Friday Flakes: “Fresh Start” for Both Nebraska and JD Spielman

Scott Frost went onto Sports Nightly on Wednesday. The one quote that stood out from me was the following:

So many thought but when two parties need a “fresh start” then that likely indicates that the relationship between the two was not ideal. Spielman is extremely private. He had not done an interview since following the Wisconsin game in 2018.

Is there any chance he will air out his grievances publicly? Maybe he will take advantage of this upcoming Festivus to air them out. This is not likely.

I do wonder, however, what would cause JD to leave before his senior season in which he would likely have broken several receiving records? Add that to the fact that he has already burned his redshirt. He has not graduated. He would require a waiver from the NCAA in order to go to a Power 5 school.

It would appear that all of these things together indicate it might be difficult for him to play football for almost anybody except for an FBS school. Since he did put his name in the transfer portal that seems to indicate he plans on playing football.

So how did Nebraska and JD get to a point where each needed a fresh start? We may never know.

What that leaves Nebraska with in the receiving room is Wan’Dale Robinson, Kade Warner, Chris Hickman and Luke McCaffrey as the only returning non-running backs to catch a pass in 2019.

Nebraska again will be extremely thin at the wide receiver position again.

JD had his reasons to leave and there no reason to think they were not legitimate. The worst part is that JD Spielman is going to miss out on being a part of a team that is considered to be Nebraska best team to not win a championship.

Ryan McGee on NASCAR and the Confederate Flag

The link is also below in flakes, but I suggest taking some time to read this article written by Ryan McGee of ESPN. It feels like there is real pain. It is personal for him. I don’t know what it would feel like to have descendants that owned slaves. Hopefully, I would be as embarrassed as he appears to be.

Quick excerpt:

Before we go any further, I want to address the “Heritage Not Hate” crowd. I’m talking about those who sound like me and look like me and, like me, have a deep-rooted Southern upbringing. Let’s be totally clear here: By agreeing with NASCAR’s decision, I’m not betraying anyone or anything. And don’t start lecturing me on history, either. You don’t have a boot to stand in when it comes to teaching me what that flag means. You go tale-of-the-tape with me on our Confederate DNA, and you’re going to go down harder than Pickett’s Charge.

I am a direct descendant of slave owners. My family still owns the home where my forefathers lived while the human beings they owned worked all around them. As I write this, I am sitting on the North Carolina coast just south of Fort Fisher, the would-be protector of the port of Wilmington that was overrun by Union forces during the winter of 1865. My great-great-great grandfather and uncle were taken prisoner after fighting under that flag and were shipped off to a prison camp in Elmira, New York — a.k.a., “Hell-mira” — and when the Civil War ended, they walked home, 600 miles, to Rockingham, North Carolina. I have a photo of myself as a newborn, being held in the arms of my great aunt, who, as a child, talked to those men about what they fought for and lost. In the end, they were buried as citizens of the United States of America, with their nation’s real flag, the Stars and Stripes, displayed over the gate to the cemetery.

Sports! Sports! Sports!

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Finally.

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“STICK TO SPORTS!” Nah.

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