NATIONAL SIGNING DAY IS TOMORROW!!!

We’ll find out what Scott Frost has been able to put together in the short time frame he’s been our head coach, then we’ll make comparisons with the other coaches that proceeded him. Guys like me will look at the stars and expect that the higher the stars, the better we can assume that potential player to be.

The more stars a team has, the better we can expect the team to be.

This isn’t really debatable, but there’s still some who say, “OH, WE DON’T NEED FIVE STARS, WE NEED FIVE HEARTS” as if you were looking at a recipe for chicken wild rice soup and said to yourself, “We don’t need the chicken” or “We don’t need the wild rice, this soup will be just fine”.

Does the chicken make the soup? Is it the wild rice? Do people actually have debates like this about recipes? (Yes, they do, I am sure of it. Mention barbecue sauce and people go wild.)

Perhaps the soup would be okay without either ingredient, but then IT WOULDN’T BE THE GREATNESS THAT IS CHICKEN WILD RICE SOUP, WOULD IT?

Such it goes with recruiting. It’s okay, as long as the debate is healthy. Just realize that you will never get Marge from Hemingford or Jim from Eustis to recognize that the entire team doesn’t have to be Nebraska boys to be successful.

(I was gonna go with a chemical compound comparison above, but last night I made a lovely chicken noodle soup in my 1950s-manufactured pressure cooker and figured that everyone could understand the reference. I thought about rice.. but went with egg noodles at the end. It was satisfying.)

I admit I haven’t been paying that close attention to individual recruits. I have other guys here that do that. They appear to be doing a good job, and I hope you will all be here tomorrow for the Signing Day Extravaganza. Who will choose Nebraska? Who will spurn us and draw our ire?

Find out tomorrow!

NEWS

Husker Hoops Rested, Ready For February - Nebraska Huskers
“Coach was saying we looked kind of rundown against Wisconsin,” Nebraska sophomore forward Isaiah Roby said. “We looked slow and kind of lazy. We don’t have any more excuses about that now.”

Williams Named Big Ten Event Specialist of the Week - Nebraska Huskers
Nebraska women’s gymnast Grace Williams was named the Big Ten Event Specialist of the Week as announced by the conference on Monday, Feb. 5.

Alvarado Earns Preseason Recognition from NCBWA - Nebraska Huskers
Nebraska's Luis Alvarado earned preseason All-America honors for the second time in 2018 when he garnered third-team status from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association on Monday.

B1G Basketball Historical Perspective - The Championship - Off Tackle Empire

A seemingly lost season that led to Nebraska’a only national-level basketball championship.

Read this for perspective on Nebrasketball’s complete lack of history.

Big Ten’s best arenas: Does the Big Ten need Madison Square Garden? - Off Tackle Empire
It might not be the most B1G arena, but it is the World’s Most Famous Arena.

The Five Best Basketball Arenas in the Big Ten - Off Tackle Empire
Just in case you wanted to travel somewhere else to watch bad basketball this season

Minnesota Basketball: Previewing Nebraska - The Daily Gopher
The Huskers are actually good this year.

Big Ten Basketball Weekly Stock Report - Early February Edition - Off Tackle Empire
Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s puking?

Mitch Daniels’ views on college basketball should embarrass Purdue University - The Crimson Quarry
Get a load of this nonsense.

How the U of M Marching Band Landed the Super Bowl Halftime Show - Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

Members of the University of Minnesota Marching Band thought they were about to get lectured. Their director, Betsy McCann, collected every student’s phone at the band banquet in mid-December and started giving a “weird speech” about how technology tends to take over their lives. Then she made an announcement that the band was not allowed to text, tweet, or even say for more than six weeks: The band would be marching with Justin Timberlake in the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

This was very cool. We had a close friend involved in this and it was a good experience. I’m not a huge JT fan, but I thought he did very well with the halftime show, and I’m not a big “halftime show” watching guy.

I did not like the deer shirt he was wearing, but the leaking-oil splotch camouflage suit he had on was pretty cool. I want one, and I don’t wear suits.

Largest gift ever to Rutgers Athletics creates new academic support facility - On the Banks
$15 M brings RU closer to R B1G Build goal

Super Bowl 2018 Ratings: Numbers Dip for Philadelphia Eagles Stunning Victory Over New England Patriots
It was not, however, the highest-rated Super Bowl. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it registered averaged a 47.4 overnight rating, which is down 3 percent from 2017—the lowest figure since 2010.

As F.B.I. Took a Year to Pursue the Nassar Case, Dozens Say They Were Molested - The New York Times

Some of the delay appears to have been related to questions concerning federal-versus-state jurisdiction, as well as jurisdiction within the F.B.I. itself. Although the Indianapolis bureau had received the information, the alleged sexual abuse by Dr. Nassar had taken place in Texas, at the Karolyi ranch, and in Michigan, where he lived and worked. And Ms. Maroney lived in California.

“Some of the delay”... What a line of shit. If there was a U.S. Attorney who thought busting Larry Nassar would have made his career, jurisdiction issues would have been figured out in a day.

They wanted nothing to do with this case because they thought it’d blow up in their faces or wasn’t worth the time to investigate.

Then There’s This

Episode 1: A Perfect Murder

In the first episode of The Onion and Onion Public Radio’s inaugural podcast “A Very Fatal Murder,” longtime OPR reporter David Pascall, who has searched tirelessly for the most resonant true-crime podcast that is also about middle America, heads to Bluff Springs, NE where the small town is reeling from the death of 17-year-old Hayley Price.

Someone needs to listen to this and give a review on whether it’s worth it for the rest of us. I know that Bluff Springs has always been a damned tough Nebraska town... but how is it treated in this podcast?

First ‘Jackpotting’ Attacks Hit U.S. ATMs — Krebs on Security

ATM “jackpotting” — a sophisticated crime in which thieves install malicious software and/or hardware at ATMs that forces the machines to spit out huge volumes of cash on demand — has long been a threat for banks in Europe and Asia, yet these attacks somehow have eluded U.S. ATM operators. But all that changed this week after the U.S. Secret Service quietly began warning financial institutions that jackpotting attacks have now been spotted targeting cash machines here in the United States.

These ain’t your grandad’s thieves.