Nebraska Cornhuskers (corn)

[BB73]

Tomorrow is the official entrance for Nebraska entering the B1G.

As part of their initiation, not only do they get a tough conference schedule, their fans also get to go through the hassles of having their cable companies negotiate with the BTN. :tongue2:

SI.com

Nebraska's Big Ten move brings anticipation, but also challenges

As an offensive assistant for Nebraska in the mid-1960s, back when scouting opponents in person was still allowed, Tom Osborne sat in the stands for a game at Wisconsin's Camp Randall Stadium. "I remember thinking, 'This is a lot like Nebraska,'" said the Huskers' legendary coach and current athletic director. "The passion for college football, the pageantry, certainly shared something in common with the fans in our state."

Nebraska and Wisconsin are about to share a more tangible bond. More than a year after the frenzied drama of conference realignment, five prominent relocations -- Nebraska to the Big Ten, Colorado and Utah to the Pac-12, Boise State to the Mountain West and BYU to independent status -- become official July 1. While the date may seem anticlimactic to some, the process of changing conferences was not as simple as altering logos and printing new stationary.

"It will be kind of a watershed day, because one thing I'll be grateful for is we'll no longer have one foot in two conferences," said Osborne. "The past year has been a bit awkward because we've been competing in the Big 12 but not involved in Big 12 affairs -- other than to pay an exit fee. At the same time, we've been trying to integrate with the Big Ten, we've attended a lot of meetings, and yet we're not a voting member. So to get past the transition stage will be important."

The most pressing challenge of Nebraska's transition involved the 2011 schedule. Teams generally know most of their future opponents years in advance and can plan accordingly, but Nebraska didn't find out until last September that it would be making trips this season to Wisconsin (Oct. 1), Minnesota (Oct. 22), Penn State (Nov. 12) and Michigan (Nov. 19).
...

Big Ten policies and geography presented other challenges. Nebraska's new conference limits the team's traveling roster for the Sept. 24 nonconference game at Wyoming to 70 players (the Big 12 only dictated league contests) as well as the number of people the team can put up at a hotel the night before home games (also 70). And whereas in the past the Huskers could count on at least one bus trip per season in the Big 12 (to Kansas, K-State or Iowa State), all Big Ten road games will require a flight. The program figures to spend an extra $200,000 per season on travel.

Changing conferences has been expensive in general for Nebraska. As part of a settlement last September, the school relinquished $9.25 million in 2010 and '11 Big 12 revenue as an exit fee. And while it's joining a league with more lucrative television contracts (Big Ten teams net $20-$25 million annually), Nebraska will not receive the same share as the other schools until those deals can be renegotiated.

"We're not fully vested at this point, and we won't be for a few years," said Osborne. "We will not receive any huge economic windfall initially."

Television has also become the source of another headache. Just like its Big Ten counterparts experienced three to four years ago, Nebraska and its fans are getting caught in the middle of an ongoing standoff between the Big Ten Network and Time Warner Cable (the primary cable provider in Lincoln), with the looming threat that local fans won't be able to see the Huskers' first two games against Chattanooga and Fresno State as well as one league contest. Previously the school would have aired the first two games as local pay-per-view broadcasts, but like all Big Ten schools Nebraska had to surrender those rights to the conference.

"We were probably as far along as Texas at one point in terms of starting our own network," said Osborne. "We were planning to start it this summer. We obviously had to cancel that plan."

In a hardball negotiating tactic, the conference has yet to hand over the rights for Nebraska home games to the Big Ten Network, saying it won't do so until Time Warner Cable agrees to give the channel "comparable" distribution to systems in other Big Ten states. (It's currently offered on a premium digital tier.) Time Warner Cable contends it's entitled to those games, with a spokesman telling the Lincoln Journal Star: "We are 100 percent in compliance with our Big Ten agreement, which expires in 2014."
Fans who do receive the BTN will be treated to three days of "Big Ten Welcomes Nebraska" programming this weekend.

It's been widely written that Osborne resented Texas and the power it had wielded since joining what was formerly the Big 8 back in the mid-'90s. Ever the diplomat, the former Congressman offers no such gripes publicly, other than to lament that state's more advantageous climate. "In sports like baseball, golf and track, you were competing against warm-weather schools where they could practice year-round and recruiting was a little easier," Osborne said. "We're on a more level playing field now."

Ultimately, the move will be bittersweet for Osborne and the rest of Husker Nation.

"There will be some mixed emotions; we have a long history with schools like Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Iowa State," said Osborne, who coached 25 games against each of those teams. "It's sad to be leaving them, but on the other hand our fans, coaches and athletes are all looking forward to being in the Big Ten. This is not to disparage anyone in the Big 12 -- we had a great amount of respect for all of those schools -- but in terms of how we view academics and athletics, we're probably a little more like-minded across the board with those in the Big Ten than the Big 12."

​

Cont'd ...

 

[Dryden]

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/blog?name=mcgee_ncf_ryan&id=6721978

Expectations too high for Huskers?

Welcome back to Three Downs and Punt, this week brought to you from the second floor lounge of the Omaha Hilton. As I type I am looking out over sparkling TD Ameritrade Park as the grandstands are being power washed and the parking lot vendors are taking down their merchandise tents after the College World Series.

As I left the ballpark late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, a rather inebriated man dressed head-to-toe in Nebraska Cornhuskers gear selected me at random, pointed, and shouted, "The College World Series is over! Bring on the Big Ten!"

As he stumbled up 13th Street I thanked him for the segue.

First Down: Red Storm Rising

Friday, July 1, does indeed signify Nebraska's official arrival into the Big Ten. And while it has long been standard operating procedure for the citizens of Omaha to use the College World Series week as the start of their official countdown to football season, there is a genuine difference in excitement level this year.

Put it this way: On Tuesday afternoon I worked Radio Row, hitting no less than four sports talk radio stations that call Husker Nation home. On the day of the deciding game of college baseball's national championship, the first question from three of the four hosts was about what impact I thought quarterback Russell Wilson's move to Wisconsin would have on the Big Ten title chase.

The fourth station managed to hold off on the topic until its third question.


"The new conference is all anyone wants to talk about," Omaha World-Herald sportswriter Lee Barfknecht told me as we chatted in the TD Ameritrade press box on Monday night.

Cont'd ...

 

[Dryden]

Is the Husker's beat writer at OWH really named Barfknecht?

barf-necked?

 

[Gatorubet]

barf-necked?

Why do you think they all wear black shirts?

 

[knapplc]

Is the Husker's beat writer at OWH really named Barfknecht?

barf-necked?

No. Barf is a relic of a by-gone era. Frankly I think he's kept alive by feeding off the souls of all the Husker players he's thrown under the bus over the years. I have nothing good to say about Barf. He has covered the football team in years past, but not anymore. He's just a sideshow freak anymore.

Think of the hatchet jobs you guys have dealt with from the Ohio press over the past year-ish. That's what we've dealt with from the Omaha World-Herald's sports bureau for the past 20 or so. They, for some reason, think there's some kind of competition between the Huskers and the Creighton Bluejays, whom you probably recognize from a few NCAA tourney runs over the years.

Barf, I believe, was the OWH's AP voter in 1997. He voted for Michigan, if that tells you anything about his loyalties.

The World-Herald has taken a lot of grief at HuskerBoard over the past couple of years, all of it well-deserved in my opinion. The fact that I lead the anti-OWH bandwagon over there is not a coincidence.

In my opinion, our criticism of their reporting helped lead them to hire Sam McKewon, probably the best sports writer in Nebraska, and very well-respected in the forum community. Sam has worked to remake the image of the OWH through the past several weeks. But there's still a lot of wounds to heal.

I will not link to an OWH article if I can help it. I won't give them the clicks. Screw them for their hatchet jobs over the years.

 

[knapplc]

Yeah, it's like you dragged Spurrier down the stairs by his hair.

Do you want to play "compare the rap sheets?" I think I have a box full of Florida ammo from the Spurrier era, chock full of assaults on women, dozens of arrests, weapons charges and the like.

Do we want to throw all that [Mark May] down on each other, or can we let the ghosts of Lawrence Phillips' career at Nebraska die?

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

Do you want to play "compare the rap sheets?" I think I have a box full of Florida ammo from the Spurrier era, chock full of assaults on women, dozens of arrests, weapons charges and the like.

Do we want to throw all that [Mark May] down on each other, or can we let the ghosts of Lawrence Phillips' career at Nebraska die?

Let it die? No. Run it over with our car? Absolutely!

 

[Gatorubet]

Do you want to play "compare the rap sheets?" I think I have a box full of Florida ammo from the Spurrier era, chock full of assaults on women, dozens of arrests, weapons charges and the like.

Do we want to throw all that [Mark May] down on each other, or can we let the ghosts of Lawrence Phillips' career at Nebraska die?

How so you get in trouble in Nebraska? If you file a gun the odds of hitting anything but a dirt mound, a rusting tractor or a prairie dog are a billion to one. Rape is out of the question, as since the invention of barn door locks, the whole state is damn near celibate. Now, if [censored] poor passing offenses were criminalized, then you might have some ex-cons running around the state. As it is, you are claiming that under Spurrier the Gators were out of control and dirty. Bring it Corn Boy. When Dougie Johnson went out for a few beers days before the LSU game in 97, SOS sat him the next game, and away game against a then 5-0 Auburn - where a loss would have ended not only the national but SEC campaign the sixth week of the season. Show me how your disciplinarian coach did anything nearing that behavior.

Oh. And just because we are talking [Mark May] does not mean I don't like you or I'm not glad to see the Huskers over here.

 

[Dryden]

:popcorn:

 

[AKAK]

How so you get in trouble in Nebraska? I'd have to turn gay and down a bottle of GHB to have ANY fun in Lincoln

fify

 

[SidehatchHusker]

How so you get in trouble in Nebraska? If you file a gun the odds of hitting anything but a dirt mound, a rusting tractor or a prairie dog are a billion to one.

 

[FCollinsBuckeye]

I loves me some gator wrasslin'

:p

 

[knapplc]

It's officially official. :)

 

[muffler dragon]

Welcome Aboard 'Huskers!

The blood feud between me and my in-laws just got "magical"!

 

[Saw31]

Looks like starting at noon, the BTN goes wall to wall Huskers. Welcome aboard.