B1G Football Media Days Session 1: Ghost Towns and Filibusters Nebraska Huskers

Day 1 of 2024 B1G Football Media Days kicked off with conference commissioner Tony Petitte, a man whose name I consistently misspell by misplacing the “t’s”, extolling the conference’s football prowess…by talking about Caitlin Clark and Iowa putting 55,000 souls in Kinnick for a women’s basketball game. It was truly the most impressive showing for a womens’ sport since –

Well, to be honest, that happened a month after the Huskers volleyball team drew 92,000 for a pair of games, but coming up just under 35,000 short of the Huskers was impressive nonetheless. (Since Petitti did not make this announcement from his knees with arms held skyward, Iowa fans quickly took to social media to profanely blame Angel Reese for rising egg prices and the impending fall of humanity.)

When things finally turned to football, Petitti fielded questions on several issues facing the conference. I attempted translate and shorten the answers on a few:

• On coming up with the decision to suspend Jim Harbaugh faced with a mountain of evidence Michigan, well, cheated: “Yeah, I had a short time to make a decision, I reviewed everything I could and made one.”
• On the possibility of further B1G expansion (the “we’re focused on the 18 we have” answer): “Not right now. But maybe later?”
• If the scheduled Friday night games are a bad idea for several reasons as to regards that Friday night is high school football night: “Gosh, we just love high school football, but we’re still gonna do it. Dollah bills, y’all.”
• The College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams: “We really want a bunch of B1G teams in there. Like every year. And titles, we want to win those.”
• The NCAA bending over to take a another one in the ol’ prison smuggler in the House antitrust settlement by handing over $2.75 billion in damages and allowing athletic departments to pay out up to $22M annually to athletes: “Boys and girls? It’s scholarships, NIL AND school salaries to athletes now. I get that old people who worked hard/sucked at sports/are just flat-out jealous about everything will lose their minds. But pony up. I know the crazy idea of paying the people everyone’s filling stadiums to see is tough to stomach, but it’s happening.”

I don’t know if it was the event being stretched out to three days or the fact the six schools selected for that day were Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois, Rutgers and Ohio St (finally, a contender), but this was what passed for excitement.

In the afternoon, with the place sparsely populated, the highlight was seeing a tweet of a giant Oregon Duck floatie in the river downtown. They really needed to roll a tumbleweed through there for fun.

FOLLOW ME AROUND FOR A FEW MINUTES!

As things were dying off in the afternoon, it felt like a good time for a quick tour 🙂

FILIBUSTERING ON THE MAIN STAGE

Last year, Northwestern Coach David Braun showed up as the new guy in middle of a huge scandal and Minnesota Coach P.J. Fleck showed up on the sunrise of a small but very, very Peej scandal (Fleck Bucks). The coaches all take a 15-minute turn on the main stage during which it is implied they are to spend the majority of the time fielding questions.

Both Braun & Fleck (along with Jim Harbaugh to a lesser degree for obvious reasons) spent around 12-13 minutes rambling on about their teams and escaped taking only a couple of questions each. (P.J. was asked how he was doing and responded, “Feeling elite!” Ass.)

On Tuesday all coaches, except Rutgers’ Greg Schiano who was ready for questions after barely 3 minutes, took at least a version of that tactic (times are approximate):

Bert! – 12 minutes – not sure why, no scandals, nothing tough coming his way, that was odd
Schiano – per above, 3 minutes
Luke Fickell – 13 minutes – The Fick stretched hard, the very definition of rambling. Possibly wanting to avoid gaffes like 2023 when he basically said Wisconsin fans could shove their running game.
Braun – 8 minutes – Probably realized no one was coming after him for the perversions which pre-dated his hire as DC then HC.
Ryan Walters – 7 minutes – Maybe 7-8 minutes is the normal?
Ryan Day – 13 minutes – “Yeah, we lost to Michigan again but I’m not answering that question over & over.”

There’s no teleprompter (unless in the lectern) we can see, but no one has gone beyond the 13 minute mark. My completely wild guess is the conference puts its foot down & requires a minimum 2 minutes of question taking and either the facilitator to the right or the B1G camera guy flashes a 2-minute warning signal.

Today’s prediction for Matt Rhule? 3 minutes tops. In my experience, the man gives the bare minimum and is ready to rock. He seems to love fielding questions, the tougher the better. I think his transparency is his armor – since he’s as up front as he can be about everything, he doesn’t worry about keeping his stories straight.

And if he can’t talk about it for whatever reason, he’ll tell you that, too.

Other Tuesday tidbits:

• Schiano came off as confident and personable. But he does answer many things with the team motto – FTC. He says it’s a team-only thing and it’s not for t-shirts or apparel. However, he talks about it non-stop and it is on their helmets and jerseys.
• FTC stands for F.A.M.I.L.Y., TRUST, CHOP. Yup, a second level of acronyms – the F stood for something-something-I love you (it got to be a bit much). Trust was obvious. I thought maybe chop referred to that time his D-line went for the knees when the opposition was in the Victory formation, but I guess it’s chop at life’s obstacles or something.
• B1G Head of Referees took questions. He said he wanted the NFL and college to come closer together on their rules which makes sense. He also talked a bit about overturning calls emphasizing it has to be 100% proven the call on the field is wrong. Any sliver of doubt or failure of video to show the error and the call will stand.
• Carollo seems like a thoughtful dude who takes his job very seriously. It’s definitely at odds with the circus B1G officiating can be across multiple sports.
• For the 2nd year in a row, I was stopped attempting to enter the field area with illegal beverages. Last year, it was carrying a Propel in – that’s a non-sponsored product, can’t be showing up on camera. This year it was coffee – their Fieldturf is their baby; soda, coffee, etc, anything but water can damage the rubber pellets.
• In both cases, the security gals were very sweet about it and we ended up chatting for a while. Lucas Oil Stadium get absolute A+ for its staff. Top notch people.
• Speaking of pellets, I heard other media complaining about the pellets getting in their shoes. I’m baffled on that one, it’s not like they leap in the air when you walk around. I think I missed the media flag football game.
• I’m talking about rubber pellets now. Time to end it – more coming later about Day 2. Here’s some pics!

Take a quick tour of the Bowl Trophy Grove!

Nebraska Cornhuskers

Purdue Boilermakers

Northwestern Wildcats

Illinois Fighting Illini

Ohio State Buckeyes

Wisconsin Badgers