the spring, the NCAA will probably say you have to sit if you transfer, since your school still plans to have a season during the academic year. And to your other point - almost every school is probably at or near 85 scholarships. Assuming you can play immediately, are you going to go without a scholarship? Unlikely. This is not like the typical transfer cycle in the spring/summer due to graduating classes/players quitting football, etc.
  15. After seeing OSU's statement about starting the Spring season in January, I wonder if NU is behind the scenes trying to see if they can push it back to something like December and get in a couple of non-conf games and then start Big Ten play in Jan. I assume it would probably be too cold in some regions - Mich, Wisc, Minn, but maybe something could be worked out, particularly if OSU wants to do it. If they can hold the Superbowl in Feb in NY, why not? I saw a suggestion about using Detroit, Indy, and one other place that I forget within the Big Ten footprint as dome "bubble sites" - play a couple games a day at each one between league members as a neutral site (with probably no fans) during the Jan/Feb time frame, then go to campus sites to finish up in March. Agree with you, many things are possibly still in progress.
  16. Thanks. I think that Nebraska fans that were already in the Big Ten footprint, or nearby, were probably at worst ambivalent, or in your case happy, since you could more easily go see games vs when going to Big XII games. I assume it would probably flip for any fans in places like Texas, etc.
  17. Yup. This fall is going to be brutal. Nothing else to talk about.
  18. I always wonder how things would breakout between those that went to and graduated from UNL vs those that are fans because they grew up in Nebraska. My assumption (I wish we could get a poll) is that those that actually got degrees from UNL would be in favor of the Big Ten by a very wide margin, while those that never attended were more in favor of going back to the Big XII. I don't have any data to back that up, just a hunch.
  19. You just killed a bunch of threads Seriously, academics is going to win out in these situations. Academic partnership in B1G >>> Big XII. This got overblown because dumb and dumber (Howard and Wilbon - you decide which is which) said things to get themselves noticed. The fact they said nothing negative about OSU's statements about looking at the fall tells you all you need to know. They thought Nebraska was an easy target. Both of them are "old-school" Big Ten guys. Wilbon was at NW when it was 10 teams. PSU had just joined when Howard was playing. I'm sure both hate all 4 of the new teams being part of "their" club. Frost voiced an opinion on exploring the opportunity to play, Warren had a clumsy response, and ESPN, to drive ratings made it into a controversy that Nebraska need to leave the Big Ten. ESPN is getting desperate, since if the SEC/ACC cancel their season, they got bupkis to fill all those programming hours this fall. Oh, and Shatel decides to post a bunch of blather - further inflaming the fan base. Both ESPN and Shatel had the same motivation - their jobs are going to suck this fall if they have no college football. The most hilarious part of this is after all the criticism, ESPN would be the first one knocking on Nebraska's door to televise any games Nebraska plays (assuming all the legal stuff was worked out). Nebraska fans need to remember why Nebraska joined the Big Ten. Athletics were our bargaining chip, but the benefit to us was always going to be the academics.
  20. As the decision settles, it seems more coaches and ADs are coming out to say they want to play and express frustration with how the Conference has handled this. Does that mean: a) Desmond Howard and Wilbon will call all of those schools traitors as well? (ok I know the answer to this, but its fun to think about Howard saying the Big Ten should kick OSU, PSU, etc. out as well - particularly if Mich comes out and says they working on a way to play) b) The Nebraska fans screaming "Go Independent/Back to the Big XII" will still say every school is against us? Ironically, if Nebraska just slow plays this (thinking in terms of not trying to play a game until October), they may have public support from many other Big Ten schools. If Nebraska plays this right, they could actually improve their standing with the other schools, for being the first one to speak out on this. I understand our fans being frustrated with how this broke and the (apparent) conference attitude that Nebraska's wants don't matter, but think about it like the old Tom Osborne approach - he used the 1st quarter to set teams up so that he could dominate them in the 4th. By Nebraska being the sounding beacon, but not making any rash statements, they could actually come out of this looking better in the eyes of the other main powers in the conference. And they could fall flat on their face if they rush to schedule NDSU by Sept 5 or something like that and don't really have an interest in going to the Big XII (or an invite, for that matter). Once the Big XII got the approval to go back to having a championship game despite a 10 team league, it probably made them less motivated to add another 2 teams to get back to 12. It looks more and more like this is a disconnect between different parts of the other schools. By next week will every school say "I didn't vote to cancel."
  21. Has Slippery Rock canceled their season yet? (For those that remember the old "Prudential College Football Scoreboard Show" with Dave Diles - every week they always gave Slippery Rock's score)
  22. Its kind of like when ESPN would still talk with Beano when he was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY past his "prime".
  23. Yeah, while some have made comments that they feel the Big Ten was being untrustworthy with the "Here's a schedule" to "Ok, no fall football" whiparound, I think the myocarditis situation may have been a reason for their changing their mind. It was possibly a situation where they said to the ADs "Go ahead an make your schedule, as we plan to play pending our final evaluation." While it can look prearranged, I think it is also more likely just typical ways that multi-headed bureaucracies tend to work - in this case a 14 headed one. Yes, while for many things are kind of raw right now with the cancellation, it will probably prove to be the consensus decision. I would assign a probability <20% that the SEC/ACC/Big XII are able to complete their respective seasons. Probably worse, but the state-level political influence in some of the those states might push them through, even with a large outbreak. Although I'm sure if Nick Saban has to sit 20 or 30 players then we will declare a national emergency.
  24. Yes, I agree. I probably should have said "If the college presidents already know they are going to cancel, but just want to look like they tried and brought in ND for that reason only and then announce their decision later." In the context that "decision" has actually been made and they are just smokescreening to look good. I was just trying, for once, to be less wordy
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