Post Sabbatical Wrapup - Part 1

A few notes that have been building up over the last few weeks:

The Brion Carnes and Owamagbe Odighizuwa situations highlight the pointlessness of the recruiting speculation that obsesses too many people during hockey season.  Bo Pelini called out bloggers, and while they joined in the mess, the real blame goes to the pay sites.  In the Carnes situation, I wonder if the Western Kentucky story wasn't actually a diversion or practical joke to see who would bite.  High school students don't have an obligation to tell anybody other than college coaches the truth.  Some fans were put off by the Carnes misinformation, but the misinformation was fed to the recruitiniks, not to the coaches.  For the rest of us frankly, it's none of our dang business.  Owa wants to attend a school closer to home in Los Angeles?  Best of luck to him if he thinks that's the place for him.

HuggingHaroldReynolds brings us the sad case of Harrison Beck (H/T to BigRedNetwork), the one time 4-star savior of Nebraska football who went on to flame out in Lincoln and at NC State before finally finding his rightful place at division II North Alabama.  The recruiting services probably did a fine job of rating Beck's physical skills...but totally ignored his immaturity.  Oh, it was all there for the taking; all you had to do was read his KETV-Channel 7 blog and his interviews as a high school senior to realize that he thought he had more game than he really did.  Here's the big deal in my mind:  he's done with football now, and I wonder, is he ready for life after football?

Nebraska basketball got absolutely blasted by Texas yesterday.  Not good at all, but considering the depth of the Big XII this season (4 teams in the Top 25 and 2 more just outside) and the relative inexperience on the court, it's not all that surprising.  Yesterday's game was bad, but this team did lead Kansas in the 2nd half as well as Baylor.  I'm willing to give Doc Sadler more time to figure things out; he's shown the ability to put teams together out of nothing.

With the state budget in disarray thanks to the prolonged economic recession, talk about hitting up the state to pay for the Sarpy County boondoggle stadium has died out.  So it's not a surprise that Sarpy County is planning a county-wide sales tax.  Of course, they're saying it's not for the ballpark.  Of course not.  But I'm reminded of the classic Dilbert story about the guy who got caught in a rainstorm while on a business trip.  The finance department rejected paying for an umbrella when he submitted his expense report, saying that an umbrella is a personal item and couldn't be claimed on his expense report.  So on his next expense report, he attached a note to the bottom report, challenging the finance department to "Now find the umbrella!"  Yes, I know I'm being cynical here, but has Sarpy County ever come out and admitted how they were going to pay for the stadium.  Say what you will about the process former Mayor Mike Fahey used to get the downtown stadium built, but at least he did it in the open.