My dear and lovely mother passed on a quality that's helped me since mid-March.
She could put a positive spin on virtually anything.
I cracked an icicle over a kid's head in grade school, and my mom was pleased I didn't use the pointed edge.
So here's a positive spin on this godawful pandemic: It tends to reveal and/or clarify people's ideologies and how they approach life. It perhaps strengthened your bonds with like-minded people, and loosened bonds with people whose ideologies were significantly different than yours.
Nebraska football coach Scott Frost's ideologies and general approach appear to be different than Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren's. We'll get to that in a second.Â
Along those lines, Nebraska is on a long arc of trying to assimilate into the Big Ten and its culture. It's still relatively early in the process. The Huskers officially joined the conference in June of 2010. Several other schools have been part of the league for more than 100 years. In that regard, a degree of patience makes sense if you're an NU fan suddenly sizing up the situation with a tad more energy.
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Bottom line, assimilation can take time. It also can be a rocky road. Doesn't Nebraska know it. In fact, this particular moment — after dear ol' NU got its hand slapped and sent to its bedroom without dinner by Warren — might be a good time to pause and reflect on a question:
Is the Big Ten really the right spot for Nebraska?
There's nothing wrong with asking the question. It's a healthy exercise. To be clear: In asking the question, it's not as if I'm suggesting that Nebraska has its eyes set on leaving the league. Nobody's saying NU has designs on a return to the Big 12, as has been speculated. But I'm not completely closing the door on the story. In fact, there has been enough discussion that UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green and NU President Ted Carter felt the need to issue a joint statement Thursday saying the university is "a fully committed member of the Big Ten Conference. It is an unparalleled athletic and academic alliance."Â
The Big Ten media rights deal has provided league institutions with more money ($54 million per school in 2019) than they've known what to do with.
The Big Ten gives Nebraska more academic prestige than the Big 12 ever could. Meanwhile, Big 12 schools received $38.8 million apiece from their most recent conference media rights deal. Edge, Big Ten. Big edge. But you wonder how much network money will be available in a few years, when the pandemic dust has cleared.
We should also remember the Big Ten in the summer of 2010 provided Nebraska a comfortable home in an old-money neighborhood when NU's previous home in the Big 12 was in the midst of turmoil. What's more, NU wasn't exactly enamored with Texas' enormous influence, if I remember right.Â
So, do the math: Financial stability (read: riches), overall stability and serious academic prestige. Those may be reasons enough for Nebraska to keep working diligently on its marriage to the Big Ten. Give it time. Granted, it doesn't seem like the best fit right now, but a lot of that has to do with NU's lack of success on the playing field (and basketball court).
Of course, there's another issue for a marriage counselor to ponder, one that cropped up just this week. Frost wanted badly to play football this season. Nebraska's leaders, right to Gov. Pete Ricketts, wanted it to happen. The players wanted it — practically all of them, Frost said.Â
Meanwhile, I can't help but wonder if Warren himself ever gave serious consideration to the Big Ten moving forward with a fall season. I mean, one day he was helping unveil a 2020 fall football schedule on BTN. About 48 hours later, the Big Ten told league teams to hold off on donning full pads in practice. Frost never did hear from the league office regarding that decision.Â
Six days after the Big Ten's big schedule reveal, Warren pulled the plug on the season. Although it was a painstaking decision, he said, it wasn't difficult. Huh? It wasn't difficult? I'm sure Big Ten student-athletes and fans appreciated his high level of empathy.Â
Warren strikes me as a tone-deaf bureaucrat — not a substantive leader.Â
"This has taken five months (of intense meetings) and then it all came to an end fairly quickly," NU athletic director Bill Moos said during "Husker Sports Nightly" on Thursday. "And that certainly is frustrating."
Sometimes there are tipping points in relationships, and this week felt like one as far as Nebraska and the Big Ten are concerned.Â
Let's be real, Frost's let's-play-ball attitude jibes better with the Big 12.
This is where we should acknowledge that Nebraska also is a better fit in the Big 12 geographically, culturally, politically and historically.Â
What's more, Frost's style of football frankly fits better in the Big 12. Come to think of it, so does Fred Hoiberg's space-and-pace style of basketball. The Big Ten is about getting touches in the paint and managing the shot clock.Â
This is where we should go back to what I said about Nebraska being patient with the Big Ten. This might be a good time to think about what this marriage could become. Think about 10 years down the road. What if Nebraska is regularly competing for Big Ten football championships, and maybe winning titles two out of every five years or so? On the academic front, the Big Ten means instant credibility. When it joined the Big Ten, NU was admitted into the Big Ten Plus Engineering Consortium, which has been called “the single-best collection of colleges of engineering in the world.â€
One fail-safe way to assess the academic benefits is to look at competitive federal grant dollars. OK, that's research for another day.Â
For now, we ponder a long fall and winter without football. Maybe it's a good time to reflect, and perhaps a good time for Nebraska to figure out how to improve its marriage with the Big Ten. Is there even an option?Â
Here's a positive spin: We'll have ample time to look into it.Â