Around the Big Ten

[entropy]

I think UNL is very different from most BCS schools. small school that has to recruit nationally and has to do things differently to get advantages. Team chemistry is probably more important at UNL than other places. Finding ways to leverage players that others would pass on is important (see UNL's roles for the FB and WR in the past). I firmly believe coaching at UNL is not something anyone can jump into and succeed. I think you have to learn it. Unfortunately, as great as TO was, and I'd argue the best ever... he never had a guy who could take over the way he did for Bob Devaney. that is UNL's biggest problem. a new coach would come in with their experiences and their ways and they'd struggle..

winning at UNL is harder than most places... but it can be done. But UNL has advantages that play out when you win.

[entropy]

my pro's for joining the big:

- academic reputation improvement
- more academic research $$$
- easier flights
- new places with larger stadiums (as a whole)
- BTN
- not with texas
- huge upside in the conference with the right investments
- it has been nice going to new places and meeting new fans
- the state fits in better with the BIG.. Neb doesn't have the large cities, but a long proud ag history.. not an oil history like ou/osu and south..

cons:

- no longer playing ksu/ku/mu/ou
- wisc fans are worse than their reputations
- NW stadium
- new recruiting grounds that doesn't develop as much talent as you'd think, relative to their size of pop
- population shifting south
- BIG reputation in athletics
- 4 yrs of no michigan is not acceptable

[Wild Hoss]

I don't think being near or in favorable recruiting territory guarantees success (as noted, numerous programs have bombed) -- BUT, by and large you need to be near or in favorable recruiting territory to be successful. The only program that has had prolonged national success AND that is in the recruiting wilderness is Oregon.

Bad coaches can undoubtedly fuck up good talent, and good coaches can work wonders with average talent, but to get to the elite level you need good coach + good talent. And I do think recruiting is harder for UNL than programs that are "elite".

Of course, if they would just hire Chris Peterson, it'd all be good. I know Hoss, as an ardent Pelinista, is adamantly opposed to such a move, but I think it would work out. Heh

Elite...meh. That is the province of the SEC now. Last I saw, an Ohio State program with all the criteria you mentioned was getting its shit pushed in by them, and I don?t suspect any other similar programs could hope to fare better. (They haven't) It?s the SEC and the rest of us.

I am more concerned with Nebraska being as reasonably close to as good as it can be, then let the chips fall where they may. That is all which is under our control.

Currently, the program?s potential isn?t being realized, and there is little reason to believe it ever will be under the current regime. That?s what bothers me more than anything.

[entropy]

SEC has different rules... tough to compare. So if teams like osu/fsu/texas/ou can't compete with all their advantages, then I'm not sure how you can argue, something is "off" in the SEC.

[WM Wolverine]

B10 West has little talent and where it does (Illinois) there are a lot of programs fighting for it; NW/Illinois, Wisky, Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue, etc. and M & ND can usually get the top talent from there...

The #2 state in the B10 West in terms of producing talent would be Wisconsin? They'd be #6 in the B10 East behind Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland.

[WM Wolverine]

Long expected but the Citrus (Capital One) and Hall-of-Fame (Outback) Bowls are official. Both SEC match-ups and it appears all bowls for the B10 are set...

*#1 Rose (vs Pac)...
*#2 Citrus (vs SEC) or if eligible Orange (vs ACC - B10 guaranteed Orange, 3 out of 8 years; 4 out of the next 12 the Orange is a 'playoff' bowl)...
*#3/#4 Holiday (vs Pac - trying to fund a new stadium), Hall-of-Fame (vs SEC)
*#5/#6/#7 Pinstripe (vs ACC), Gator or Music City (vs SEC), San Fran (vs Pac - building new stadium)...
*#8/#9 Detroit (vs ACC) & Armed Forces/Heart of Dallas (vs Big XII?)...

-

*3 vs SEC, 3 vs SEC, 2 vs ACC, 1 vs Big XII...
*3 in California, 2.5 in Florida, 1 in NYC, 1 in Michigan, 1 in Texas, .5 in Nashville...

B10 will lose the Rose 4 years out of the next 12, where the B10 champ go to the Cotton, Chick-fil-A or Fiesta Bowl... I think we'll enjoy the California bowls and the relationship with the Pac 12. Not sure if San Diego will approve the Chargers new stadium but that would make the Holiday add, an even better addition...

Not sure how the B10 will assign bowl teams, it sounds like it'll mostly be up to the B10 to decide where teams go and not the bowls themselves.

[lineygoblue]

That's a pretty decent lineup. In a good year, only 5 B1G teams would not go to a bowl.

[WM Wolverine]

Watching replays of games in the past week or two on YouTube & BTN. The B10 'contact to the helmet' rule won't last more than one season in its current state. 3-7 players could be ejected every game if the officials actually call it accurately. I'm guessing the officials will only enforce the new/adjusted rule selectively. It just looks like a potential major headache.

[entropy]

see if you can find any fingerprints on these ideas/proposals from a recently retired guy ....

CHICAGO -- Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany believes change is coming to college sports.

Change could happen, Delany said, within a year.

In a 23-plus-minute opening statement that ranged from a history lesson to a state of the Big Ten, Delany outlined a four-point plan of issues important to him and ones he thinks will help straighten out the issues within the NCAA.

"We've done more complicated things than this," Delany said.

Delany provided solutions for what he sees are the main issues in college athletics as a whole, and not limited to the NCAA. The following ideas are some of the things that are "lost" in the conversation, he said.

Point 1: An educational trust

Delany would like to see schools commit to allowing athletes to return to school after their playing days if they did not finish their bachelor's degree. If said athlete chooses to do so, the school would pick up the tab for the rest of that player's education.

"What I would like to see is explicit commitment by higher education through conferences for funding that if you come up short in your four years, whether you turn professional or drop out, we'll stand behind you," Delany said. "When you're ready to get serious, when you're ready to have the time, we'll support your college education to get your degree for your lifetime."

Point 2: Time commitments

Delany recognizes the 20-hour rule for athletes during the season is not realistic. He spoke to his coaches about juggling that and being a full-time student.

"I want to make sure that our rules and regulations and constraints and standards are properly balanced," Delany said. "Once a student is admitted, he or she has the opportunity to do what they need to do academically to continue to move forward."

Point 3: The at-risk student

Delany stopped short of calling for freshmen to return to being ineligible in their first year, but he appears to be in favor of a hybrid model, where students who are "at-risk" would get a year of residence in college while giving them their four years of eligibility and a scholarship.

"Let's make sure we haven't short-changed anyone or exploited anyone because we've taken at-risk students and haven't given them adequate time to prepare to transition educationally," he said.

Point 4: Miscellaneous expenses

This is a topic Delany has mentioned for two years now, essentially a look at being able to pay athletes a stipend in addition to their scholarship "up to the cost of education." The Big Ten commissioner, though, isn't sure what that number would be.

Delany wants to make sure any stipend would be Title IX compliant, so all male and female athletes on full scholarship are eligible for the same benefits.

"I'm talking about a stipend of miscellaneous expense that meets Title IX rules and federal law," Delany said. "And no exemptions for football and basketball."

Delany's four-point plan came in advance of any comments he made about NCAA president Mark Emmert, who has been criticized by his colleagues in other conferences over the past two weeks.

In some ways, Delany defended Emmert, noting many of the issues facing the organization appeared before he took over running it in 2010.

"There's been a lot said about Mark Emmert," Delany said. "My view is Mark has done some good things and Mark has made some mistakes. Let me tell you this: Running the NCAA is real challenging.

"Most of the problems we see today preceded Mark Emmert, so the fundamental challenges to institutions and conferences and the NCAA were here before Mark Emmert walked in the door."




Post Extras:

[entropy]

http://sports.omaha.com/2013/07/24/b1g-media-days-bo-urban-boss-jim-wallpaper-kirk-and-more-day-1-stuff/

[entropy]

HARRISBURG, Pa. – It was lunch hour here Monday, the first day of the pretrial hearing of three former Penn State administrators. They are charged with endangering the welfare of children, conspiracy and a host of other crimes for failing to do enough (or anything) to stop Jerry Sandusky's reign of terror back when they had the chance.

Graham Spanier, Penn State's former president and the highest profile of the defendants, was riding down an elevator from the fifth floor of the Dauphin County Courthouse. He scanned his Blackberry and immediately seized on a freshly live Associated Press story that covered that morning's testimony from ex-assistant football coach Mike McQueary. Spanier turned to his attorney Elizabeth Ainslie.

"Look what the media already has," Spanier said. He began to read the AP account, which centered on McQueary recalling one of the final conversations he had with the late Joe Paterno.

"Longtime Penn State head coach Joe Paterno said that the university mishandled its response to the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal, a former assistant coach testified Monday," Spanier read.

Spanier then stopped and shook his head over and over, conveying disgust. Here was JoePa, blaming Spanier and company, straight from the grave no less.

Former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary is a witness at the hearing. (AP)The defense had attempted to keep out any statements from Paterno, via McQueary, claiming it would be hearsay. This is just a pretrial hearing – a procedure for the judge to decide whether there is enough for the case to be carried over to an actual trial. That is an almost certainty, hearsay or no hearsay. No one is determining guilt or innocence this week, so the damage is minimal.

Still, this was just what they feared. Paterno, who still holds credibility with many, getting a broad-based shot (minus context or cross-examination) into the perfect sound byte.

"Messed up," Ainslie said.

Maybe she was misquoting McQueary's actual money statement from Paterno. "Old Main screwed it up," McQueary said that Paterno told him – the coach using the term for the school's administrative building to convey his disgust with the administration itself.

Or, maybe she was describing this entire situation in general, three previously elite, successful and law-abiding college administrators all packed into one side of a courtroom trying to fight for their freedom and whatever shred of their reputation remains. You could hardly fit everyone in the traditional defense area, what with three defendants (Spanier plus former vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley) and each man's small army of attorneys, paralegals, assistants and oversized briefcases they all seem to carry.

They needed three whole rows of defense tables. Courtroom No. 1 here is pretty good-sized, but this was pushing it.

The attorney general's office claims this group engaged in a "conspiracy of silence," although there wasn't a lot of evidence presented Monday that speaks to that level of heated rhetoric. The three might not have been very forthcoming and might be guilty of everything, but if they wanted silence, they never seem to have told anyone to actually be quiet about what they knew.

What is undeniable is something went terribly wrong in State College in the winter of 2001, when McQueary's report of walking into a football locker room late on a Friday and finding Sandusky and a boy in the shower engaged in "a sexual situation, a molestation incident" went nowhere.

McQueary told Paterno the next morning. Paterno told Schultz and Curley the day after that. The two men waited, however, seven to 10 days to bother meeting with McQueary (a 15-minute session that, McQueary recalled, featured not a single question). Nobody tried to find the boy. And nobody told the police to start a real investigation.

This despite emails and written notes showing that all three defendants were aware that Sandusky narrowly escaped prosecution for hugging a boy while showering with him in 1998. Sandusky was eventually convicted of that incident, part of 45 counts of sexual assault that in 2012 sent him to a supermax prison in the southwest corner of this state, where he will likely die.

Penn State's chief of police back then, Tom Harmon, was on the stand Monday lamenting that Schultz, his former boss, never mentioned there was "another report of Jerry Sandusky in a shower with a boy."

"I would have said we're going to call the district attorney's office and pursue it as an investigation," Harmon testified. "Because in light of the 1998 incident, that would have been sufficient suspicion that there had been possible child abuse because Sandusky clearly knew that was inappropriate behavior."

Former Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sexual assault. (Getty Images)Instead, Sandusky continued befriending and molesting area children. The question of why – and how – such a failure occurred is the heart of the trial for these administrators. Was it really, as Louis Freeh – hired by Penn State to investigate the scandal – concluded a desire to avoid bad publicity against Joe Paterno's football program?

Or was it something more benign, although, perhaps no less criminal, such as general incompetence, miscommunication, gross cowardice or simply the cover-yourself mentality of large institutions, especially in higher education.

The pretrial hearing, at the very least, begins the next phase of discovery, with the cool, calm and controlled environment of court replacing the over-the-top emotions of the public square.

For the defendants though, the stakes are high: These are old men facing prison sentences where they'd be known as Jerry Sandusky's enablers. And the challenge remains considerable.

There are still all the emails, the notes, the meetings and the lack of action. There was still, as Gary Schultz's long-time administrative assistant Joan Coble described, a shady special file containing info on Sandusky's 1998 investigation that Schultz placed in a locked drawer of a cabinet in his office under strict orders for it to never be opened.

Schultz "mentioned to me he had a new folder for Jerry Sandusky," Coble testified. "He told me not to look in that file. It came out of the blue. His tone was very stern … I just remember thinking, 'I wonder what Jerry has done?' "

No one would see that file, or know what Jerry had done, until it was far, far too late.

Then there is the matter of the three-pronged defense in a scandal where everyone, including those who aren't even charged with any crimes, try to find the best possible spin on this terrible tale.

The Paterno family has spent huge sums trying to clear their father of any wrongdoing. McQueary had been beaten to a pulp and is always cognizant of how each word can be interpreted, although he at least made the point Monday of saying, "I didn't handle this, the quote-unquote perfect way. Are there things I should have done? Absolutely, I'll point the finger at myself before anyone else."

Meanwhile, Harmon wanted everyone to know he was told nothing from these other guys or else Sandusky would've been busted. Other witnesses kept clearly noting what information and meetings and manila folders they weren't privy to.

Longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno died on Jan. 22, 2012. (AP)Right now, all three defendants are claiming they are all innocent. But it might be smarter for one of them to start claiming this guy or that guy (but not me) messed up. It's either that or attempt to prove that no one did anything wrong.

Maybe everyone sticks together when this eventually reaches trial (probably by 2014), but the early fishers were apparent just on the first day of the pretrial.

"They collectively say they are not responsible, then they try distinguish themselves," Tom Kline, a Philadelphia-based lawyer for Sandusky's Victim No. 5 said after watching each man's defense strategy on Monday. "Spanier was apparently too busy to be hooked up in this. And Curley was too low on the totem pole and peripherally involved. But that leaves Schultz as the man in the middle."

If Paterno was alive, he might be the fourth defendant here. Instead it was he, of all people, who delivered the quote that will carry the news cycle.

Standing on the Penn State practice field for the final time in November 2011, just hours before he would be fired, Paterno pulled McQueary aside and offered his take on the scandal. It proved pretty darn accurate.

"He said, 'The university is going to come down hard on you,'" said McQueary, who, indeed, was eventually removed from his position and now has a wrongful termination suit against Penn State. "[He said], 'Don't worry about me. They are going to try to scapegoat you. …Don't trust Old Main…

"He said, 'Old Main screwed it up.' "

Well, somebody, or somebodies, did. Let the search for justice/finger-pointing continue here Tuesday.

[Mike]

"Old Main" needs to be held accountable in some way. The football program had the hammer drop on them but who oversees the athletic department? If they had simply banned Sandusky from their facilities after the incident McQueary witnessed, a LOT of kids would not have been abused. I'd say a few more people need to sit in a small box for a few years and contemplate that.

[entropy]

joe pa could have banned him as well.. or called the cops.

nobody wanted to make the decision.

[lineygoblue]

They got caught trying to "handle things quietly" because Sandusky was their pal. It blew up in their face. They deserve whatever punishment they get.

[Mike]

Agreed re: JoePa but he's not around to testify. I said last year when all this broke that he should die in prison. He's lucky he got cancer.