Is Bo Pelini Laying Down the Law?

After last weekend's version of Huskers Behaving Badly, Bo Pelini pretty much had to come out and lay down the law. Or did he? One player has been released from the program, Andy Christensen has been suspended indefinitely, and several other unnamed players have been suspended as well. In other words... about what I expected.

The biggest surprise to me was Pelini naming several Lincoln establishments off-limits to players; not sure I'd heard that policy before, but a good idea if the scuttlebutt about what happens at some of those bars is true. The big statement was Pelini's policy: "Do the Right Thing." It probably suffices to take the place of several dozen ticky-tack rules and really puts the responsibility on the players to not screw up. Will Pelini be a tougher disciplinarian than Callahan or any of his other predecessors as head coach? Probably. But that's not assured, and this weekend's events would have caused just about any new head coach to react strongly.

Steve Sipple of the Lincoln Journal-Star suggests that the time might be right to restore the Unity Council. Pelini is not a believer in player council's, but might be amenable to reestablishing it in Lincoln, provided he sees the right type of leadership emerge amongst the players. There's no doubt in my mind that player leadership played a large factor in the 60-3 run in the mid-90's, but over the last ten years, you've seen a drop-off in leadership amongst the players. We certainly didn't see any during the Callahan era, and if you read "Diary of a Husker", you'll see that David Kolowski didn't see much during the Solich era. If you don't have strong leaders emerge within the program, the Unity Council isn't going to solve anything.

Until then, players are on notice that Pelini is not happy about players getting in trouble. They might want to read CornNation's Guide for Avoiding Stupidity as well. And this gets Nebraska on the Fulmer Cup scoreboard over at EDSBS.