khaake

I believe they have a point regarding the third verse.

What bothers me about it, in addition to it feeling 'forced' after a point, is that it starts to feel less like an appreciation event and more like a political event. That may not be the intent of those who organized it, but too much is too much.

Two questions: 1. Why are football games deemed appropriate venues for military recruitment? 2. I'm a little puzzled by your comment that one can't enjoy football if you don't like military advertising, unless you mean that because the military spends a lot of money on marketing for football games, etc., you can't get away from it? There isn't anything intrinsically militaristic to the game itself, other than what it being injected by the Department of Defense, is there?

I can see that argument, but in this case it is a decision by UNL, other universities, and the NFL to agree to use their teams to deliberately promote the military, which is why I posted it here.

Is anyone else uncomfortable with how much the DoD seems to be embedding itself into athletics, particularly football, on both the collegiate and professional levels? It isn't healthy. Who at the university is responsible for things such this past weekend's Veteran and Military Appreciation game?

Ah, here we go:

Source?

Again, the primary pull NU has had for recruits is the Nebraska family sell. There are others, to be sure, but the thing that made us stand out is the idea of family, and Riley was able to sell that in spades. Firing him completely takes away that advantage. We are left with what is and has been a mediocre program for nearly as long as these kids have been alive, located in an area which isn't going to be a selling point. Great facilities, sure. A great fan base. Sure. But it's a fan base who is obviously very willing to fire a coach after three years. These recruits will have no idea who they will be playing for, or even if that coach will still be around by their senior season.

True, no argument here. We have to be able to win consistently.

The one thing that Nebraska uses to stand out to recruits is the idea of the husker family. Canning Riley, and the talk of canning Riley, completely obliterates that talking point. At which point we are left with, what?

Speak ye pithy puppet, speak!

How dare ye diss the sock.

I'd hate for you to miss it, Isle.

I, for one, would gladly take Riley over Pelini regardless of win/loss. The latter was a stain on the university and state.

Take what is in front of you. Win, and move on to next week.

I have heard nobody, myself included, advocate for losing. The only equivalence I was trying to draw between a couple Osborne's IASt losses and NIU is that sometimes everything works against you. That is why the game is played.

The two things aren't necessarily the same thing. I'd argue that a healthy young fanbase cares about the program because the team is Nebraska. It's a much easier sell if the program is also performing at a championship level - you will be able to mobilize a lot more fair-weather fans that way - but a healthy fan base is a loyal fan base. I'm not trying to argue that the program doesn't need to win. It absolutely does, but I'm not convinced it has to be a consistent 10 or 11 win program in order to have a strong fan base. There are many who say that Riley cannot bring us to that level of winning. They might be right, but I do not think we have given him enough time for that evaluation given what else he brings to the table, ambassador-wise.

Bringing in weak coaches has certainly not helped, but I'd argue that the revolving door will be more damaging to the fan base, long term. You have to be able to develop young fans, and you don't do that by turning over the coaching staff every few years.

I understand the desire and passion to win, and win now, but at this point I think it would be very damaging to the institution to get rid of Riley. NU has already had 5 coaches over the past two decades. This revolving door has weakened the program substantially: if a fan does not feel they can become invested in the coach, they cannot really become invested in the team, at least not significantly. We should not add yet another coach to the list unless it is absolutely and most definitely necessary. Would Nebraska still be Nebraska had this revolving door mentality been in place during the 80s when there were many calls to get rid of Osborne? I'd argue no. Riley is a very good ambassador for the program, somebody that the fan base, the media, and potential recruits can connect with. Let him finish building the program the way he feels it should be built. Either the wins will then come, or it will be apparent that they will not, but don't drop him now. My 2-cents.

The little I saw of POB and Lee in the spring game, I thought Lee looked quite a bit better, but given Lee's struggles in games to this point I don't have a problem with giving POB a shot. Maybe he will prove to be better under pressure.

Me either. I had hoped we moved past that sort of thing - there are absolutely no excuses for the YOLO passes. On a somewhat related note: do we not have any speed at WR? It doesn't seem like our receivers have had much success getting behind defenses this year.

Time to put up, guys. Let's do this.

Yup, the magic bullet. *Next* time I'm sure we'll find a perfect coach with perfect assistants who will lead us to a perfect future without losses. If one thing our history has taught us is that firing the coaches will almost certainly lead to Utopia.