Another part of Husker history departs

The final remaining cog in the Devaney-Osborne football machine now is departing Lincoln. Boyd Epley is leaving the University of Nebraska after 37 years to move to Colorado Springs in a new job with the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Although Epley was removed from his strength and conditioning position when Steve Pederson arrived as the new AD a few years ago, Boyd will be well remembered for his pioneering efforts.

For years colleges came to Lincoln to understand what Epley was doing. He basically invented the modern use of strength and conditioning as a key element in building a powerhouse football team. He took average athletes and remade them into supermen. Schools around the country tried to copy his systems. Several of his assistants went on to run their own strength and conditioning programs. No one will ever be able to calculate just how important his efforts were to the stellar record the Huskers achieved on the football field. Those tremendous second half/fourth quarter victories all owe a tremendous debt to the superb conditioning of the team.

In the later years of his career, other schools learned how to develop their own strength and conditioning programs and Nebraska's superior edge eventually became less of a factor. Husker fans even started criticizing Epley for relying too much on the specialized machines he invented and blamed him for a rash of pubalgia injuries suffered by the football team. The departure of Bill Byrne and the falling fortunes of the football team led to Epley's replacement by current strength and conditioning guru Dave Kennedy. Epley was "kicked upstairs" to manage the new athletic construction projects. Now as the biggest construction project winds down, there just isn't much more left for Epley to do in Lincoln.

No matter how it ended, no one can take away the glory years that brought good fortune to the Nebraska football team and national fame to Boyd Epley. Epley will always be a Husker legend.

Go Big Red,

RedCap

Who's lurking on that message board?

Internet message boards have become popular destinations for rabid college football fans. Visiting and posting on these websites can be addictive for fans who just cannot get enough of their favorite team. (And yes I plead guilty to being one of them.) Information flows very freely on the boards. Some of the posts are pure garbage - a waste of time. At the other end, some of the posts contain very valuable tidbits or insights from insiders that you would never find any place else. And of course, the real "honey" that gets the subscribers to pay for access to these message boards is the most current recruiting information there is any place. A fan can keep up on the latest situation for that stellar recruit and follow how his thinking changes as he visits each school.

One thing many of the posters don't often think about is just who might be lurking on the board as a paid subscriber. It could be just about anybody. It could be coaches from the team trying to get additional insights into what recruits are thinking. It could be athletic department officials trying to monitor what is said about the program and posing as posters to rebut any negative statements. It could be players trying to see what is said about them (and sometimes that can get pretty nasty). It could be potential recruits and their parents trying to assess what the fans are really like and if that's a place they want to spend 4 or 5 years. It could be media writers looking for hot story leads. A particularly interesting post might result in a player or recruit being besieged by media writers wanting interviews. So the point is, it could be just about anybody lurking on the board and what is posted on the board does matter a whole lot more than most posters would think.

In the most extreme situation, you can assume that "spies" for competing schools are monitoring the board as well. They can read all the posts and summarize anything that might be useful to an opposing coaching staff. That could be insights into what is really important to a potential recruit, how they reacted to a recruiting visit or what they're really saying/thinking to others. And that kind of recruiting information could be as good as "gold" to an opposing coach. Of course, they do have to sort through what is fact and what is fiction. During the season, people with connections to the program often post or shed light on the seriousness of injuries to players. That too can provide good input for an opponent's gameplan. Finally, there's the digging for "dirt". Those spies can summarize the negative stuff posted and use it against the school when competing for recruits. Nebraska, for example, often has been the victim of some negative recruiting when opposing schools tell the recruits that the coach is about to be fired or that the fans are making abusive or derogatory statements about some of the current players. A quote from some poster on the board can add a lot of color and apparent authenticity to these negative recruiting tactics.

There really is no control over the message boards. The subscribers can only be screened by whether they've got a credit card and are willing to pay the $X bucks per month fee. They could be fans of any school. There also is nothing to prevent a poster from posting inappropriate information from a private conversation with a player or the relative of a player. If that player made a nasty comment about his coach in confidence, the story very well may wind up on a message board. Some posts do get deleted if they are viewed as particularly detrimental to the program but for the most part it's really like the "wild old west" where almost anything can and does get posted at times.

You can't censor this stuff any more than you could control what fans were saying in bars 20 years ago. The only difference is that the Internet message boards operate a lot faster and there are thousands of people around the world listening into some of those discussions that used to be confined to a few buddies at the bar over a round of drinks. Schools, coaches, players and parents just have to get used to this new "fishbowl" like environment that now exists.

Go Big Red,

RedCap

The Date Rape Drug

Frank Solich was in the news again last week. Solich was granted a hearing by a judge to determine whether he could withdraw his no contest plea to DUI based on new available information. Solich's lawyer claims that testing by a drug lab now has indicated Solich had the date rape drug in his system and therefore was not responsible for his actions. Sophisticated analysis of a sample of Solich's hair identified the drug and placed the time it was in his system as the same time Solich was arrested last November. Now, of course, people can still debate how the drug got into Solich's system and whether he is innocent or guilty. Since most of us weren't present, that is best left up to the legal system where witnesses can testify under oath.

The news report, however, does provide an opportunity to create better awareness for the dangers of the date rape drug (GHB). The fact is that giving anybody the date rape drug is a serious crime.

Any one of us could become victimized by the date rape drug - young or old, male or female. It only takes a second for anyone to slip it into a drink. If someone gives you a drink or you go to the bathroom and leave your drink unattended, it can happen in an instant and you won't know what hit you. It could be the first drink or it could be the last drink you have. Anything you do after 5 - 20 minutes of that drink is out of your control. People don't seem to understand that loss of mental control. It's NOT just like being intoxicated where you usually retain some mental competence. And the combination of the date rape drug with alcohol makes the effects even worse.

There are too many people out there who don't seem to understand the danger, don't want to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation or, in the worst cases, even make jokes. The date rape drug can result in death from medical complications or from induced dangerous behavior that the individual cannot control while under the influence (e.g., driving a vehicle). The effects of the drug take place quickly, sometimes as soon as in five minutes - usually within about twenty minutes.

People who would give someone else the date rape drug are potential murderers. It's NOT just a prank. They are no different than someone who would point a gun with a bullet in it's chamber at someone else and pull the trigger Russian Roulette style. Just recently the news had a story about three teenage boys who were convicted in a case where they gave the date rate drug to teenage girls and one of the girls died from the medical reaction to it.

Giving anybody the date rape drug is a potential murder in the making.

Anyone at risk, anyone who drinks in public and anyone who has teenage children should become familiar with the Date Rape Drug risk and take precautions to avoid becoming a victim.

Click here for the news report on the Frank Solich situation.

Go Big Red,

RedCap

Colorado Sports bankrupt due to lack of fan interest

Well, that isn't quite the way the headline reads in the Daily Camera out of Boulder, Colorado but for all practical purposes that is what has happened to the University of Colorado.

The Colorado athletic department has had to request an $8 million loan from the University to cover budget expenses. The University also agreed to forgive some existing debts owed by the athletic department. In the business world, that would be considered bankruptcy. The Buffs are being squeezed on both the revenue and cost sides of the equation.

On the revenue side, the Colorado football team is not selling enough tickets. At most Division 1 schools, the football program is the moneymaker that pays for much of the rest of the athletic department sports. It's kind of surprising that Colorado has such trouble getting fans to come to the football games but that attendance problem is not new. It just has gotten a little bit worse. In addition to poor ticket sales, the previous Athletic Director over estimated the results from fund raising campaigns. Of course with poor ticket sales it can hardly be expected that fans would be contributing much in the way of donations.

On the cost side, there are the big buy-out costs for firing former football coach Gary Barnett and the hiring costs for new coach Hawkins. Then too there are legal costs to be paid from the various lawsuits spawned by the controversy that erupted under Gary Barnett. Cleaning up the mess doesn't come cheaply.

The Colorado athletic department can expect some more serious cost cutting unless the fans suddenly come back and start buying tickets and donations - an unlikely scenario at this point unless the new football coach has a stellar inaugural season. Otherwise there will be cost cutting pain felt across the board like the recent elimination of the Tennis team. The university administration will not continue to bail out the athletic department.

The Colorado situation just emphasizes the fragile nature of athletic department budgets and how important fan support and donations are in this time of ever rising costs. Nebraska has had its own recent decline in donations which has put a damper on any new construction projects after the latest stadium expansion is completed. Thankfully, though, ticket sale continue to be strong and there is no pending "bankruptcy". All the new seats in the stadium expansion were easily sold very quickly and there still is a rather long waiting list for any other season tickets that might become available.

Click here to read the article in the Daily Camera (note: a free registration is required to view the article).

Go Big Red,

RedCap

Recruiting is a tougher task in Lincoln

We now have some new information to analyze about Nebraska recruiting from the last couple of years.

For years we used to blame the option offense for not being able to recruit nationally recognized high school players because we thought they all wanted to be prepared for a pro career - linemen, tight ends, receivers, quarterbacks. Now we've got a pro offense run by a head coach with a long list of NFL credentials and the recruiting results for high school players still are coming in very disappointing. You couldn't have a much better NFL set up if that's the only thing these high school stars were looking for. The recruiting difficulties can no longer be blamed on the type of offense we run.

We also know the difficulties are not caused by lack of effort on the part of the staff. Very few staffs have worked as hard across the nation for such modest results. They probably are having to work four times as hard on recruiting as staffs at Texas, USC or Notre Dame have to work. In retrospect, the real shocker is that the old staff could have actually done as well as it did with less recruiting efforts (i.e., a large part of that old staff was pretty ineffective on the recruiting trail).

So two popular old myths about recruiting are now being put to rest. Unfortunately that leaves us with location, location, location - something that can't be changed about Lincoln. It looks like Tom Osborne wisely knew he could never compete for the same type of athlete as national powers located in population centers. He evolved his system to differentiate Nebraska from the pack so he could compete for different types of skilled athletes and also utilized a powerful walk-on program to build depth. The old master knew what he was doing.

We know Nebraska can be a very successful national program because that's already been proven. The path to success, however, may have to be different from that followed by other schools. If Nebraska has a strong season this fall and recruiting still does not respond to that success in a huge way, that would be a sure signal of future trouble.

Callahan already has had to follow a different recruiting strategy - the one long used by Kansas State (i.e., going after JUCOs when you can't get the high schoolers you want). Most of us thought that JUCOs were a temporary thing but there may have to be more of the same forever if things don't dramatically change. And it looks like we may already be forced down the JUCO QB path this year.

Go Big Red,

RedCap

Huskers lose out on another QB recruit

When it comes to recruiting quarterbacks, the Huskers have had no luck the past couple of years. Since signing Harrison Beck and Zac Taylor some time ago, they've been completely shut out.

Yesterday the situation got even worse when Jarrett Lee committed to LSU. Lee had become Bill Callahan's top target after Ryan Mallet earlier turned the Huskers down and committed to Michigan. Callahan and his staff spent an extraordinary amount of time and energy wooing Lee. He was given special treatment during the Spring game and a hoard of Nebraska coaches went down to his hometown in Texas during the month of May. It seemed like all the Nebraska attention was working and Lee had many good things to say about Nebraska during his interviews with recruiting analysts. The news was very positive for several weeks raising the hopes of Husker recruiting fanatics. Lee's Dad was even spotted wearing Nebraska gear. Then Lee took one trip to visit LSU and basically dumped Nebraska. Now there are a lot of broken hearts among those recruiting fanatics.

So it's back to the drawing board yet again for Bill Callahan who now must be getting desperate to find a quarterback willing to come to Lincoln to operate his West Coast Offense. The primary recruiting focus now switches to Lyle Moevao, a junior college quarterback at El Camino California Community College. Moevao has the grades to be able to enroll this fall if he chooses to do so and plans to take a visit to Lincoln the weekend of June 9. Moevao also has a scholarship offer from Oregon State and said he won't make any decision until after he has visited that school as well. Will Nebraska be spurned again? Stay tuned for further developments.

Moevao had good stats last year and was the top-rated junior college quarterback in California. The biggest knock on Moevao, however, is his size. He's only 6-foot tall and most colleges with a pro-style offense want someone taller so they can see the field and pick out receivers better. Click the link to read more information about Moevao in this article.

Go Big Red,

RedCap

Will the Big 12 stick it to Nebraska?

News from the Big 12 Conference meetings indicates that scheduling changes could happen after the ABC TV contract ends in 2007. One of the major changes could affect the decades-long traditional Nebraska football game during Thanksgiving week. For years Nebraska played Oklahoma during that slot and now plays Colorado since the formation of the Big 12. The national television exposure from that game always has been important to Nebraska and no doubt very helpful in national recruiting efforts. Now other schools apparently want a piece of that action and would like to kick Nebraska out of the Friday spotlight to playing on Saturday where national exposure likely would be greatly reduced.

No immediate decision will be made right now but the Colorado AD is already on record opposing the move. Nebraska AD Steve Pederson hasn't said anything yet. Click the links to read the articles in the Colorado newspapers: Rocky Mountain News story and Boulder Daily Camera story.

Go Big Red,

RedCap