Rochelobe

12 minutes ago, suh_fan93 said:

 

Lol yeah I read that this morning.  Not hard to see who his staff have their eyes on recruiting wise.  Your teams players...

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.

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

Quote

Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin says players whose conferences have decided to postpone fall sports should be free to transfer without penalty.

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?

On 8/13/2020 at 5:59 PM, jaws said:

 

You aren't. At least I don't think Ohio State fans think you are a villain. Welcome to the B1G, for some reason the media likes to beat up on B1G teams. I just take it as you are relevant enough for the media to talk about. I also wouldn't put too much into what media members like Howard and Wilbon say about you, they crap on OSU all the time too. 

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.

1 hour ago, Saunders said:

Waiting for Desmond Howard to demand that Michigan gets kicked out...

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)

8 hours ago, CheeseHusker said:

Remember when Northwestern were jerks before the Alamo Bowl and we ran the score up on them?

 

That was fun; let's do that again.

 

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 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Another issue that I think is shown in your article is that there were a significant number of deaths from other diseases due to the fact the health care system was so overwhelmed in certain areas like NYC that they couldn't take care of the normal heart attacks and strokes.  It's a major reason why it's important to keep the infection rate and the hospitalization rate as low as possible.

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.

11 minutes ago, flatwaterfan said:

Personally I would love to know what the total number of deaths are YTD as compared to other years.  I have been trying to find this data for 2020.  Are we really 200k more?  I haven't been able to verify that? 

 

I agree with the point that we have too short of a sample size  to draw too many conclusions especially due to the fact we haven't been through an entire flu season yet but as a high level view I think it would be interesting and it does address the granular problems of comorbidity&categorization.  I think it's another data point in the tool box to cross check other data.  And just to be clear,  I am talking about ALL deaths such as accidents,cancer,old age, covid, flu, murder, suicide etc etc.   

 

I believe I am just restating what people have said or implied but I want to make sure I have an understanding of the discussion.   

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

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Observed deaths for the 8 weeks between March 1, 2020, and April 25, 2020, were taken from provisional data released on June 10, 2020.

Quote

Between March 1, 2020, and April 25, 2020, a total of 505 059 deaths were reported in the US; 87 001 (95% CI, 86 578-87 423) were excess deaths, of which 56 246 (65%) were attributed to COVID-19. In 14 states, more than 50% of excess deaths were attributed to underlying causes other than COVID-19; these included California (55% of excess deaths) and Texas (64% of excess deaths) (Table). The 5 states with the most COVID-19 deaths experienced large proportional increases in deaths due to nonrespiratory underlying causes, including diabetes (96%), heart diseases (89%), Alzheimer disease (64%), and cerebrovascular diseases (35%) (Figure). New York City experienced the largest increases in nonrespiratory deaths, notably those due to heart disease (398%) and diabetes (356%).

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.

27 minutes ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

So are you willing to personally donate about $1300 this year along with 75000 other season ticket holders to raise the 100 million lost by not playing sports?   

That is what it will take basically.  

 

I imagine a fraction, maybe 20% of those, will donate that much to NOT have Husker sports.  Still gonna take some real $ magic.  

 

How much will the Big Ten lose now?   Does Big Ten now default / breach their TV deals and owe big penalties as well?   

 

It is clearly a fiscal disaster that may take a decade to recover from and how many athletes and or sports do we lose for long term?   And unless things change, the scenario may repeat next year.   The virus is not likely to just go away. Vaccines are maybe 50/50 chance and be only 50% effective.  It could take 6 months to vaccinate everybody if and when we find one.  

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 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

 

I glanced at one article and that's it, but it was Tom Shatel talking about us leaving the B1G and it was stupid from what Iread.

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:

Quote

They were received in all corners of the internet world. On Tuesday, I was a guest on a sports talk show in San Francisco.

 

First question: “Is Nebraska bolting for the Big 12?”

 

I don’t hear any denials coming out of Lincoln. Or Chicago.

Quote

That was Nebraska doing more than asserting its displeasure with the Big Ten. It looked like a cry for help, a flare to any other conference that might be paying attention.

Say, one to the south.

Quote

If you’re Nebraska, it doesn’t conjure a lot of trust in the Big Ten. In fact, with Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan coaches also defying the Big Ten, the league looks less and less unified all the time.

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.

1 hour ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

Joining the Big 10 was a no-brainer. Ditching the BIg 10 is equally stupid. 

 

It's not just about football, or a single season that has screwed up everybody. 

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. 

23 minutes ago, BowedButNotBeaten said:

 

Why would recruits who would be freshmen for the fall 2021 season care about this fall being cancelled/postponed?

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.

5 minutes ago, junior4949 said:

 

I'm both.  I have lived almost my entire life in Nebraska, and I got a degree from UNL.  I'm from southwest NE, so I would be more in favor of going back to the Big XII mostly because I was a lot closer to the away games than I am now.  However, we really shouldn't even consider the Big XII because it just isn't a stable conference. 

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.

Just now, junior4949 said:

 

I would be more concerned about recruits than I would be current players.  I'm sure there are plenty of SEC schools that would make room for 5 star recruits currently committed to the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, etc.  Will the rich (SEC) just get richer from this? 

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.

6 minutes ago, seaofred92 said:

This angle is severely overblown IMO. How many teams still have scholarships remaining for this season? How many schools are already past enrollment deadlines? You're gonna leave Nebraska to go play somewhere in CUSA when there's no guarantee they play either? Not to mention most if not all kids would need a waiver to be eligible to play this year. 

 

If a kid was already planning or thinking about leaving, this may be a good excuse to go. But I doubt there is some mass exodus coming as a result of this. 

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.

1 minute ago, Husker03 said:

I'm not convinced this is the end of this by any means. You don't put the work in that NU has put in behind the scenes and just lay down because a commish who was unwilling to put much if any apparent work in says so. 

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.

6 minutes ago, MyBloodIsRed16 said:

I didn't grow up in Nebraska or go to Nebraska.  I was happy when they joined the Big 10 because I lived in IN at the time so I knew making it to games was a lot easier for me.  Saw all the games at NW and Purdue since they are both about 1hr and half from me.  Now I live in NC...  I don't care what conference they are in lol.  

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.

2 minutes ago, runningblind said:

Yes, Nebraska married up with the Big Ten. But conspiracy theories are so much more fun to talk about,  especially when we have no football. 

Yup.  This fall is going to be brutal. Nothing else to talk about.

2 minutes ago, knapplc said:

It's always been a stupid conversation. The Big Ten is a home run for a school like Nebraska. Unfortunately, too many people view it as only a football conference and judge its merits accordingly. 

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.

37 minutes ago, knapplc said:

We aren't going anywhere, folks. 

 

Stick it, national pundits.

 

 

 

 

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.

50 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

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."

1 hour ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

 

The Ivy League sure missed an opportunity to dominate that media footprint.

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)

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

This is unbelievable. What the hell were they doing for five months? 

 

Canceling March Madness had to put every league on notice that they needed to get all of this worked out before they could play football... but they didn't.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Cdog923 said:

 

Who puts a microphone in the face of an addled old man who likely soils himself every 20 minutes. 

 

*sees source*

 

 

Its kind of like when ESPN would still talk with Beano when he was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY past his "prime".

6 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

Well said. I would be curious too. The ACC sounds like the remaining P5 conference most likely to opt to call their fall season, IMO. But I haven't heard much reporting on developments there.

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.

15 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

EVERYONE is delaying their decision right now. We're in the middle of a pandemic where things evolve daily.

 

B1G and Pac-12 just ripped the band-aid off now rather than kick the can down the road.

 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.

5 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

EVERYONE is delaying their decision right now. We're in the middle of a pandemic where things evolve daily.

 

B1G and Pac-12 just ripped the band-aid off now rather than kick the can down the road.

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