Norm Peterson

It wasn't just us complaining about the Big Ten officiating this year. Other fans did too. And I often wondered if poor officiating in the Big Ten might affect the conference's recruiting. At the very least, I could see it having an impact on player retention and people entering the portal. The gripe wasn't about losing games and blaming the ref. The gripe was about having a level playing field and feeling like you got a fair shake. If you have a rule, but the rule isn't enforced evenly or equally, then you don't really have a rule at all. And if you only apply that rule against me and not against others, then I'm going to feel like the system is unfair. I grant that some of the most contentious areas are judgment calls that can often go either way. But the problem is when the calls always seem to favor the blue team over the red team. If the same action is a block whenever I'm on defense and a charge whenever I'm on offense, I'm going to lose faith in the officiating. And I have lost faith in the officiating. The officiating is bullshit, and I don't feel like they're even trying to make it look like they're being even-handed anymore. That's all. That's it. Thanks for letting me vent.

Look at the poster on the wall in the background.

I don’t mean to imply that he would not be a good fit with our team culture. I do mean to suggest that culture and fit should be priorities. And given his limited production at Iowa State, I wouldn’t just jump on the “he’s a former five star; therefore, he must be really good” bandwagon. I would expect the staff to do their due diligence in trying to assess what was going on with him that he didn’t succeed in Iowa State and isn’t sticking around.

Culture. Fit.

Les Mis, Wicked, Greatest Showman, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair could/should all be up there somewhere.

I am so in favor of giving everyone a 5th year. I might have mentioned that.

On3 is showing Fidler 100% to Nebraska. Anyone know anything?

Five of our top 8. The only rotation player to portal was a non-starter. We honestly wouldn't have to do a ton in the portal to improve our standing. At this point, Brice probably slides back to his 3 spot, Gary to the 4, Jamarques re-enters the starting rotation at the 2, and Ulis probably starts at point. Land that trio of Bellevue West guys, though, and I would feel pretty good about things, provided we keep those other five guys.

No, we've all reached rock bottom.

I'm hearing of another departure. Not from the rotation guys.

OUT: Keisei Allick Boogie Ramel* Eli* Blaise* CJ* IN: Janowski Frager I'm sure we've reached out to more than what's quoted above, but that's all I saw with a twitter search of "Nebraska portal." Ideally, I'd like to see us bring in freshmen and develop them over the course of their careers. In the era of NIL deals and the transfer portal, that appears to be an aspirational goal that isn't very realistic. So, the second choice would be to grab a kid who's got at least 2 years of eligibility left and has demonstrated some development already. Problem with that is that competition for those guys is pretty stiff. Transfers with one year seem plentiful but our success rate with them hasn't been great. And, finally, Jucos are still a possibility but they've also been more miss than hit for us. We've got a lot of spots to fill, though, so I'm sure the coaches are getting after it. * = portal departure

Looking back, this question almost seems comical. Like update the thread to say "if we only had five spots to fill ..."

A week ago, we had one more spot open. One more senior exhausting eligibility than signed recruits. Now, we have five more spots to fill. As long as we keep Mast, Gary, Williams, Lawrence and Sam H., I think we'll have a pretty solid nucleus that we can build around. So far, nothing has been like a gut punch losing a guy I really hoped we would keep. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

If being bashed for opposing the happening of a hypothetical event that is never going to happen isn't what message boards are for, then I don't know what is.

Yeah, um ...