Nebraska...not feeling Frosty anymore

[entropy]

http://rivals.yahoo.com/nebraska/football/recruiting/recruit-search-results

Where Nebraska recruited last year. Moving to the BigTen won't be that big of an impact as some think.

[lineygoblue]

Is a mass emailing invitation in order to try to reach some of those guys?

I think we can do something like that before the WX site closes. I've been pretty busy lately, but I'll see if I can get some time to put together an e-mail list with the link to this place.

Paul S is on my Facebook friends list. I've given him the link as to where we are. I suppose he'll show up sooner or later. Timmy should be reachable through the Tigers forum. Tim and Matt Prost (Wisconsin brothers) have been in and out. I think I have an e-mail addy for Tim. If I can reach him, he can pass on the info to Matt. I'd also like to see Jerry Bouldin posting again, and I wouldn't even mind getting bashed by Mr. Hardway again. I hope all those folks are doing well.

[entropy]

Lunardi just updated his projections. Has NU as the 5th team out.

ON THE BUBBLE
Last Four In
Richmond (Duquesne on Saturday)
Boston College (Wake Forest on Saturday)
Michigan (Michigan St. on Saturday)
Clemson (Virginia Tech on Saturday)

First Four Out
Alabama (Georgia on Saturday)
Colorado (NU)
Washington State (UCLA on Saturday)
Baylor (Texas on Saturday)

Next Four Out
Nebraska (CU)
Colorado State (San Diego St. on Saturday)
Memphis (Tulane on Saturday)
Wichita State (Bradley on Friday in MVC tourney)

A couple things I found interesting:
ESPN Daily RPI has NU at 71
Lunardi's preferred RPI formula has NU at 35
NU is ranked second in the nation in defensive quotient

[entropy]

Since 1998, there have been 24 seasons combined for Nebraska and Michigan basketball. In only 1 of those 24 seasons has there been a NCAA tournament appearance.


that is bad..

[entropy]

http://huskerextra.com/sports/football/article_df9b16ef-d226-5fbe-bd0c-9599ad70adc1.html

Memorial Stadium is growing taller.
With interest in new seating locations and suites in high demand, NU athletic officials have proposed adding another level to the planned expansion of Memorial Stadium for the 2013 season.
At its meeting next week, the NU Board of Regents will consider a revised budget that would add $8 million to the project. The original plan called for adding approximately 5,000 seats and 31 suites to East Stadium at a cost of $55.5 million.
It wasn't immediately clear how many seats or suites would be created by adding another level. Original plans called for the East Stadium expansion to be of a height similar to the West Stadium, which was expanded in 1999.
Officials say the cost of the entire project will be funded through a mix of private donations and bond proceeds. Work is to begin this spring.

[entropy]

Glad to see the demand is high enough to add even more seats. Adding another level will make the East and West height basically the same. It will also mean trapping more sound. Great news

[entropy]

Nebraska Baseball update:

Nebraska just won in 12 to even the series with #5 UCLA.

Nebraska lost the first game 1-0. The run scored off an error.

[entropy]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6jmVxxWx8Q"]YouTube - Ndamukong Suh Highlights Nebraska 2009[/ame]

[amaizenblue]

Since 1998, there have been 24 seasons combined for Nebraska and Michigan basketball. In only 1 of those 24 seasons has there been a NCAA tournament appearance.


that is bad..

ouch! So, between 98 and 07, we were oh-fer-twenty?

[entropy]

this year, I think Michigan will change that.

[entropy]

CU 48
NU 43

9+ left in the 2nd.

Nebraska is turning the ball over like they want to play in the NIT.

[entropy]

wow.. last couple series for CU = Off Rebounds = pts. Nebraska is just a really bad road team. They're totally different at home when it comes to mental mistakes and hitting freethrows. 5-12 as of 4:14.

Score right now with 4 mins left.. 57-50


Not only is this game important for the NCAA tourny, but also the Big12. A nebraska loss puts them at #7 and means game KU's side of the bracket.

[entropy]

Turnovers:

NU-14
CU-5


61-53 CU. seconds left.. Team did better than I thought this year, but disappointing how they played tonight.

[entropy]

LJS

Darius Antonides wasn't supposed to be here. Doctors told his mother not to name him. She did anyway.

Then they said he probably wouldn't walk. Yet there he was after a Husker football practice in October with a football in his hands, running. To the 15 ... the 10 ... the 5 ...

He's 9 years old. The things he has: Spider-Man sheets, a friend named Prince Amukamara and more Twitter followers than you.

He's so popular that some of the baddest dudes on the planet -- top-level mixed martial arts fighters -- send him autographs, clothes, messages of inspiration.

They do so because they know the truth: He's tougher than them. A fighter respects a fighter.

Eight days ago, Darius had eight seizures in a matter of hours. As he lay in his bed at Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center, his mother snapped a picture.

There was a little boy who'd been through hell, eyes half shut, hospital machines hooked to his body, bandages on his left hand.

But look closer. The picture will tell you something.

His right hand is free, and it's giving the camera a thumbs up.

***

Darius came into this world three months earlier than planned.

Born with a disorder known as periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), which causes seizures and cerebral palsy, he spent the first three months of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit.

On Christmas Eve 2001, Stephanie Hebard was told her child was not going to make it. Darius received his last rites three times. His lungs were not functioning. Doctors took him off the respirator.

And then, against all expectations, Darius started breathing.

Stephanie and her husband, Greg Antonides, didn't sleep that night. They assumed the phone would ring with the worst news. It never came.

When they showed up at the hospital in the morning, there was Darius.

"That's when I knew this child had a purpose," Stephanie says.

That's when she knew she had a fighter.

Others would have it easier, but Darius was going to play hard, love life, and be the kind of kid who colors SpongeBob with 15 different crayons even when every 9-year-old knows SpongeBob is yellow.

"You're a person, not a diagnosis," Mom tells him.

On the family refrigerator is a calendar of the past year. The dates with a red dot are the ones where Darius had a seizure, some of them coming in front of his classmates.

Ten months ago, Darius came home from school and asked his mother if the other kids made fun of him because of his seizures.

"People around the world will love you for who you are and I'll show you," Mom said.

She started Facebook and Twitter pages under the name Team Darius.

Within a week he had 100 Facebook friends from 12 different countries.

Soon, athletes were befriending him on Facebook or Twitter.

Boxers. MMA fighters. Huskers.

He keeps track of his friends on a sheet of paper on the living room wall. Amukamara, DeJon Gomes, Brandon Kinnie, D.J. Jones, Cameron Meredith, Yoshi Hardrick, Kody Spano, Jeremiah Sirles, and on it goes.

But you know what's even better than that? When there's a knock on your door and Amukamara and Gomes are standing on your porch ready to hang out.

That's pretty sure to make you the coolest kid in your third-grade class.

"Just a kid who lives every day like it's sunny outside," Amukamara says.

Mom was right. People love him for who he is.

***

"If you can do it then I can do it, if I can do it then you can do it too.

If you can do it then I can do it, if I can do it then you can do it too."

-- "Darius" by Coalition Fight Music

He's the owner of multiple nicknames. Some call him D-Man. Others prefer Little Warrior.

Darius kept saying "warrior" as he walked around the house after watching an MMA fight one day.

Not long after, fighters would send messages asking how the Little Warrior was doing.

Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has even called him on the phone. "You are the best little brother Ever!" reads the autographed picture from White.

The Little Warrior got to meet fighter Shane Carwin. And Joey Beltran made an entrance to one of his fights wearing a T-shirt that read: "Help Team Darius."

Then came the hip-hop song named after him by Coalition Fight Music.

The lyrics are about perseverance. On the tough days, Mom blasts the song from the speakers.

She's trying to raise money to start a "Team Darius" charity. It would be the first PVL charitable organization.

There's an "Expect a Miracle" sign in the entryway of their house.

Stephanie and Greg haven't been on a date since Darius was born. Almost all their money goes to keeping their child alive.

There are stains on the carpet in Darius' bedroom. The seizures put them there.

In the corner of the room are an oximeter device and apnea monitor, which shows what his heart and lungs are doing.

There are cameras in different rooms so Mom can watch Darius in case he has a seizure.

"I tell everyone it's like walking on the edge of a razor blade between being there when the seizure hits and not being there and giving him some independence," she says. "It's like a train wreck and he makes the most of it every day. Every day."

He reads at a sixth-grade level. He'd recognize his friends Prince and DeJon on sight, but the brain damage would hinder his ability to remember them if he just heard their names.

Yet he smiles more than most.

Those in the Husker camp were so impressed by Darius that they invited him to a closed practice the week of the Missouri game last fall.

When the practice was over, the equipment guys were rounding up the footballs, but Darius wasn't about to give up the one in his hands.

The kid who wasn't supposed to ever leave the hospital was taking off now, running from one end zone to the other, just another boy dreaming of scoring six for Big Red.

Mom smiles at the memory. That's D-Man, the Little Warrior who has more than 2,300 Twitter followers and occasionally plays Nintendo 64 with future first-round NFL draft picks.

She takes a picture of him each day before he goes to school. A couple days after Darius had eight seizures, she clicked the camera and found him smiling as usual.

"If it was me, I'd be rocking in a corner somewhere going, 'Leave me alone,'" she says. "He's like, 'School today. Gotta roll.' It takes a special kind of kid to have that kind of spirit."

You needn't look out the window. It's sunny outside. And if he can do it you can do it too.

[entropy]

Forcing his system is not Beck’s style

LINCOLN — Mark Mangino doesn’t know Nebraska’s offensive personnel. But he does know Tim Beck.

And one of Beck’s strengths, Mangino says, is working with what he has. The Huskers’ new offensive coordinator won’t force a system on his team that doesn’t fit the talent he has.

“I’ve talked to Tim off and on in the last couple months, and just talked philosophy,” said Mangino, the former Kansas head coach who had Beck on his Jayhawk staff from 2005 through 2007. “And I think Tim is going to put together what he knows best, and be smart enough to know he’s going to do the things on offense that the players at Nebraska can do.”

Things don’t always go well when an offensive coordinator tries to ram through a system upon taking over, particularly when his personnel is ill-fitted for it. Nebraska fans know that all too well after watching the transition to the West Coast offense under Bill Callahan in 2004.

Beck will get to where he wants eventually, Mangino said, but he will find ways to be successful along the way.

“Let me point something out that I think is extremely important: Tim is a very good teacher and a very good communicator,” Mangino said. “The offensive players at Nebraska will understand the expectations. Tim will clearly state those. And he will have a plan to reach those.”

Nebraska starts spring practice Saturday without three starting offensive linemen from a year ago, along with two receivers who combined for 186 career catches and a two-time 1,000-yard back. The offense returns a starting quarterback, but one who began last season much better than he finished it.

That’s the challenge ahead of Beck, and Paul Ressa said his friend and former colleague is eating it up.

“He’s got a gift at ‘personneling’ people and getting them in the right position for success,” said Ressa, the head coach at Newman Smith High in Carrollton, Texas. “I tell you, he’s a master of using his personnel.”

Ressa was one of the few staffers Beck kept when he became head coach at R.L. Turner High in Carrollton in 1999, fresh off a three-year stint at Missouri State.

Lacking the “biggest and best athletes,” Ressa said, Beck ran the flexbone offense and utilized the option. As his attack evolved, Beck went to more of a shotgun and more of a spread, but kept the option element.

“His roots are definitely in option and power football, but he is an offensive guy, so he’s going to throw the football,” Ressa said. “It’s going to be a combination of things.”

Ressa thought enough of Beck to follow him from R.L. Turner after three seasons to Mansfield Summit in Mansfield, Texas. Forget the fact that the new job involved driving 65 miles one way each day from his home in Frisco.

“There were plenty of times I had to spend the night, but it was definitely worth the price,” Ressa said. “I believe in him that much.”

Beck left Mansfield Summit after three seasons for Kansas, becoming the receivers coach for Mangino. He rose to passing game coordinator in 2007, working closely with offensive coordinator Ed Warinner on an attack that would set school records for passing offense, total offense and scoring offense during a 12-1 season.

“I liked Tim’s insight to the game and wanted to give him the opportunity to coach more than receivers,” Mangino said. “Tim’s not a shy guy when it comes to taking responsibility.

“Ed was the leader of the offense as the offensive coordinator, but he and Tim worked very well together. That’s why they’re both in very good positions now.”

Warinner has moved on to be offensive line coach at Notre Dame. Beck, starting his fourth year on Bo Pelini’s staff at NU, has just taken on his biggest job in coaching.

Together in 2007, starting from scratch, Warinner and Beck threw a lot on the board and then simplified the offense for quarterback Todd Reesing and his mates, Warriner said. Warinner called the plays from the press box, Beck signaled them in from the sideline.

The West Coast offense is built on 12 to 14 words per call and a quarterback who reads it off a wristband. Their offense was not.

“We weren’t big on wristbands,” Warinner said. “We kept the verbiage down.”

There were no audibles by Reesing. It was Warinner’s job to get KU in the right play. The passing game under Beck was very simple, Warinner said, including the way it was communicated.

It translated into high-speed football.

“We only had a few concepts,” Warriner said. “Only ran certain concepts against certain defenses.”

Beck, who has not been made available for interviews, talked about keeping things simple during a Feb. 22 radio interview on the Husker Sports Network. He talked about cutting into the philosophies, techniques and verbiage thrown at NU’s offensive players.

His plan: “We’re going to go where they’re not — and attack.”

“I just think you’ve got to be an attacking offense nowadays,” he said, “and constantly put pressure on defenses and put the gas pedal to the floor and go after them.”

If you study the Jayhawks’ offense from 2007, Mangino said, you’ll find Beck’s “fingerprints all over adjustments in the passing game and with the wide receivers.” Warinner said he could see little pieces of KU’s offense in the Nebraska system the past few years, and assumed they came from Beck.

But now the entire attack falls on Beck, including the pressure and scrutiny that used to be on the shoulders of former NU offensive coordinator Shawn Watson.

“I think he’s going to do a great job,” Mangino said. “I think Bo hit it out of the park when he named Tim his offensive coordinator.

“Tim will get the attention of the offensive players with his no-nonsense approach, but still have a good relationship with the players. They’ll like playing for him.”

Mangino throws out all kinds of superlatives to describe Beck.

Tireless worker. Detail oriented. Outstanding teacher of schemes and fundamentals. Relentless recruiter.

And once the games start, Ressa said, fans will see another Beck strength — an innate ability to call a game and make adjustments.

“He’s going to find an answer for whatever the defense is doing,” Ressa said. “Give him a series, let him get a feel, then get him into some situation-type areas and, man, he’s going to call a good game.”

Ressa said Beck can make the adjustments from play to play or series to series, but he might be best at halftime. For the record, Nebraska did not score an offensive touchdown in the second half of any of its four losses last season.

“Don’t give the guy 10 minutes — after watching a team for 30 minutes — to tell a team what to do,” Ressa said. “He is one of the brightest and fastest coaches I have ever been around and met. He makes adjustments massively.”

World-Herald staff writer Dirk Chatelain contributed to this report.


Contact the writer:

402-444-1042, rich.kaipust@owh.com

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