I have made it a personal policy to not comment on articles that I've written. I've done this because I do not want to disrupt the flow of comments made by you, community members. I also feel that if I did not do a good job of explaining my point in the original article then I should experience the backlash (or approval) of my article in the comments that follow.

There is no personal policy against follow-up articles regarding said comments.

With that in mind I'd like to clarify my position on a word that I know you all love, that word being "patience".

From reading our comments section, I have determined that many have associated the word patience with Mike Riley's continued employment as the head coach of Nebraska football. This is not the case. I am not preaching patience out of a necessary desire to retain Riley as our head coach. That decision is beyond me and therefore I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it.

Whether Riley continues as our head coach is irrelevant to the patience conversation. Obviously, if Riley is retained you will be required to have patience to see what happens through at least next season.

If Riley is not retained, you will need to have patience with whomever is hired as Nebraska's next head football coach. There is no magic dust that a new head coach is going to sprinkle on this football team to make it an automatic winner. It will take time for the next head coach to mold his players so that they can meet his expectations. It will take even more time if they're going to meet your expectations.

Bottom line, Riley or not, if you wish to remain in Nebraska football fan it will require patience. If you don't believe that, you are welcome to believe in fairytales where a handsome prince shows up and magically turns toads into proficient lineman within a single season that can block any Big Ten opponent you put them in front of.

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Speaking of a handsome prince who comes with an inventory of magic dust, the only hire that this program can make that will satisfy the majority of the Nebraska fan base is Scott Frost. Anyone else will not have a big enough name, or they will not be a native son, or they will cost to little or they will cost too much.

No one else will be given as much patience.

Oh, that again.

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Also of note – this idea that all we have to do is “open up the checkbook” and hire whomever we want. Forget the idea that not everyone is incentivized by money – the idea of throwing money at candidates because you are out of patience (OMG, again!) or out of desperation is just about the worst possible position to be in if you’re trying to do a decent job of negotiating.

You’d better be damn sure you have a candidate that is going to win a lot of football games before you throw a boatload of money at them. It’s easy to assume that someone such as Gary Patterson from TCU will be successful at Nebraska because he’s been successful at TCU. Not always the case. Case in point – Jim Harbaugh, who through his first 31 games has a record comparable to Brady Hoke. I don’t have to tell you that Hoke cost the University of Michigan a lot less money do I?

Another case in point – Bert Bielema, Arkansas. Bert isn’t doing too hot. Bert is 27 – 29 and is in his fifth season with the Razorbacks. Not only is Bert getting paid a lot of money to fail, but his buyout is ridiculous. Those are the kind of things that damage an athletic program over a long term.

As I said, if you’re going to spend that kind of money you damn well better get it right.

Of course, that doesn’t concern you, Mr. Internet Commenter. You can make shit up as you go. Throw that money around. Make those hard decisions. The only thing you’re losing is a possible screen name that’s fake anyway. Come back later, create a new one, and claim that you were against hiring Mr. New Head Coach all along.

Okay, that’s a little mean.

I do find it interesting, though, that tons of you show up when things aren’t going very well.

I’ve been accused of purposely writing articles to get more page views. It’s true, I do that. Not always, but do I do sometimes. It doesn’t have to do with money, because I don’t really get paid more if we have more traffic. On the other hand, I do enjoy irritating people sometimes.

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The next two weeks will be very interesting. Chances are Nebraska will get a new athletic director in that timeframe. What do you suppose the chances are that the sellout streak will end under the reign of our new athletic director?

Oh, I know, I know. You don’t care about the sellout streak. We worry too much about it. It’s gone on long enough. I’ve seen those comments, too.

Funny, a lot of you didn’t care about NOT playing on Black Friday UNTIL it became a reason to fire that last athletic director, and then all it took was a couple of articles about TRADITION BEING TRAMPLED that turned your indifference into outrage!

That’s what mobs do, Nebraska fans! They allow just a few instigators to incite them into rabble-rousing, then get those rabble rousers to proclaim that injustice has occurred and the next thing you know, we’ve all got pitchforks and torches and we’re off to Frankenstein’s Castle (or the athletic department offices) demanding that the monster responsible be turned over for a good burning at the stake!

I wonder if the next guy knows that this will be part of his future? How much would you take if you had a high probability of being burned at the stake in the next 3-5 years?

News

Rumors about TCU’s Chris Del Conte and him bringing Gary Patterson along?

Squashed for now.

4-Star WR Moore Says Husker Targets Still See the Vision at Nebraska | Hail Varsity
“We’re all confident, and I say that to say this," he said. "We know and believe that Coach [Mike] Riley and the staff will figure things out to get us where we need to be, and of course once we get there we will be able to contribute as well. So this loss didn’t really have an effect on us.”

Badgers football: Grading Wisconsin's performance against Nebraska Cornhuskers | College Football | host.madison.com
State Journal columnist Tom Oates grades the Wisconsin Badgers' performance in their 38-17 victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday night at Memorial Stadium.

LSU coach Ed Orgeron has a hefty buyout clause in his contract - CBSSports.com

Orgeron’s buyout following the 2017 season is $12 million, and that number will drop to $8.5 million in 2018, $6 million in 2019 and $4.5 million in 2020. That’s some job security, and it’s a bit surprising.

Athletic directors are amazingly bad at this stuff. Even good ones.

No, thank you, Shawn.

Foster still believes in Nebraska's offensive blueprint
"I don't want to be Wisconsin. I'm Nebraska, if that's simple enough to say," Foster said. "I don't want to be them. I believe in what we have with our quarterback. He's a gunslinger. In the sense of him being able to do what he does, I don't want us to just be running the ball the whole time. We have great backs, definitely. But being able to have two parts of the game. Being able to run it, being able to pass it at the same time, is how you become an 'A' list team.

Why Grant Wistrom Was the Right Leader for Day by Day - Huskers.com - Nebraska Athletics Official Web Site

Count Wistrom among those who believe that an accelerated and expanded walk-on program can help Nebraska contend for more conference championships and recharge the battery of the Huskers’ No. 1 all-time ranking among NCAA schools which have won the most conference championships. Wistrom is eager and ready for that to happen in the near future. Stay tuned.

Uh, yeah. Okay. Talk about pandering to that part of the fan base that gets it’s news from Huskers.com. Those farm kids who used to come off the corn fields strong as oxen? They sit in tractors all day now letting GPS run everything. I am not sure what they’re seeing here except for nostalgia.

Wisconsin vs. Nebraska: 3 lessons from Badgers’ win - Bucky's 5th Quarter
Lessons from Wisconsin’s big road win.

Wisconsin vs. Nebraska: Highlights of Badgers’ big win - Bucky's 5th Quarter
Game balls, plays of the game, and more.

MSU football: The Good, The Bad, The Random vs. Michigan - The Only Colors
Flop yourself into this blog post and let’s break down Saturday, shall we?

What we learned against Michigan State: List of unanswered questions keeps growing - Maize n Brew
The mounting frustrations with this team came to a boil on Saturday.

Around the Big Ten: Michigan can’t deal with the rain, Nebraska is in trouble - Inside NU
"Rain makes corn, O’Korn causes chaos."

Purdue 31, Minnesota 17 In Tweets - Hammer and Rails
Twitter is always more fun after a win.

Heisman race: Jonathan Taylor tails Saquon Barkley, Bryce Love | SI.com
The top quarterbacks have been less than inspiring so far, but there are several running backs in position to punch tickets to New York.