Silent E has been fired and Corn Nation, at least from the looks of the comments here, rejoices. You'll forgive me if I don't tag along. I take no solace in the decision. I'd already written about the "lather, rinse, repeat" process earlier this week, and it seems that it has started earlier than anyone expected this year.

I have a hard time believing that Mike Riley is going to keep his job given that the man who hired him is gone. We'll do this thing where we dangle a number and say things like, "If he gets to 9 – 3 or 8 – 4, he'll probably keep his job", when we know with about 85% certainty that that is a big load of crap. Mike Riley is a lame-duck and there will be little point in keeping him around after the season. I suppose there will be a lot of you would will rejoice when Riley is fired as well. Good for you. Nebraska will be firing another coach after a nine-win season, that is, unless Riley completely tanks this season at which point whatever athletic director we have will be justified in firing him. Do you hope that happens or do you hope there’s still some fight in this team?

In any case, it's most likely it will be a minimum of two to three years before Nebraska is in position to win the Big Ten West, the first step in recovering "the Glory 90s". Hope you're all around for the ride - users tend to show up more when things are filled with drama, disappear when they’re bad, then return when there’s something happens that feeds their egos.

The fans and the media have joined in in doing what we do best as humans; blaming the last guy out. You know what I mean. We all do it. We work in a department, in a company, and some guy whether he's a manager or an lowly IT technician gets fired and everyone blames him for every bad thing that has happened in the last six months, year, two years, however long it spends since the last guy before him and was fired. Everything will be better now. Now we will take the first steps in the rebuilding process and ours will be the most successful and greatest department to work in in the history of all working in mankind.

Did Shawn Eichorst need to be fired? I guess he did.

Where do we go from here? I don't know.

I guess we move forward in finding out how good a job Ronnie Green can do in taking care of our precious football program. I guess it's Ronnie Green that's going to do that… Or maybe it's Hank Bounds with Green as his lapdog… Or maybe it's Howard Hawks with Hank Bounds as his lapdog… it's hard to tell... if that is the case, it’d be nice if Hawks would pay off the buy out contracts so at the least we wouldn’t have to hear about it repeatedly.

So who they gonna hire? A decisive leader? A 90s Glory Nebraska guy who will then hire a bunch of 90s Glory guys, try to run the option, and make sure we have a fullback in at all times?

Maybe they need to hire a “Nebraska guy” who does things the “Nebraska Way”, so we can proceed to see whether or not it will succeed.

Trev Alberts.

Scott Frost.

Insert former 90s greats names here for position coaches even though none of them have experience in coaching, but they know how to build championship culture.

If nothing else, it will be a helluva party. If it succeeds, great. If it doesn’t, well, who gives a damn that we’ll just be paying more for people to not work for Nebraska anymore. That and we’ll get this “we can win with Nebraska walk-ons” out of our system and then be able to go on and do great things.

---

A lot of teams across the Big Ten start conference play this weekend.

There are two particularly interesting games – we will get to see how much improvement Purdue has really made as they take on the Michigan Wolverines at home. Purdue has looked good early on the season, and Michigan has the hype surrounding them. The Wolverine defense is fifth nationally giving up 208 yards per game. Purdue's offense is 45th nationally, gaining 459.7 yards per game.

Penn State is at Iowa.That should be a good game as well. Don't be surprised if Iowa will pulls off the upset. It's at home.

Here's the rest of the Big Ten games this weekend.

I wouldn't be shocked that all if Nebraska loses to Rutgers. You shouldn't be either given what's transpired this week.

• UNLV at Ohio State
• Rutgers at Nebraska
• Michigan at Purdue
• UCF at Maryland
• Georgia Southern at Indiana
• Penn State at Iowa
• Notre Dame at Michigan State
• Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern and Wisconsin - byes

---

News

Want Mike Riley gone? Here's what it would cost Nebraska
So let’s do the math. If Riley were to be retained through the end of the season but fired at the end of November, Nebraska would be looking at paying out two separate buyouts for 14 months. That would equal $4,172,126.

The Price to Pay for Nebraska's Rebuild | Hail Varsity
Nebraska's incoming athletic director, whoever that may be, could be paying a lot of money for people to not work for him.

At Nebraska, it is and likely will be no more Mr. Nice Guy – The Athletic
These actions left the Nebraska administration and its influential boosters little choice. Eichorst had to go — and he will take a $1.7 million buyout with him — because the Cornhuskers need time to find their next athletic director who then needs time to evaluate the state of the football program. They want leadership in the athletic department that isn’t content with above-average seasons with a nice guy.

Nebraska fires Shawn Eichorst: Mike Riley dooms Huskers AD | SI.com
Shawn Eichorst, who does not block or tackle or coach blocking or tackling, was fired Thursday because the Nebraska football program is not competitive enough. We know this because the c-word got thrown around quite a bit by the two guys who fired Nebraska’s athletic director.

“We want to compete,” University of Nebraska system president Hank Bounds told reporters in a press conference. “We want to be competitive. We want our fans to know that we intend to compete, and we’re going to figure that out.”

Possible Nebraska coaching candidates: Scott Frost? Ken Niumatalolo? - SBNation.com
If Mike Riley is fired, UCF’s coach will be the most talked-about candidate. Let’s have some fun by looking off the radar at Navy.

Q&A With Corn Nation on Nebraska Football - On the Banks
Find out more on the first Big Ten opponent for Rutgers.

Iowa Football Opponent Preview: Penn State Nittany Lions - Black Heart Gold Pants
Under the lights of Kinnick Stadium...

Interviews with the Enemy: A Q&A with Maize N’ Brew - Hammer and Rails
Let’s talk to Josh LaFond about the Wolverines.