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The Reads: Championship Weekend Heralds the End of Football

The Mayans were talking about Championship Weekend when they said the world would end. And Volleyball starts their bid for NCAA glory tonight!

By Salt Creek and Stadium

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"We want you to watch volleyball and football with us!"
"We want you to watch volleyball and football with us!"
Eric Francis

Only two games remain for our Nebraska Cornhuskers this season. It'll only get harder here on out.

No more special team adventures. No more Taylor Martinez making you hate him in the first half only to want to buy the kid a beer in the second half. No more Rex Burkhead. No more Kenny Bell and the magical fro that somehow fits in that helmet. No more Eric Martin making offensive linemen look silly. No more Braylon Heard sightings. No more yelling at Andrew Rodriquez for getting blown up.

No more Lane Kiffin mistakes. No more radio lovefests for the SEC or whomever Nebraska is playing. No more Kirk Ferentz in a perfect union with Greg Davis' patented horizontal offense. No more debates about strength of schedules or rankings or whether a football crossed the plane of the endzone. No more ESPN announcers making our blood boil. No more Fox college football coverage.

No more football, unless you watch the NFL. But who does that?

And you know what, we're all going to miss it. All of it.

So let's sit back and enjoy the show this week. It's going to be a great game. Here's to ending on a high note with a win over the Badgers this Saturday.

Because before we know it, the off-season will be here, with only Nebrasketball, Lady Husker Basketball and Reads articles to keep you warm until football re-awakens briefly in the spring.

Oh, and to get us all warmed up for some championship football, future Big Ten member Rutgers takes on future Atlantic Coast Conference member Louisville in a winner-take-the-Big-East (maybe) fight in New Jersey. They're lighting a tower up in red for Rutgers so it's pretty special.

The game is at 6:30 pm CT on ESPN and I would expect there to be a game thread. Stop by and join us as we bid adieu to the regular season this weekend!

Volleyball

The (#4) Lady Huskers are also approaching the end of their season. Hopefully the end of their season is a NCAA National Title. Their fight starts tonight at 7pm on NET or BTN2Go.com. They'll be taking on University of Maryland - Eastern Shore at the Coliseum in the Husker's ninth straight home opener to NCAA tournament play. We'll be covering Nebraska-UMDES during our open thread as well, so volleyball fans, please join us! (And stay for the conclusion of what may actually be an exciting Big East game.)

Good luck, ladies!

It's been good to Nebraska. We can only hope that we can replicate the Coliseum at the Devaney Center.

UNL Football

I'd love for Burkhead to pick up 300 yards on the ground on Saturday.

The battle between Abbrederis and Ciante will be a fun one to watch.

This will be crucial on Saturday.

I think we'll see a big game from Eric this Saturday. Leave it all on the field.

It's nice that we're getting to the point that we can plug and play on the offensive line. Maybe by next year, we'll be deep enough that we don't worry about things like this.

Wisconsin

Good for Jared, potentially devastating for Nebraska.

Interesting to see how much the Badgers let Phillips run around. Hopefully Martin gets in his head early.

Will Wisconsin health give them the edge in this game?

Wisconsin is just a couple lucky bounces from being as successful as Nebraska. Like our team, the Badgers have simply lacked the ability to put together all three phases of the game at the same time.

So this is real. I'm assuming this fan is willing to wait for the full five years of Tressel's show-cause order to expire? And has assurances from Tressel that he wants to coach again? Oh, and I'm guessing Alvarez won't hire Tressel so they're going to have to take care of that problem.

Nebrasketball

Breakout Performance of the Night – Andre Almeida At 6-11, 314 pounds, it’s tough to imagine Almeida staying under the radar. After Tuesday’s performance, the Brazilian will be noticed for more than just his size. Almeida finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks in Nebraska’s 79-63 win at Wake Forest. The last Big Ten player with a 20-10 game in which he shot 90 percent from the field was Iowa’s Cyrus Tate in 2009. Before that it was Raymar Morgan and Greg Oden.

Congrats to the big guy. (How did he not get asked to walk-on? Our offensive line could've used him.)

Big Ten

I bet if Ohio State was there, our fans would be on-board.

Fans may also be saving money for a trip to Florida, but sure, let's assume we're all arrogant blowhards. #journalism

National News

I'm sure you're as shocked as I am. My guess Les Miles now makes as much as Nick Saban (around 5 million a year). And his agent just put a down payment on a really nice Audi.

Or waiting to see what kind of raise he can get Gary Patterson at TCU. (Apparently he is also a client of Miles' agent. Tip of the hat to Brian for bringing that to my attention.)

Someone got confused when they saw "Louisville Head Coach" and felt it couldn't POSSIBLY be Bobby Petrino. "Why would Auburn want that mess?", they wondered.

For the love of...SOMEONE STOP THE MUSIC. Musical conferences has gone on long enough!

Dan Beebe asked for the same thing. And then Missouri and Texas A&M went to the SEC.

Smart move by the ACC. Upgrade in football and a legitimate top 25 basketball program too.

Clearly whomever coded the Colley Matrix is not a Sooner fan. I'm sure this is how the SEC keeps getting ranked so high.

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That's all for today folks. Sorry for the depressing start, but I needed some kind of commentary for today.

Anyways, comments, rants and cat pictures go below. The first cat photo gets a mention in tomorrow's Reads.

GO BIG RED. BEAT WISCONSIN.

-Salt Creek and Stadium

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