Live from BugahaWest: A day late but still will be great

Good morning fellow fans of the Husker Red,

Talk about your interesting happenings since the last time I was able to enjoy time with all of you.  Eichorst is out, Nebraska beats Rutgers, and the world does not end Saturday.  Before I get started, I know some might ask, what happened?  I waited all day yesterday for some bit of fun talk from you and you didn’t show up.  Well, what happened is this weekend, my lovely wife celebrated her 29h birthday (again) so in between a birthday breakfast and dinner Sunday I was busy trying my hand at building a Christmas ladder.  Around my neck of the woods, nobody was selling a old wooden ladder, so after buying about $35 of lumber, 2 and half hours of work, I have a 3 step decorative ladder and still 10 fingers and 10 toes.  So that was Sunday.  Monday comes around and I wake up, fire up the ole computer and it wants to update.  I let it do it’s thing and around 2 PM I decide to take a nap so after I wake up and get the kid from school, I can blog the afternoon.  That was the plan.  That’s not how it worked out.  I did go lay down at 2.  I did set the alarm for 3:15.  My lovely wife woke up with the alarm and shut it off.  What did I do?  Well, that 1 hour and 15 minute nap turned into a 8 hour nap.  Somewhere way up above a Big Guy was looking down at me and saying, “Young man, you may be a man, you may be 40, but you need your rest.”   And so I got it and that brings us to today, me blogging with you with not really anything I want to discuss in long form, so I think I want to take a couple of items and give my gut reaction.

First, the Rutgers game.  A win is a win is a win.  You know with the turmoil heading into the game you just have to wonder how the team would respond.  I know many people out there are thinking with Eichorst gone, come Christmas we will be unwrapping a new college football head coach.  I know this isn’t the NFL and I don’t want to dive too deep into yet, but with a change at the top like that a coach and players can’t help but think when is there going to be a change in coaches.  So the team comes out and plays well enough to win.  Granted Tanner had another pick 6 joining Blake Bortles as a QB with more pick 6’s than wins at his current stop.  I know the coaches want to save Gebbia’s redshirt and I am fine with that, but what about POB?  If I remember right in spring ball, the coaches were saying they were a close 1 and 2.  What changed between then and now?  We all know one thing for sure, POB can run so that has to be one of his advantages.  Right now just seeing it from afar, Lee is either locked in on his primary targets or like the bubble screen INT against NI, the defense knew what was coming and jumped the pattern.  I am just saying I think some of the coaches bit on the Tanner to the NFL hype and just want to see him succeed 1 year and move on.  Just something to watch as the year goes on.

Now for the big story, who replaces Eichorst.  I honestly don’t know on this one.  I have seen some names, but this is a deal where a name is one thing, being the right fit is another.  I don’t know if the Nebraska Athletic Dept as whole is a destination school.  The king program, football is down and has been down for years, volleyball has replaced basketball as a #2, and I think baseball is on the way back up.  In that last sentence, I pointed out the big problem, the revenue programs are down and those are basketball and football.  Second, I don’t think Mike Riley is or should be a lame duck coach.  First off, do you really bring in a new AD and his first task be replace the head football coach?  That shouldn’t have to be the opening move, talk about piling on the pressure.  Also, look at the buy out situations.  Eichorst will get nearly $2 million for doing nothing.  On top of that pay Riley for 2 years of buyout and another coach to coach.  That doesn’t make financial sense.  If it were me and this is just me ok, find the interim AD and let him or her prove their worth between now and June 31st (the end of the fiscal year).  If they seem to work out, keep them, if not, hopefully you have the full time guy ready to roll.  As for Riley, give him the rest of this year and next year.  We all know next year will be the gauntlet, no sense of burning a new head coach with that schedule.  After next year, if the year goes as most of us realistically think it will go, you start over.  In reality, you lost the battle, but not the war.  You moved the new AD’s first big move from Dec. 2017 to Dec. 2018 which is ok.

I’ll be honest, I am still working on something in my mind and am not ready to commit it to writing.  It’s a deal I really am trying to save for the bye week, because I think it might be something that will be a good discussion piece for us all.  If it works out, I’ll probably work on it and post it the Monday prior to the bye week.   Well, until next time, enjoy the game Friday.  God bless and Go Big Red.