Wistrom Disciple

2 hours ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

It's pretty hard to schedule as an independent in the ESPN8 age.  The given reasons for our ACC deal:  everyone in November is locked up in conference play, very few bowls have room for an independent. 

Definitely agreed. However, the alternative is to sit on the sidelines while the ACC & SEC play this fall. If the Big Ten would allow the teams a one year exemption to schedule for themselves, I think a lot of frustrations go away. Then get back to a normal fall next year. 

40 minutes ago, Omaha fan said:

I’m angry just like you are. However the money and stability of the big10 along with what it does for the university with academics and research just makes it too much to walk away from. Plus our lack of recent success lessens our appeal as an independent. Won’t happen.

 

Even with its warts the big is where we need to be. The only issue is getting the inept warren out and putting someone like Delaney in his spot. That is going to nearly an impossible task in today’s climate. 

I don't recall suggesting walking away from the Big Ten at any point. Nor did any Nebraska official discuss leaving. That was all media rumor and speculation looking for stories to fill their story quotas. We aren't going anywhere.

8 minutes ago, Bledred said:

All solid counterpoints.  I know the odds of us going independent are about even with me winning the lottery, but I guess I am just more pissed than anything that our season can be taken away so easily.  The schools who voted no (Nebraska, OSU, and Iowa) should be allowed by the B1G to pursue alternative non-conference games this fall under certain guidelines.  Feels like not only was our season taken away from us, but our freedom as an autonomous organization as well. 

I agreed 100%. Call it scrimmages, practice or intramurals or whatever their hearts desire. If I were the Big Ten Network I would be especially pissed. Having the ACC & SEC carry on and Iowa State allowing 25k fans makes the Big Ten decision more baffling. Truth be told, they could play in empty stadiums and just put the games on TV and it'll draw millions to watch. Stopping play in the name of safety just doesn't seem justified with +30,000 kids on their campuses already.

9 hours ago, Bledred said:

No, the B1G are digging in with their comment that this lawsuit is a "fishing expedition".  They will not about face now and look even more foolish. With each public attack from Nebraska to the B1G HQ, the harder the road ahead becomes for Nebraska in the conference (scheduling which is already sh*t, network coverage which is already in the cellar, etc.).  I would say as it stands now, we have the same level of love from the B1G HQ that we had with the Big 12 HQ in our final days in that conference.  I see our long-term future in the conference in jeopardy to be honest at this point. 

 

If the B1G keeps Warren and they crap the bed again with the new TV contract renewals coming up resulting in us making less than all of the teams in the SEC, ACC, and Big 12, we should go independent IMO...damned the costs. 

• We have the money to build the new planned facilities several times over in savings as it stands right now.  Going from 50 million a year to 15-20 million a year will not affect the product Frost puts on the field one bit.  Texas by far brings in more money than any other team in the FBS and when was the last time they won a conference championship let alone a NC?
• We will have to cut other sports that spend more than they make like soccer, swimming, quidditch, golf, rifle, etc. and few will notice or care.  This is why you have University Clubs.
• We will easily gain 3+ wins every football season (guaranteed bowl games every year forever) and TONS of wins in basketball by making our own schedule.  Imagine a world where we do not play Ohio State every single damned year!  
• I have heard people say we would no longer be relevant if we leave the B1G, yet we are some how relevant right now in the B1G basement?  We cannot even beat Purdue for crying out loud.  This season, that game still looked to be a struggle...
• If Texas can make their own network, so can we.  NET in Lincoln would be a good starting point.  They already have Husker football shows and televise most volleyball games and other sports for all of Nebraska.  The rest of the nation could get our games via an exclusive deal with Fox Sports and pay-per view.
• Build a Hockey arena next to Pinnacle Bank Arena would be another cash cow to make up the lost money (can share the stars arena until this arena is built...they need the money).  Men's Hockey is fun to watch and fans could get behind the tackling on ice sport.  We already have a practice facility for hockey with the Husker mens Hockey club.
• Could schedule in yearly local rivalries!  Wyoming, Kansas teams, Colorado teams etc.  Would love to play Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State again in football...easy on the fanbase to travel to as well! 

I appreciate the analysis! 

Agree on these points

A. Yes, all universities should reconsider several programs to move to University Club status. Sure money shouldn't rule everything but having some of these sports just to be Title IX compliant is going to help in the downfall of the NCAA. < whole different discussion.

B. Got to remember that the lawsuit comes from a handful of players and not the university or coaches. 

C. Having the autonomy to schedule a season ourselves would be very beneficial. I do wish the conference would allow the schools to decide for themselves and just keep all games on BTN-affiliated channels so that all the schools can gain the revenue share. 

Disagree on these points

A. Our schedule has already been set as tough so nothing new. TV coverage will improve as we win, the conference doesn't really decide that as much as the TV network does. 

B. Our own TV network is great in-state and regionally but as we recruit nationally, we need to have the Big Ten Network to keep our brand in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Few non-Husker fans will pay-per-view to watch our games. Losing deal. 

C. Hockey isn't as profitable and I don't see the regents being in a rush to put the clamps on UNO's program by putting a competing program 45 minutes away. 

D. It does have an icy feeling between the program and the conference offices like 2010. One difference is that the Big Ten is 1,000x more sturdy in the big picture than the Big 12 was ten years ago. Also notable is that the conference juggernaut has a large majority in support of our program and agreeing with our cause. The Big Ten doesn't seem to be as controlled by one particular school but feels more democratic as a majority rule vibe.

13 minutes ago, Mavric said:

Personally, I like the fact that the players and attorney are continuing the push. Add in more political pressure today from the President and it's creating quite a cloud that I'm sure the Big Ten office would be happy to get rid of by now. Only solidifying how impressive DONU's administration was by being honest and transparent from the beginning.

@Mavric, at this point do you see the pressure as helpful to the cause or are we basically stuck until at least after Nov. 4th before the team plays again? 

Back to football...

Safe to assume it will take at least one month of training/practice/camp before games would be played? 

With Michigan State classes online now, do we think it would take at 5-7 days from the possible announcement before the practices would start again and each school gets their kids back on campus? Add in the month and you're looking at least 30 days from any announcement to return before the first game. Reasonable?

5 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Kids should have the same opportunity though. Let's give every state and every conference a chance to succeed. If we have the tests get them to those schools. s#!t, if my choices are more football or less football - gimme more football.

Agreed, but those players and programs need to speak out and ramp up their voices if they truly want to play. The Big Ten players, parents and coaches were all pretty vocal the past month with the lawsuits, public interviews/conversations and regional media encouragement. Maybe it's been happening on the west coast but I have not heard about anything close to the Big Ten pumping. 

8 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the B1G decision from the presidents ultimately boil down to the majority being uncomfortable with secondary health effects of COVID and liability rather than testing deficiencies? The "play ball" crowd advocated that players would be safer inside the rigorous structure teams could provide and that implies testing wasn't the problem.

 

If that's the case, rapid testing wouldn't really change the calculus of those who voted no, IMO.

 

 

Unfortunately, the Big Ten wasn't forthcoming with any information and simply hid behind the "there are too many uncertainties" line instead of providing data or answering questions. Their collective ego was strong enough that other conferences would conform if the Big Ten did it. The rapid testing concept will be their get out of the hole card. If they decide to bring football back, they'll using the rapid testing as their trump card and claim that they made the rational decisions throughout the process. Either way, let's hope they can put their egos aside and just get the drama over with already.

36 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

They're doing in person. I posted some quotes from their president yesterday. He voted against football, but when it came to classes he was full go. 

 

"I’d like to give the community the chance to actually figure out together, with us, how we can coexist with a disease that none of us welcomes, that’s a real problem for everybody."

 

He's been talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Sounds like a real clown. I bet he's one of the loonies who think 100,000 people show up in the fall just to see the band play at halftime and get a football game as a bonus. 

16 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

MSU went full remote before the semester started. Their president walked the walk. which I respect. 

Thank you, I hadn't read that before. U of M also taking that same approach or is their school president waiting for the checks to clear?

10 minutes ago, teachercd said:

Well they knew what would happen.

 

Students would transfer to be at "real school" if they could and incoming freshmen would flood JC's for a year and pay a fraction of the tuition. 

 

I get it, if I was a president I would do that too.  

Yeah, I thought that was the case too.  

I think they are the only one?

 

UNL was online for the first week.

Agreed, they should have had some foresight. I feel bad for the kids for what will amount to a wasted semester, maybe year while spending $10-20k

1 minute ago, teachercd said:

Not if they decided to have students on campus.  That makes no sense.

Now, the Presidents that said "Only online learning, from home, not the dorms or greek houses, no in person classes, no sports, no nothing" now THOSE presidents were thinking of the student body as a whole.

I'm not sure whether any of them have gone the full online route yet. I think many are waiting for the dorm deposits and tuition checks to clear before they flip things. Crazy, these school presidents couldn't have athletics but will welcome tens of thousands of students to live on their campuses in close proximity to one another. What a world.

1 minute ago, krc1995 said:

Yes. Evidence he skewed the discussion to fit the result he wanted.  I think we know he is biased. But why? What did he gave to gain?  I have no idea, just discussing. 

Maybe gain favor of some school presidents who were privately pushing to cancel and be more like the Ivy League? Not really sure. 

I think they really are putting themselves in a bad spot for those TV negotiations coming up though. Going to be especially ugly if the ACC & SEC continue on. 

5 minutes ago, knapplc said:

Just because the Big Ten is an affiliation of athletics teams, that shouldn't stop them from realizing it's primarily an academic institution.  People tend to forget that in these discussions.

 

Athletic Directors are middle-management. They don't get to tell their superiors what to do. The chancellors & presidents made their decisions with not only their athletic teams in mind, but the student body as a whole, and their communities as well. They've made that pretty clear in their letters and legal responses.  

 

Athletics may be the most important thing to us, but it's only one piece of the puzzle they used to put together the picture here. And Warren, for all his siloing, could only inform them on the athletic side of the conversation. They considered many other things besides his input. 

True, these are schools. That said, the Big Ten Conference is based around Athletics. The Big Ten Alliance is based around the research and academic side of things. Do you believe Warren went to the school presidents asking for the postponement or was this spurred by the school presidents who asked Warren for his input? 

-- The feeling I have is that most believe it was the former with Warren recommending postponement without being prompted but without documented disclosures, it's all speculative.

I'm trying to think of an analogy and the quickest one I can come up with is in regards to a corporate situation. Let's say a Healthcare provider (ABC) generally works with a company's HR department for policy details, coverages, etc. All of a sudden, ABC skips up to the Executive level of the company and leaves HR out of a major decision. Wouldn't it be prudent for HR to be included in the discussion of major decisions since they have been involved in everything leading up to the decision? 

-- Sure Executives/school presidents have the ultimate decision but the poorly informed tend to make foolish or hasty decisions as we are finding out here.

Just now, knapplc said:

There is buy-in. Just not from the middle-management (the Athletic Directors). Those guys have their opinions and they may want to play, but they don't make the call - the president/chancellor does. 

 

The commissioner is not beholden to the AD's, he's beholden to the heads of the universities. The ADs are welcome to their input and opinion, but they don't necessarily get to be in the room when the adults are making their decision.

 

Much as we like to think of these entities as sports programs, it's important to remember - and this situation is a great reminder - that these are primarily academic institutions of which the athletic programs are an offshoot.

Is there a reason why the Athletic Directors are not the council for which the conference is working with and deciding athletic matters? Wouldn't it be more prudent if the athletics-based Big Ten Conference worked with ADs instead of having school presidents meddle in these types of things? 

The school presidents could decide for their own particular school if they want to participate in athletics in any given sport/year. Having them make decisions for which some of the school presidents are clearly out of touch with their own programs seems a bit out of touch to me.

2 minutes ago, gossamorharpy said:

Lol, what silence are you talking about? 1/2 the league was pissed immediately. 1/3 of the school presidents publicly said they didn’t even know there was a vote. Another 1/3 said, “we’ll there was a discussion on pausing but I wouldn’t call it a vote”.

 

of course warren didn’t make this decision in a vacuum  solo but the clear lack of a process and buy in from the conference of this is appalling. If you’re saying Warren had literally zero responsibility to pool all of the presidents/school leaders together to have an honest discussion and decide this, as a group, then tell me where I can apply to be the next big10 commish cause some of you are convinced it’s nothing more than a puppet position with zero influence yet gets paid millions

 

where Did that dumb sock poppet that brought us mike Riley ever go to? Let’s get him as commish as some of you seem to convinced that role is nothing more than a fluff job with zero power and clearly zero repercussions from doing a piss poor job 

 

That's because the school presidents who were asked voted No and were trying to save themselves from public ridicule. When I read some of the news reports mentioning how some school presidents didn't realize how important football and athletics were to their universities, it was mind-boggling that they run Big Ten institutions. Hate to inform them that alumni are not coming back to campus in the fall only to see Homecoming floats or tour their old classrooms. 

Thankfully, our administration has been transparent from the jump and held firm in their beliefs. Obviously it didn't bring football back but that ship has sailed it appears. 

4 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

So what input if any can NU provide in the scheduling room of the B1G?  Surely there is a way we (our AD) can point out the inequity in the schedule without looking like we have our tails between our legs.   And while it is true, that teams cycle in and out of the top, 60 years of B1G football support the idea that OSU and to a lessor extent Michigan are normally hanging around the top of the leader board with PSU  not to far behind. 

Unfortunately, there isn't a lot we can do at the moment as these conference schedules are set years in advance. The next round of TV negotiations are coming up in a few years and then the conference schedule layout for the years after 2025 should also be coming out around that time. 

These lawsuits have likely not gained us any favor but I would be surprised if it caused the future schedule to get anymore challenging. At this point, I think Frost & Co. have us on the right footing to progress and we should be more equipped to be successful. Just hope they let us play or else it's yet another delay towards progress and development. 

4 minutes ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

 

And Iowa thrashed them one of those times.  

 

But that has been the drag on divisions and ccgs ever since they were invented.  One division winner is there because it had an easier cross-division schedule.  I notice the seccg is almost never a rematch.

 

But is it scheduled to equal out over time barring realignment?  Will Iowa start playing the Bucks a lot more?

Yes, Iowa did put it to Ohio State in 2017. 

The theory goes that eventually it balances it out but it's very odd as this year (2020) would have been just the third time they played since we joined in the 2011 season. Iowa's next scheduled dates with the Buckeyes are in 2022 & 2025. So by 2025 in the 15 season since joining, we would face Ohio State a total of nine times versus Iowa's five times. Again, I don't want us to shy away from tough opponents but I would hope the conference can more closely align schedules to provide some balance. 

32 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Iowa St will have 25,000 fans in the stadium for the opener. Also a nice policy of no fans the next game if fans don't follow protocols put in place. 

 

Iowa will not be playing football this fall. I can't imagine the Iowa athletic department is too happy that football will be played with butts in the seats 2 hours away.

Agreed, similar situation to Ohio State and Cincinnati. Going to be some complex in-state recruitment going on for the next 3-4 years for those guys if Cincy & Iowa State get a full schedule in and are able to filter out their senior classes like normal.

Going to be harder to convince Joe Blow to attend Iowa City, waiting two or more years before getting a real crack at playing time versus going up to Ames, taking a redshirt and then competing after a year. 

18 minutes ago, Toe said:

 

I imagine Warren is just counting down the days until the other conferences break down and raise the white flag on this season. Honestly, at this point I don't think it's a matter of if, but when.

 

University of Alabama orders faculty to keep quiet about outbreak:

 

https://www.ajc.com/news/university-of-alabama-orders-faculty-to-keep-quiet-about-outbreak/7ZAHSQPNDRBINBEF3A6YAVMPRE/

I'm sure he and the conference are praying for that. Still doesn't excuse the poor communications or lack of leadership so this one will stick for awhile.

24 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

So Nebraska students will be done by Thanksgiving. I'm having trouble finding which other B1G schools are too. Anyone else know?

Nebraska, Wisconsin & Iowa switching to online formats after Thanksgiving. Just did a brief search but safe to assume more in the conference are following a similar plan. 

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/17/uw-madison-uwm-reopen-fall-but-campus-life-different/3206166001/

https://www.radioiowa.com/2020/06/18/university-of-iowa-to-split-up-fall-semester-with-online-classes-after-thanksgiving/

11 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

Are B1G schools even having the student body leave by Thanksgiving? I've heard some schools are planning that, but I haven't heard if B1G schools are in that group.

Yes, I believe most are planning on having fairly empty campuses from Thanksgiving until the 2nd or 3rd week in January. Nebraska is for sure in that group. Nothing in person after Thanksgiving. 

4 minutes ago, Mavric said:

I think they did take a break but I believe they are back at it now.

Confirmed, took two weeks off after decision came down to postpone. Last week was their first week back under the 12 hours rule.

1 hour ago, Lightfighter214 said:

Im not saying the schedule doesn't help maybe it does account for a loss a year.

 

At this point in time we are not a good program, poor performing programs tend to get crap schedules. 

 

Frankly, some of this talk i just dont understand.  Its like we are trying to rationalization and blame someone else for our mostly self inflicted problems.

I am pointing out that there has been an imbalance in the Big Ten scheduling since we got into the conference. The original post this came from mentioned how these player and parent lawsuits might produce backlash from the conference in terms of scheduling or other measures. To which my reply was that the conference has been doing us no favors in scheduling since we got into the conference. 

In short, yes our problems have been self-inflicted. We had a chancellor with too big of an ego who hired an AD out of his element. Fired a coach that is a proven winner, hired a feel good coach that was not a good fit. Then finally replaced the administration and brought in a competent staff who had a big group of players unready for big time college football. Start year 2 with two starters (well 1A & 1B), at a position where their size and skill mattered, kicked off the team. A kicker who lost the ability to kick and a starting RB kicked off the team mid-way. 

TLDR: Yes, we caused a lot of our own problems.

Hopefully it's only positive from here and we win some football games... whenever the powers that be allow us to play again.

6 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

And just because you don’t agree with them doesn’t mean it’s a stunt. 

Alright, I see you're hung up on the word "stunt." Replace it with "empty gesture" and it should suffice for +90% of the athletes. Do you think it is a coincidence that they agreed to come back once reports came out that their salaries for the rest of the season would not be paid if they sat out? 

Just now, ColoradoHusk said:

I wouldn’t call what the NBA players did this week a “stunt”. They are continuing to bring more awareness to social issues they believe in.  I realize that people may not agree with them, but I applaud the players for continuing to speak their mind and try to bring about change. If that makes you or others uncomfortable as a fan, that’s good. Change isn’t done in comfort. 

They attempted a two day boycott without accomplishing anything of substance and sacrificed nothing to help the cause they threw their verbal support behind. That’s why I called it a stunt. 
 

Again, players can speak their minds until they are blue in the face. That doesn’t mean others must agree with them.