--Let's start with the first, and thankfully last, game of the Barney Cotton Era in Lincoln. Nebraska had a chance to beat a mildly good USC team, but blew it. It was a fitting snapshot of the flashes of hope followed by befuddling ineptitude that characterized the Mark Bo Pinelli regime:
--Sloppy play, complete with untimely penalties.
--51 pass attempts
--515 yards allowed
--Three yards per rush attempt
--Horrendous play calling, blowing a chance to win on the final series (Translation: Ameer Abdullah didn't get the ball).
All in all, another shoulda, coulda, woulda. NU had the talent and speed to match the Trojans, but couldn't maximize opportunities and lost. Another 9-4 season. Let's move on.--Nice to see Nebraska's new staff recruiting in Dallas, a hotbed of football talent that Pinelli and his band of Keystone Kops somehow ignored. Apparently, the formula of finding players in Texas, Florida and California and then getting them on the field is good enough for good college football teams but not those with coaches obsessed with the Rust Belt. Such a formula also helps programs keep more than five linebackers on their rosters.
--University of Nebraska-Lincoln administration fucked Avery Moss. In a pathetic display, Nebraska's Interim Title IX "Administrator" hid behind excuses and buzzwords (risk) and delayed a decision on the matter and ultimately refused to reinstate him. So....the university somehow screwed up the decision, after having a year to determine Moss's fate, and then finally issued a verdict less than a week before the semester began and left the kid no time to sort through other college options and make a wise decision? Unreal, indeed. The whole situation is baffling and makes PYB ponder yet again if there's a real leadership problem on the Lincoln campus.
And, let's be clear. If UNL decides not to have dong swingers on campus, we'd be fine with that. Make the decision right away. Dragging heels and then playing God with a young person's future is horrifying. Moss was "too risky" to bring back now, after completing his required counseling during his suspension, but wasn't "too risky" 12 months earlier before completing said rehabilitation. Lies. Title IX is a fucking joke and the fact that there is a person with a title that starts with Title IX is a bigger farce.
Anyway, sign this petition. Not because it should be OK for someone to whip out his crank on campus, but because our state institutions should act with expediency and respect if they're truly about the betterment of their people. And those making six-figure salaries need to be held accountable.Surely, it's too little, too late, but UNL should be forced to reinstate Moss and live with any bad public relations ramifications that it brought on with its reckless business practices. Nice job, Arturo, by not allowing him to stick it out in Lincoln, you provided the icing on the cake with one final capper for the long list of indecent
embarrassments during Pinelli's tenure.
--For those of you that have been busy, we'd like to take this opportunity to tell you that the Big 10 is now awesome at football because its teams went 5-5 in bowl games. Teams lost by an average margin of 15 points to Louisiana Tech, Tennessee, USC, Missouri and Stanford.
Wins over a flawed Alabama team, a defenseless Baylor team that went brain dead in the final five minutes, a shaky Auburn squad, a mediocre-as-usual Boston College that missed an extra point in overtime and a North Carolina team that gave up 70 points to East Carolina has the league trending up and on the way to elite status. Just ask any loser who roots for his favorite team's conference during Bowl Season.
--John Harbaugh is delusional if he really believes that Joe Flacco is the NFL's best quaterback. Surely, he realizes that Flacco is in the running with Eli Manning and Trent Dilfer as worst quarterback to win a Super Bowl. And, we all saw what happened last night when Ray Rice, Ray Lewis and Ed Reed weren't there and Flacco was forced to make a game-winning play. Didn't happen and the Ravens blew two 14-point leads. It's also tougher when the NFL isn't rigging games to help Lewis and Reed end their careers on a positive note.
--Kobe Bryant is a nerd, and his fake tough guy act in practice this season proved it -- again. "Soft like Charmin" For real? Anyway, his analysis of the skill differences between European and American players was spot on. This was not an instance of him being a bitter prick.
This was him telling the truth, and the NBA surely hated it. For all his flaws, at least Bryant has a game that is fundamentally sound. His stomach must turn when watching Queen James (did you really think we'd talk about the NBA without taking a shot at Her Highness?) and Carmelo Anthony run the dribble-for-22-seconds-and-chuck-it-up offense. The Cavaliers are currently hovering around .500, as James has found it harder to win without stacking his team with multiple multi-year All Stars. Anthony's Knicks have dropped 15 straight, and he's sitting on the bench nursing a sore knee. Bryant knows its best to force 40 shots a game in the framework of the triple-post offense.
--If you're bored and need to kill time until today's NFL games, PYB would like to present this video as a refresher course showing why Michael Jordan makes all the aforementioned NBA 'stars' look like scrubs. And before we hear the 'different era' and 'today's player is more athletic' claims, let's make sure to note the defenders on this video include Dumars, Rodman, Byron Scott, Drexler, Bird, Starks, Kevin Johnson and David Robinson.
Sunday duties call......gotta run. Thanks for reading.
PYB
