Game day is finally here! College marching bands are one of the great traditions of college football game day, so I thought I'd give some props to one of the best bands in the land - the Pride of All Nebraska - The Cornhusker Marching Band! 

I suppose there's some who believe that modern-day electronics and big stadium sound systems have taken away from the prominence of a college marching band, but for all this new-fangled stuff there' s still nothing that gets the Husker football spirit going than "Hail Varsity". 

I contacted Anthony M. Falcone, the Associate Director of Bands at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, to ask him for more information about the Marching Red. That interview after the jump. 

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The University of Nebraska Union Bookstore will be sponsoring a book signing, "Meet the Authors" event before the Florida Atlantic game this Saturday! 

We'll be outside the Union from 2:00 to 3:00 pm, then move inside until 5:00 pm. Yours truly will be there along with several of the authors, including Husker Mike, who contributed to your favorite Nebraska football yearbook. 

So - if you're looking to pick up some quality reading material, or just want to stop by and see what kind of nutballs would write this much about Nebraska football without making a living at it, come on by! 

It's that time of year again - with 30 days left before the start of the regular season, it's time to get ready for the 2009 season! In that spirit, it's time to announce the 2009 CN College Football Pick 'Em!  We'll be picking games that include Nebraska, of course, as well as other Big-12 teams. We'll throw in some of the best other games of the week as well.

To participate, just join our pool. It's free to play, and FunOfficePools.com is spam-free as well. The pool is open now to join, and first picks are due by August 28th - so sign up now. The pool will run the whole regular season, concluding on December 6th with, among other games, the conference championship games. Let's get as many of you signed up as we can, and find out who is the best at picking winners. 

For the first couple of weeks, we'll be giving away free copies of Cornhusker Kickoff 2009, the must-have Husker football yearbook!  The grand prize winner will receive a copy of the 1995 National Championship Season DVD Box Set from our affiliate Best of Big Red! 

So please join us - more information about the pool after the jump...... 

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Spent last weekend at the Medicine Valley High School 40-year reunion (the high school's 40th year, not mine), and then have had to deal with family issues that have kept me away for the past few days. Just a quick note to let you know I'm trying to get back in action here as football practices start and the season isn't all that far away anymore. 

In the meantime, here's a link to a radio interview I did last week about Cornhusker Kickoff 2009 on KZKX-FM.

I have another radio spot this morning at 9:15 am on KCD-FM (105.9) in Omaha, then two tomorrow - the first one at 6:45 am with Jack Mitchell and John Bishop on KLIN (1400) in Lincoln. 6:45 am! About the only time I talk to people that early is when I have a gun or fishing pole in my hand, so it'll be time to pretend I'm a morning person.

The second tomorrow is at 7:05 am on KSRZ-FM (104.5) in Omaha with Glennboy and sidekick Glo. 

We will be doing a college football pool again this year as we did last year - as soon as I have some time today/tonight i'll figure out with Husker Mike what our best approach is this season. No doubt we'll have to give away some promo copies of the yearbook to weekly winners - at least for the first couple weeks. 

Corn Nation (and other SB Nation sites) has gone through a ton of changes since last football season. We've also added a substantial number of new users, so from time to time I'll be updating you with these posts that point out how you can get the most out of our site. 

One of the more useful items you'll find this season is the ability to quickly locate information on your favorite teams and players by using the new team and player pages. 

Click the "jump" to find more information..... 

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We are always working to evolve our platform here at SB Nation and we have two exciting new features to announce this morning: Mobile Commenting and the ability to retweet posts that you find interesting.

We are very excited to introduce mobile commenting to the platform. You can now sign in to each blog you are a member of and comment in GameThreads from the game or the bar or participate in an interesting discussion happening on a blog from anywhere with your phone.

There are two things to note in this release of mobile commenting. First, mobile login is not network wide. You must sign into each community individually. Second, we did some cross browser testing with as many phones as possible, but we cannot test each phone. If you have any issues with mobile commenting please let us know at support@sbnation.com or using the contact form at the bottom of each page in the network. Please be sure to provide your phone model and browser type along with a very detailed description of the problem in your email.

We are also very excited about the new retweeting feature. If you see a post that you find interesting and want to share it via twitter, now you can with just one click rather than copying and pasting the link.

We're excited to see how you use the new features!

Earlier this year Corn Nation became an affiliate of "Best of Big Red", an organization run by Mike Osborne that provides the broadest array of Husker products on the internet. They have everything from the latest line of Husker clothing to tailgating equipment, along with autographed paraphernalia - you name it. 

Of particular interest to me is the availability of past Husker games. Instead of spending the offseason wondering if ESPN Classic will ever show an old Nebraska game where the Huskers win, why not have a whole library available and pick the game I want to watch? I used to have a lot of them on VHS, but I'm not embellishing when I say my VHS of the '97 Nebraska - Missouri game is worn out from too many July viewings. 

I decided to start somewhere - so I purchased last season’s DVD set. It was an excellent resource for doing the unit and opponent previews for this year’s "Cornhusker Kickoff" yearbook. I’d recommend the DVDs to any Husker fan wanting to keep a collection of all the games. Each game has a short pre-game segment and includes the post-game press conferences, so they’re excellent for getting an offseason fix. 

There are a couple areas of product offerings I’d like to see improved, so I asked Mike Osborne about them. I'd like to see all of the old games offered on DVD, and I'm interested to know when Husker fans will be able to download and view Husker games, via iTunes or any other delivery method. Continue on for some answers from Mike about the process of putting the DVD’s together and what you can expect to see from future offerings. 

Oh, in the interest of full disclosure - if you click on a link for Best of Big Red, it has an affiliate code in it for Corn Nation, so we will get paid a percentage if you buy from them. If you feel the need to support us, that's great. I'd appreciate it. Thanks. 

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I've decided to update this document, given that Nebraska's head football and basketball coaches are now on twitter, along with tons more Husker fans. In the next couple days we'll have some more news about Corn Nation and twitter that you might find interesting.

I’ve been using twitter on a regular basis now for a few months, and just went over 1700 followers within the past few days. I’ll admit, I’m surprised at twitter’s popularity. Part of me thinks it’s the silliest damned thing every invented.

The other part thinks it’s a pretty darned useful communication tool. I’m not going to try to explain what it is other than saying that it’s public chat without awareness. The whole concept revolves around the idea of sending short messages into the ether. You follow people, and if they find you interesting, they follow you. It’s the interaction along with the equality that makes it interesting.

Like everything else on the internet there is a big mixture of good, bad and useless information. The good thing is you can find a subject expert in very little time, follow them and send them a message and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get a reply. If not, you can dump them and find another one.

Whether you’re new to twitter, or an experienced veteran, I have compiled a list of Nebraska Cornhuskers and Big 12 references you might find useful. 

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