Big Ten Conference Media Days kick off this week on Thursday. Fall Camp opens next week. We officially made it. We start your Monday off with the Weekly Rundown column.
Sure bets
You have to feel pretty good about these things right now:
Trev Alberts: You can say what you want about Trev Alberts’s early decisions at UNO to eliminate football and wrestling, but in all reality, his hire almost makes too much sense. For the last 12 years, he has been grooming himself and preparing himself for an opportunity like this. Nebraska now has an AD with a chance to be here for the next 15 to 20 years.
Big Ten Media Days: For the first time since the end of the 2019 football season, we will have in-person media this week in Indianapolis. If there’s one sure bet, we’ll probably get several good news items this week out of Lucas Oil Stadium. I’m guessing we’ll also get “NIL fatigue” as well, with all the questions being asked about it.
Sam Foltz’s legacy: I spent the day in Greeley on Friday with around 20 former Huskers and over 250 others honoring the life of former Husker punter Sam Foltz. This week marks the five-year anniversary of his tragic death. If one thing is certain, Foltz’s legacy has only gotten stronger.
Nebraska baseball’s future: Rob Childress joined Will Bolt’s staff and pitchers Drew Christo, CJ Hood and Chase Mason all chose to come to Lincoln vs. trying their hand in the MLB Draft. NU has some big shoes to replace in 2022, but Bolt has signed the best recruiting class in the Big Ten by far and added a College World Series SEC head coach to his staff.
Surprises
These were my surprises of the week:
No Adrian Martinez at Big Ten Media Days: I know Nebraska starting quarterback Adrian Martinez already had a scheduled trip this week, well before we even knew Big Ten Media Days would happen, but it’s still a surprise not to see NU’s most high-profile player in Indy.
NIL’s somewhat slow start at NU: We’ve seen some smaller NIL level deals thus far with Nebraska’s football players, but nothing that has grabbed national headlines. I’m sure something like that is coming, but it’s still a surprise we haven’t seen an NIL deal where it gets people on the outside’s attention.
Keeping the Alberts news such a secret: You have to give Chancellor Ronnie Green a lot of credit. They kept the Alberts news this past week locked up pretty tight. It’s my understanding Alberts was out of town for over a week on a vacation, and things didn’t get going until he got back into town. In today’s “we know everything world,” it’s rare to see a hire like this kept so secret all the way up until the final moments.
The jury is still out
Questions still surround these things:
The sellout streak: We have officially hit crunch time. Will Nebraska’s historic sellout streak make it through 2021?
NU has gone to selling three-game mini packs of tickets for $195, that alone should tell you how tight this is going to be. I did a simple search for Fordham tickets on Huskers.com and the best available seats that came up were in row 95. Memorial Stadium is 98 rows. So if they are truly only trying to sell the top few rows, maybe things are closer than we think.
Ticket turnover in other major NU sports: Football tickets are one thing, but what will men’s basketball renewals look like? For a season ticket invoice with three 100-level seats and two 200 level seats the price went from $1,683 in 2019 to $2,079 in 2021. That’s the biggest jump we’ve seen on an NU season ticket package year-over-year.
I will say it always felt that PBA tickets were very underpriced. NU had more of an approach to fill the place vs. overpricing 200 and 300 level seats. Will that 23.5% increase, along with the year layoff, affect renewal numbers? We’ll know the answer on Aug. 1.
Big Ten COVID stance for 2021: What will the Big Ten’s COVID-19 stance be in 2021? Will there be mandatory testing before games? These are things we don’t know the answer to yet.
What will the protocols be in-season if a player tests positive? Will the 21-day rule still be in effect? The better question is, what if a fully-vaccinated player tests positive and has no symptoms? What is the protocol there?
This has my attention
Moving forward, this has my attention:
Kevin Warren’s address on Thursday: We will finally hear Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren field live questions in a room from reporters on Thursday.
Will Warren keep his opening remarks longer to limit the overall questions? Or will Warren go shorter on opening remarks in order to field more questions? His address will be the most interesting part of Media Days. Warren is on stage from 9:30 to 10 a.m. CST. Scott Frost will be on stage at 10:30 a.m. and on the side podium at 12:15 p.m. Frost is scheduled to field questions for 75 minutes on Thursday.
Nebraska’s message/approach at Media Days: How will Nebraska be treated at Big Ten Media Days? How much will Frost have to address what happened a year ago with NU’s open stance to play football? What about things like the Oklahoma game and trying to get out of it?
There are going to be some tough questions thrown at NU on Thursday. How will they handle them? My guess is Nebraska will have a very toned-down approach in Indianapolis this year.
Alberts at Big Ten Media Days: Alberts going to Media Days will be as big of a story as anything for Nebraska. It will be the first time he publicly represents NU at a conference event.
One thing is certain, both Green and Alberts have made it very clear they are happy in the Big Ten and want this to be a long-standing relationship for NU.
Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET’s Big Red Wrap-Tuesday’s at 7 pm.
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