The Last Word on 2007

At T minus 12 hours before the Cotton Bowl against Auburn, I'm still not seeing a lot of interest in this game in the fan base. Will this attitude be shared by the team? I doubt it, but you never know. Certainly, I do have to wonder if Auburn is coming into this with a more serious attitude than the Huskers. Auburn got burned by not taking last year's Capital One Bowl seriously, and they don't want to make that same mistake this year. Remember that one of the biggest factors in bowl games is who wants to win this game. It's why Nebraska nearly upset Florida State in 1994 and Nebraska wanted the Alamo Bowl last year much more than Michigoon, after Michigoon began the season thinking Rose and Nebraska spent most of November just trying to make it to Shreveport.

Another factor is how various conferences stack up. The SEC is out to a 3-1 start, though the 1 loss was Alabama's loss to the Big XII's Oklahoma State. The rest of the Big XII is 2-3 in bowls thus far, which doesn't bode so well for the Huskers' chances tomorrow.

Up until Texas Tech's huge comeback against Minnesota late on Friday night, Missouri's loss to Oregon State was shaping up as the Big XII's best bowl performance so far. The Beavers do have a victory over USC on their resume, and that game could have gone either way, especially if the Beavers hadn't gone for two. In the second half, A&M would have done better leaving Reveille and their band on the field instead of Fran's team against Cal in the Holiday Bowl. And Texas continued their end of season slide by struggling against a very mediocre group of Iowa Squawkeyes. I'll give Kansas State a pass against a Rutgers squad that should have been in a better bowl than the Texas Bowl.

Speaking of the Texas Bowl, who was the Einstein who sold the NFL Network the exclusive rights to two college bowl games? I understand the NFL's desire to promote their network, but this trend towards more specialized and costly cable TV channels is leading us closer and closer to a pay-per-view future for sporting events. $8 a year for a cable channel that shows 10 football games a year packaged around reruns of old games and three hour boring pregame shows? NFL, Get Real!

Today's NFL wild-card race reminded me of the end of the 2001 college football season watching the Broncos, Bengals, Titans, and Jaguars blow their playoff chances today, allowing the Kansas City Chiefs to claim a wild-card spot. A belated Christmas gift for the Chiefs, and they get to play the struggling Indianpolis Colts and the worst rushing defense in the league? Of course, the Kansas City defense isn't anything to shout about, so it should be a shootout next Saturday.

Rough weekend for Nebraska-Omaha hockey in the Ivy League over the weekend. Apparantly, the Ivy Leaguers have decided to create their own rules. Last night against Yale, the hometown clock operator apparantly ran the clock backwards to extend a Yale power play in the 2nd period. A furious comeback allowed the Mavs to tie Yale 4-4. After last year's wild finish against Yale, the Mavs are developing a little rivalry with the Bulldogs.

The Cotton Bowl & Auburn is only 5 days away! Does Anybody Care?

Over on the Husker mailing list, several posters have commented on a seeming apathy for the Cotton Bowl matchup with Auburn. Certainly not a lot of buzz about the matchup as I scan various Husker message boards, and Nebraska still has tickets left to sell from their allotment. Scalpers are dumping tickets for as little as $12. KMTV-channel 3 reported this evening that merchants are already marking down Cotton Bowl apparel due to lack of sales.

So what gives? Some folks think the Cotton Bowl is a inferior bowl, though I'm not sure I get the logic here. It's Nebraska's first New Year's Day bowl game since the 24-17 Orange Bowl victory over Miami 12 years ago. Fox is packaging this game as the kickoff to their BCS Bowl Blitz, and the legendary Pat Summerall will be calling play-by-play. (Yes, Summerall has seen better days, but if his work with ESPN 2 years ago is any indication, he's still more coherent than the Husker Information Minister.) Yes, the Cotton Bowl stadium isn't the greatest, but dumpy stadiums never stopped Husker fans from travelling to Baylor or Kansas State.

Is it a hangover from the Oklahoma game in Kansas City? After the game, the number of visitors here looking for unkind words about Bill Callahan increased dramatically. Or is it just that Husker fans spent their money on scalped tickets in Kansas City and Los Angeles? Or maybe the cold sapped the strength of fans?

Is the matchup against #10 Auburn a yawner? I wouldn't think so. Earlier this season, Auburn was near the top of the ratings until coach Tommy Tuberville started whining about the BCS and then promptly lost at home to Arkansas. A victory over the Tigers certainly would give Nebraska another boost in confidence, much like last year's Alamo Bowl victory.

Certainly Vegas seems to like the Huskers chances; they are only 2 point underdogs to the Tigers. The Huskers seem to match up very well against the Tigers. Auburn is 4th in the SEC in rushing, but 10th in the SEC in passing, which bodes well for the Blackshirts which have had much more luck stopping the run than the pass this season. Conversely, Nebraska's strength at pounding the rock would seem to be ideal against a smaller Auburn defense that is ranked 48th nationally at stopping the run.

One problem with pounding the rock in the Cotton Bowl is the Huskers' rash of injuries at I-back. Brandon Jackson's cast is off, but will play with a splint. Cody Glenn and Kenny Wilson look doubtful to play, and Marlon Lucky isn't recovered from his sore back either. Let's hope that Jackson is able to take the brunt of the load next Monday morning; Auburn's speed on defense would seem to neutralize Lucky's abilities.

3 Years Later, HuskerNation is Still Divided

AJ the HuskerH8er had a nice take this week on the divisions within the Husker fanbase over the coaching change three years ago that simply isn't healing. And while I think there is a large portion of the fan base in the middle, there's no doubt that fans are divided and emotions still run deep. And I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

A couple of weeks ago, a Pederson supporter questioned me about a seeming inconsistency in my praise for Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard and my criticism of Steve Pederson. In both cases, I didn't think either Dan McCarney or Frank Solich should have been fired. But my respect for Pollard came about not because of his decision to make a change, but rather in how he did it. And my dislike for Steve Pederson started with the clumsy process that forced Solich out and eventually led to Bill Callahan's hiring.

We really should be over this by now. But we're not. And I don't think we're going to anytime soon.

It's on both sides of the issue. Solich bashers are quick to jump on anything to blame on the Ohio coach, just like I'm quick to jump on anything that paints Nebraska's athletic director in a negative light.

I was reminded of this last week when Houston Nutt hit the news again last week. A Nutt supporter somehow got the idea that I was miffed at Pederson for failing to sign Nutt (even though I started the post by saying that Pederson even considering Nutt was a "head scratcher"; go figure) He did have a point that Nebraska fans need to move on.

Husker fans do need to move on, but I doubt it's going to happen. I'm going to try and refrain from revisiting the whole ugly coaching change...whether I'm going to be successful is another thing. The wounds still exist, and they aren't healing. That doesn't mean that I'm suddenly going to stop criticizing Steve Pederson if he does something I disagree with. It simply means we need to put December 2003 behind us, much like Frank Solich himself has. (Check out an interview from last week with Omaha radio station 1620 the Zone.)

In this season of peace, perhaps this is something both sides of the divide could strive for.

Omaha's Pro Sports Future: Arena Football, not OAKs

Time to check in again with the dumbest idea in Omaha sports: the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights. After finishing dead last in the AHL in attendance in 2005-06, the OAK's have surged to 26th place (out of 27 AHL teams). The miscalculations of the Omaha sports market by the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben and the Calgary Flames have been legendary and well-documented. In the end, the few supporters of professional sports point out that what they really like is Omaha being mentioned with the likes of Chicago, Toronto, and Houston.

Frankly there's nothing wrong with that.

However, minor league hockey is simply not going to work in Omaha when you already have established programs such as the Lancers and the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks. In a market this size, three's a crowd. And pretty soon, the Flames will soon cut their losses and head for a market that doesn't have hockey. Kansas City might be a target, though they currently have their eyes on the Pittsburgh Penguins, should the plan for a new arena fail.

What would work in Omaha? Arena football.

Not sandlot indoor football like the Omaha Beef, but the full AFL. Today, ESPN invested into the AFL, guarenteeing that the ESPN hype machine will be in full force on the AFL, with Monday Night Football throughout the spring and summer. The AFL gives us noteworthy names for competition to satisify the folks that want to see Omaha in the big names: Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles. It gives us great regional rivalries: Colorado (Denver), Kansas City, and Chicago. It gives us reasonable ticket prices (most tickets are $8-$26 a game in Kansas City, Denver, and Chicago) and the season fills a void after UNO hockey and Creighton basketball vacates the Qwest Center.

According to today's media reports, the AFL is looking to expand. The AFL drew packed houses to Iowa moldy old Vets Auditorium, but left in search of a bigger market and venue. Looking around the AFL, average attendance seems to be around 12,000 fans a game. Certainly if the Omaha Beef can average over 5K for part-time indoor football as they bounce from one minor league to another, Omaha could support real Arena Football.

If our city fathers who tried to foist the ill-conceived OAK's want to take Omaha to the next level, they need to forget the AHL and think AFL.

Not Basketball Assocation & Other Weekend Thoughts

About 15 years ago, I completely lost interest in the NBA...the Not Basketball Association, as it became less of a sports league and more of a vehicle for selling shoes and rap music. Today's remnants of professional basketball regularly embarass this country in international competitions; it's essentially now to basketball what the WWE is to wrestling. Numerous folks have tried to convince me otherwise, but events such as last night's Royal Rumble in professional basketbrawl prove my point.

In real basketball, I see that CBS/SI's Seth Davis named the Huskers' Doc Sadler the #4 new coach making an immediate impact on their team, ahead of some of the other name hires in the Big XII, like Bob Huggins and Greg McDermott. Next up for the Husker hoopsters is a trip to Hawai'i to play in the Rainbow Classic about the time the first winter storm could be bearing down on the state. Also in the Classic are the Creighton Bluejays, setting up a potential rematch for the Jays and their bandwagon fans, if Dana Altman can somehow knock some sense into his squad.

Today's Omaha World-Herald had a nice little recap of the overhyped 2005 Husker recruiting class. Don't misread that statement; there will be some nice players and it will be a solid group of players in time. But it will never be what recruitniks said it would be 2 years ago, especially with so many players (Harrison Beck, Leon Jackson, Rodney Picou, Justin Tomerlin) all out of the program.

It would be interesting to hear the "rest of the story" behind the departure of John Blake to North Carolina. Rumors are that Blake was upset at not being named recruiting coordinator last season, and the speed at which Blake was replaced with Buddy Wyatt indicates that this change has been in the planning for some time. There are even some internet reports that Blake wasn't planning on leaving until after the Cotton Bowl. In any event, Nebraska will definitely miss Blake on the recruiting trail.

Even more from the Nutt House - The Saga Continues

Like many Husker fans, I was scratching my head 3 years ago when Steve Pederson sent a jet to Fayetteville to fly Houston Nutt to Lincoln as Nebraska's head football coach. Subsequent losing seasons by Arkansas made that debacle look even more questionable, especially when Nutt hired a high school coach as his offensive coordinator in order to get his prized 5-star quarterback to sign with the Razorbacks.

So imagine my surprise when Arkansas went on to have a great season, winning the SEC West, and star running back Darren McFadden being named a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. Looks like I was wrong about Nutt all along, right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Yes, the Razorbacks had a successful season on the field, but things are unraveling for Nutt. Last month, a book about Springdale High's 2005 championship football team was announced, featuring some inflammatory quotes from now-Arkansas QB Mitch Mustain about Houston Nutt saying, in effect, that he'd be more likely to sign with Arkansas if Nutt was fired. Instead, Nutt hires Mustain's high school football coach, and Mustain signed with the Razorbacks.

However, once the quote made the rounds in Arkansas, Mustain was benched as Arkansas' starting quarterback and controversy ensued. Once the season ended, Mustain's mommy ran to Boss Hogg (Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles) to complain about Nutt's plans for her son. Today, Beck Campbell, Mustain's mom, issued a press release (boy, does this sound familiar) to the media to "clarify the situation". Another of Mustain's teammates from Springdale is planning to transfer from the Hawgs. And Nutt's name is once again bouncing around in coaching searches, this time for Alabama.

Now a running joke on the Arkansas campus is that Houston Nutt has turned down more jobs he was never offered than any other coach in history. Of course, whether or not Nebraska was ever one of those jobs "never offered" is still up for debate.

Wow... what a mess. It has all of the elements of the worst parts of athletics. Overactive parents, slimy recruiting, recruiting hype, and wouldn't you know, a link to Steve Pederson as well.

As the Quarterbacks Turn

In August, Brian Hildebrand's plans to transfer to Nebraska was a contributing factor to Harrison Beck's spectactular departure. However, the subsequent arrival of Sam Keller and then the commitment of Zac Lee changed the Huskers' plans, and now Hildebrand is leaving Lincoln.

However, he's not leaving quietly. Today on Big Sports 590, Hildebrand told Matt Perrault that the coaches reneged on a promise to put him on scholarship next semester and accused them of lacking "integrity". Pretty bold statements, though we've heard them from other players who've left the program in the Callahan era. They are even more surprising when you consider Hildebrand's comments when he arrived in August. Many kool-aid drinkers will automatically dismiss Hildebrand's charges as sour grapes, and many critics will automatically take them at face value. Where's the truth? Somewhere in between likely. In any event, Hildebrand is in a tough spot as leaving a second division 1-A program (he originally redshirted as a freshman at Oregon State 2 years ago) doesn't leave him a lot of options. He could go division II and play for 2 years, or go 1-AA and play for one year.

In any event, that seems to solidify Sam Keller's status as heir apparant as Nebraska's next starting quarterback. Keller was named scout team player of the year, and Corey McKeon said that Keller has been regularly torching the Blackshirts in practice. Of course, that just puts him in the same class as Adam Barmann in finding holes in the CozBohl "Bend and Break". Perhaps we also see why Keller's teammates in Tempe went to Dirk Koetter and asked for Rudy Carpenter to start instead. Keller is known to yell at teammates who make mistakes, which is fine as long as Keller owns up to his own screwups.

Parse Doing It All

In UNO hockey, Scott Parse is certainly on a hot streak. Last Saturday night, Parse moved to defense after Mike Eickman went down to injury, and recorded a hat trick against Bowling Green and ended up being named defensive player of the week to match his offensive player of the week award earlier this season. MavRick suggests wonders, partially in jest, whether Parse should give goaltender a chance. Or maybe he should shoot bigger... how about chancellor? (Couldn't do any worse than the previous one...)

Then this weekend against Bentley, (not the car, not the Jefferson's neighbor from Britain, but the college in Boston) Parse added 2 assists on Friday night and 2 goals and an assist this weekend. Parse had a couple of looks late in the game to get his second hat trick in 3 games, but the pass didn't connect. Even so, he's now the career scoring leader at UNO with still half the season to go. Is it time to fire up the Hobey Baker promotions again? Yeah, Bentley isn't much of a hockey program, but they nearly bumped UNO out of the NCAA tournament last season when they battled Holy Cross (who would later defeat Minnesota) for their conference championship.

So UNO takes a 5 game winning streak into the Christmas break, followed by road trips to Princeton and Yale at New Years, followed by a trip to Lake Superior State. It will be 5 weeks before the UNO takes to the ice at the Qwest Center again. That's a little long for my taste.

If it's December, it must be time to b*tch about the BCS

After Florida passed up Michigan for the chance to play Ohio State in the BCS championship game, the annual tradition about complaining about the BCS was in full force once again. In 2000, the complaints revolved around strength of schedule bumping Miami in favor of Florida State. In 2001, the complaints revolved around computers giving the edge to the Huskers. The fact remains that as long as you maintain the bowl system, you only can accomodate 2 teams in a National Championship game, and whenever you don't have 2 clear-cut teams (i.e 2002 with Miami and Ohio State or 2005 with Tejas and USC), you have controversy.

So what's the alternative? Blow up the bowls and institute a playoff. Of course, a playoff won't eliminate the controversy either, as the complaints will just focus on the teams who just missed the playoff. (See the complaining after the NCAA basketball tournament is set in March...)

Actually, you don't have to completely blow up the bowls, but you basically need to seperate college football into 2 groups: the championship playoff teams (8 or 16 teams), and the rest of the teams, who can continue to head to the Cotton, Alamo, and Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl.

The championship playoff (preferably 8, though I could see 16 teams) would be seeded 1 to 16, with the top seeds hosting games. Some bowl purists insist that you could have the bowls host these matchup, but that's completely impractical for fans. It's one thing to ask Ohio State fans to spend $80 for an NCAA playoff ticket to a game in Columbus. It's another thing to ask them to spend $80 for a ticket, then $1000 on short-notice airfare to El Paso, Tampa, or Charlotte. Then if they win, repeat this process for a game the next week? And then do it again for the title game? Are you serious? Over the holidays, you are going to try and get thousands of fans to go back and forth between multiple bowl games? Sure, they'll make this pilgrimage for the championship game...but not for the preliminary games.

And let's not forget, most college stadiums hold significantly more fans that most bowl stadiums. Capacity for the BCS title game is around 73,000. The top 4 teams in the BCS standings have stadium capacities of 107K, 101K, 91K, and 88K. Playing these games at campus stadiums likely means another $2 million in ticket sales for every game played. And you don't have to worry about playing in front of a 75% empty stadium, such as the Hawaii Bowl game when the Warriors aren't invited.

So what would this year's matchups be? Let's use the BCS standings and assume that we're going to have a huge quadruple-header of games this next Saturday:
#8 Boise State @ #1 Ohio State, 2 pm
#7 Wisconsin @ #2 Florida, 5 pm
#6 Louisville @ #3 Michigoon, 11 am
#5 USC @ #4 LSU, 8 pm

The next week, you matchup the OSU-BSU winner against the LSU-USC winner at the home of the higher seed, and the Florida-Wisconsin winner against the Weasel-Louisville winner, again at the higher seed.

Then matchup the 2 remaining teams in the College Super Bowl, and go ahead and host that at a bowl site on January 8th. A couple of weeks off allows you to hold this game at a neutral site since that gives fans a little time to get their travel plans in place.

Want a 16 team playoff? Well, kill the conference championship games, and start last weekend with matchups like: Rutgers @ Ohio State, Virginia Tech @ Florida, Wake Forest @ Michigoon, West Virginia @ LSU, Arkansas @ USC, Notre Dame @ Louisville, Oklahoma @ Wisconsin, and Auburn @ Boise State.

Now, tell me why we want to maintain the bowls again?

Callahan Taking the Blame

48 hours after the Big XII Championship Game loss to the Sooners, I still believe that Oklahoma beat the Huskers by outplaying them. Oklahoma's defense is definitely the best I've seen this season, but Nebraska's offense is better than Oklahoma's (as long as Adrian Peterson is on the sideline in a parka). I don't think talent was the issue Saturday night... it was in the execution.

Reading the comments from Bill Callahan today in the Omaha World-Herald and the Lincoln Journal-Star, I get the feeling that Callahan is thinking the same thing. Personally, I don't think the game plan was so bad as much as the Huskers made critical errors at key points of the game. Most of those errors were forced by the Sooners, but could the Huskers have been better prepared for Saturday night?

A lot of people are focusing on the height of Cortney Grixby at 5' 9" in letting OU's Malcolm Kelly catch 10 passes for 142 yards. Height isn't the entire issue here. I went and looked at the top defense in the NFL, Da Bearsh, and their starting cornerbacks are 6'1" Charles Tillman and 5' 10" Nathan Vasher, backed up by a 5'9" Ricky Manning (who scored on an interception yesterday) and 5'11" Devin Hester. I don't see any giants in the secondary for the Monsters of the Midway.

Did the injury to Zachary Bowman hurt the Big Red on defense this season? No doubt about it. But size isn't the problem here. Recruitniks should remember that Rivals rated Grixby the #5 cornerback (a 4 star player) out of high school.

So what is the problem? I have my ideas, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Nebraska's defense underperformed this season, and I expect there to be changes on defense. The rumor mill has John Blake leaving for North Carolina which would be a major loss for the Huskers. Blake is an excellent recruiter who can sweet talk any recruit (and his mother). Would CozBohl go? Probably not, as the ties between Callahan and CozBohl run deep.

On offense, I'm not sure about coaching changes as much as needing to refine things. My fear is that Callahan could overreact like he did in 2003 in revamping his offense after getting throttled by his mentor, Jon Gruden, and Monte Kiffin in the Super Bowl.

Looking at my logs over the last couple of days, a lot of people have found this blog searching for "Fire Callahan" or "Fire Steve Pederson". While I still agree with the latter, I'm not sure the former is a productive approach for Nebraska at this time. And firing Callahan at this point seems rather silly...after all, he did get Nebraska to the Big XII championship game. That ought to be worth SOMETHING.

A Long Cold Night in Kansas City

The tone for tonight's Big XII Championship Game was set in the first three plays:

• An ill-advised trick play on the opening kickoff, with the reverse putting the Huskers in a hole deep in their own territory.
• Maurice Purify fumbles after making the reception for a short game.
• Oklahoma takes advantage, scoring in one play.

The rest of the game, the Huskers played catchup, but time and time again, the Huskers would make a crucial mistake. 5 turnovers? Having the Sooners bottled up with a 3rd and 11 from their own 1 foot line, and then letting them go 99 2/3 yards in the next 9 plays?

My initial thought is that the difference between Oklahoma and Nebraska was in execution, not talent. The Blackshirts played admirably, and the offense moved the ball well at times. But for the most part, Nebraska shot themselves in the foot time and time again, and Oklahoma took advantage of it.

Prime example? In the third quarter, Nebraska lines up for a 42 yard field goal. It's blocked, and Oklahoma returns it for a touchdown. But Nebraska lucked out because the play was nullified by another Husker mistake: a delay of game penalty. So on 4th and 7, Nebraska decides to go for it, but gets called for a false start. 4th and 12 now, and Nebraska takes the safe route, and Rickey Thenarse downs the punt at the OU 1. But Oklahoma drives the field and scores to take a 21-7 lead.

Don't let anyone try to tell you that tonight's game was lost because of talent, it was lost because Oklahoma executed and Nebraska didn't.

Any doubts now why Bob Stoops was coach of the year?

Big Eight Championship: Nebraska vs. Oklahoma

Just the way it's supposed to be... Oklahoma meets Nebraska for the conference championship. Wilkinson and Devaney may have passed on, Osborne and Switzer may be retired, the Big XII may put this game on hiatus, but this matchup still resonates.

CornNation has a nice little comparison of the matchup which shows the two teams are fairly well matched. Oklahoma has certainly played well this season especially after losing both their quarterback to NCAA violations and Adrian Peterson to a shoulder injury. Bob Stoops has certainly earned his coach of the year award (unless it turns out Stoops knew more about Rhett Bomar's high-paying "job" at an Oklahoma City car dealership) this season.

I think this matchup boils down to two questions:

• How balanced will the Husker offense be?
• How will the Huskers tackle on defense?

Offensively, Marlon Lucky has a sore back and Cody Glenn is injured. Game time temperatures in the teens will hamper both teams offenses. While it will make it more difficult to throw the ball, Nebraska simply cannot slip into a shell like they did against USC. Nebraska's offense is at it's best when it's being balanced, especially like in the 2nd half against Tejas. Brandon Jackson will be a key to this game, but BJax cannot win the game if he's the only offense on first down. Nebraska must mix it up.

Defensively, Nebraska must play fundamentally sound football as Oklahoma is going to try to run at and over the Huskers. If they continue to show shoddy fundamentals and allow the Sooners to gain big yardage, they will lose. Nebraska can't "hope" tackling improves, they need to do it.

And what is the motivation of this Husker team? All season long, after a bad game, we've heard that "our goals are still in front of us", pointing towards making it to Kansas City. Mission Accomplished? Perhaps to some. But I doubt that 60,000 Husker fans are making this trip just because they like the balmy breezes coming off the Plaza. Certainly just showing up in Kansas City isn't going to be enough for Nebraska's athletic director.

So what's my prediction? Most of the talking heads don't give the Huskers much of a chance, automatically slotting the Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl. Well, I think it's going to be closer than that. But, I still am a little unsure of this game. Is it the cold? Is it the matchup? Is it Sooner Magic? A little of it all, I'm afraid. But this is a classic matchup, so I'll pull up a classic score: Oklahoma 17, Nebraska 14.

Hope I'm wrong.