krill

What we have here is a case study in why scheduling an FBS school sucks. If you lose, it's a season defining national embarrassment. If you win but it's not a blowout and there were a lot of mistakes (like today), fans are upset. If you blow them out nobody cares and you almost feel bad the opposing team since they were so hopelessly outclassed.

A one loss SEC champion would undoubtedly go before an undefeated Boise. I'm just glad we didn't schedule Boise period before the big 10 move took place. Our big 10 schedule the first two years is arguably more difficult than an SEC schedule and there's no need for another marquee non-conference game on top of the one already scheduled. People shouldn't knock Boise though. They have proved themselves to be a good football program the last 10 years and it was built from nothing. As with any other top tier program there are careful considerations with non-conference scheduling, especially away games that that are an automatic financial loss (compared to a home game) no matter what the payout is. I believe when they join the MWC next year there's going to be some great football in that conference and a strong argument for the big east losing their automatic BCS bid to the MWC. How they beef up their non-conference schedule to make the road to national champions is less clear, but perhaps one the remaining big 12 schools will be interested in the future.

I'm perfectly content having an offense that's fun to watch again. The speculation from the talking heads is entertaining but has become increasingly ridiculous over the years. We haven't even started conference play and all they walk to talk about are championship scenarios and awards.

I try not to take pleasure in the misery of others but in the end we're doing them a favor. If your decision making and execution is that bad against a top college defense what's it going to be like in the NFL? Being a draft bust has to be more demoralizing than one bad game.

There are zero general admission tickets to a Husker football game. Every seat in stadium is either a season ticket, faculty ticket, student ticket or ticket that was reserved for visitors. I know there's a waiting list for the first three groups, not sure what happens with unsold tickets in the visitor sections. As for scalping I'm pretty sure most of them are just season ticket holders, they are not people hoarding tickets to turn a quick buck. If you do the math on how much it cost to get tickets (actual cost + donation required for that section) it would never pan out. For example sections 26 and 6 require donations of $3500 per ticket, 7 homes games means you would need to sell each ticket for over $554 to make a profit. The worst seats in the stadium at the top of the north / south endzone have a donation requirement of $300 ($43 / ticket). On that note, the people complaining about ticket prices aren't figuring in the true price of a ticket (it's not $54). When a season ticket holder sells you a ticket for face value you're getting lucky. Although not everyone views the donation requirement as part of the price of a ticket.

Unfortunately that's the price you pay for tickets ahead of time unless you know a season ticket holder that will sell them for face value. My experience has been that there are a lot of people who are happy to do this if they are not using them, especially for the non-conference games. Your next best bet is combing the scalpers and tailgaters with a sign showing how many tickets you want to buy. With patience you can get tickets for face value or much less outside the stadium for non-major games.

I sorta agree with what the guy had to say. What does the championship game even mean if a Boise State, TCU or Big East team could potentially go while 1 loss teams who played a much harder schedule are eliminated? That's not an argument for playoffs either. I really believe that once we get going in the Big 10 we're going to love the conference competition more than the possibility of being national champions with a less competitive schedule. That's what college football should be, highly competitive games every week and real prestige being conference champions.

Gut reaction

I'd like to know when BTN will be available on dish too. Got tired of TWC's ridiculous pricing and switched this summer.

Or 8th to play Frank Solich in the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl.

I don't really care that much about the streak and there wasn't much tradition in the NU-KU football game. However, Lawrence is a 200 mile drive from Lincoln, tickets have always been relatively inexpensive and easy to get and Lawrence itself isn't a bad town (well at least it has the free state pub). Once we're in the big 10 the closest road trip will be Iowa City (300 miles from Lincoln) and I'm guessing Iowa tickets will be more expensive and harder to get than KU, K-State, ISU or Missouri tickets ever were. We have always had great support from fans at away games and I'm worried that the geography of the big 10 will chip away at that support. So my thinking is that keeping KU on the schedule would at least lessen the blow and also keep the streak going.

If it were possible to schedule Kansas every year as a non-conference opponent instead of one the usual mid-major opponents (Sun Belt, WAC, Vally etc.), keeping the longest series in college football alive, would you like to see that happen? Or is it time to let it go and move on? Or do you not care either way? I would love to see this possibility explored if there's a mutual interest, even if it means upping the overall schedule strength a bit and possibility having two away games for non-conference play some years.

You can trash us all you want but at the end of the day, after we're gone the competitiveness of the big 12 will be degraded. We represented the north 5 times in the conference championship and CU did 4 times (total 9 of 14). I'm skeptical that OU and the smaller programs will be content with UT getting their own TV network while the rest of college football looks to the big 10 model for growing revenue and satisfying the demand for more TV coverage of all conference games. Point is, there's not a chance in hell that the big 12 will be better without us or last more than a few years if UT runs it like a fiefdom.

I don't understand how revenue for the other 9 schools is going to double if UT has their own TV network or how Beebe put this new revenue deal together seemingly at the drop of a hat. How long will this will hold together given the amount of distrust between big 12 members and power being even more concentrated in Texas? I didn't pay much attention to big east / ACC realignment and never realized how much trust there has to be between members of a conference when there's tens of millions of dollars in revenue at stake and the risk that the whole conference could fall apart, leaving the smaller schools to fend for themselves. One way or another I know the former north division schools are going to get screwed by UT even if this is great in the short term.

DIVISION B Penn State (W 19-17 Capital One Bowl) Nebraska (W 33-0 Holiday Bowl Iowa (W 24-14 Orange Bowl) Minnesota (L 13-14 Insight Bowl) Wisconsin (W 20-14 Champ Sports Bowl) Northwestern (L 35-38 Outback Bowl) Could be a rather fierce division, not a CU replacement in the lot

Oh, so now he starts doing his job. What a joke. Good for Beebe and UT if they save the big 12 but I believe it will be more of a headache than salvation for ISU, KU, K-State, Missouri and Baylor if the big 12 does hold on. UT has demonstrated to everyone what they're capable of and can essentially threaten to kill the conference at any time if they don't get what they want. It's not difficult to see why Perlman and TO saw the big 10 as an island of stability for us and jumped on that ship as quickly as possible.

I have no lingering animosity towards Texas, but have to wonder if they will tear apart the pac 10 with the same shenanigans that tore apart the expanded big 8 (not even going to call it the big 12 anymore).

It's painful to think that we could be sitting here right now with a very mediocre program in the apparently doomed big 12 conference. What if TO had said no thanks three years ago, I'd like to retire in peace and comfort rather than be thrown back into the craziness of college athletics at age 70. Instead we've come off a great season, enthusiasm for football is as high as it was in the 90's, we're headed to a new conference, have a new arena being built and the university itself will likely do quite well with new research opportunities.

Boise St. does not fit into the pac 10 academically. Cannibalizing the mountain west and taking Boise out of the WAC (only good program) to save the big 12 is an interesting idea but doesn't seem likely at all. It would make a lot of people very angry to see the mountain west, which has been slowly trying to build into a major conference with a BCS bid be ruined so Texas can keep their party going. The geography is also not good. Football teams may have deep travel pockets but surprisingly enough there are other NCAA sports besides football. There's plenty of incentive for the southern teams and remainder of the north to hang together. In my mind a more likely scenario is ISU, KU, K-State, Missouri, OSU and Oklahoma forming the new north division with six Texas schools forming the new southern division. TCU, Southern Methodist, Rice...I don't know but I'm sure there's at least two Texas programs that would love to be in that action.

Last year I paid $12 for two north end zone tickets a few minutes after kickoff for the ISU game. It proved to be $12 too much for that game but you're right about the waiting game with scalpers. If you buy tickets on the internet beforehand you're going to pay face value, $55 and up depending on the game, plus some.

In the worst case scenarios for the big 12 where it's relegated to a mid-major conference without a BCS bid or if it completely dissolves, that may not be all bad for Kansas, K-State, Iowa State and Missouri football wise. They may be more competitive in a different arrangement and find their way to more bowls, more TV and more money than they had with the big turd. Despite all the predictions of super conferences there's still going to be plenty of room for smaller players doing their own thing and still playing quality ball on Saturdays. And again, it may be better for them and the fans in the end.

That looks more like the leftover 12 than the big 12. If it came to that I don't know why they would even call it the big 12. Here's another thought on why why the southern big 12 teams won't bolt for a 16 team pac 10. The pac 10 is still only going to have 1 automatic BCS bid and the mountain west would presumably get the big 12's bid if it was reduced to the above teams. A 16 team conference may make for a great TV network but it would make BCS bowls and national championships much more difficult than the setup Texas and Oklahoma has now with the big 12. And again, there's been no word from Oklahoma on what they want to do other than they were very disappointed to see Nebraska leave the big 12.

My feeling is that Texas entertaining the idea of a super pac 10 was all a show to guilt Nebraska, Colorado and / or Missouri into not leaving. Obviously that didn't work with Colorado already packing and our departure imminent. The big 12 isn't going to fall apart overnight for a few reasons. First, and correct me if I'm wrong here, the conference will not be immediately stripped of its automatic BCS bid. Even without us it's still a far better football conference than the big east which still has theirs. That bid is a big deal and a carrot the conference can dangle to draw in replacements. Second is basketball. I hate to even mention it but if the big 12 does have many great basketball programs and it would be the biggest joke in the history of NCAA athletics if Kansas gets stuck in the valley or mountain west due to the big 12 falling apart. Third, Colorado is already headed to the pac 10 which makes a move of all 4 Texas schools + both Oklahoma schools to the pac 10 impossible. The politics of leaving Baylor behind would be a major sticking point. I've also heard nothing about how Oklahoma feels about a potential pac 10 move and frankly the thought of OSU in the pac 10 doesn't seem right from an academic perspective either. The big east survived the last major realignment and the big 12 will survive this one.

That's my feeling as well. The possibility that the entire southern division of the big 12 may be invited to the pac-10 while only Nebraska and Missouri were / are being considered for the big 10 says a lot about the balance of power in the big 12. The spirit of the old big 8 is dead, everyone knows this has been the Texas + others conference since day one. The fact that we could never get an annual game with Oklahoma was a travesty for fans of both teams and why I never liked the big 12. I'll really miss road trips to Manhattan, Lawrence and Ames but life goes on. And I do hope that if the big 12 falls apart over this that the former north schools find a suitable conference and we can still play a few non-conference games with old rivals. It's also worth considering that this may be better for everyone in the conference football wise. The north programs that have struggled year after year may be more competitive in another conference and find their way to more bowls.