Moos cleans house
The end finally came. It was not a surprise. It was certainly expected, but still those situations end up having an effect on many people’s lives. It is, however, something that goes with the turf if you are a head coach or an assistant coach at the college level. It can also happen at the high school level and be just as devastating. The difference is high school coaches don’t have those great little payouts as they ride off into the sunset.
Athletic Director Bill Moos cleaned house in the football program Saturday morning. Former Nebraska Football Coach Mike Riley was out the door and showed a great amount of class on the way out. Contrast that with the less than 15 minutes it took Bill Callahan to get out of Dodge and the irate rant that Bo Pelini gave to his former players before he left and you know that Mike Riley is a class act. It’s too bad that for some reason he just didn’t get it going on the field.
The Nebraska athletic program is paying a pretty nice sum of money for people not working for them now. Coach Riley’s contract termination clause will pay him $170,000 per month through February 2021, which is in the neighborhood of 6.6 million. That is a pretty nice neighborhood. Shawn Eichorst will draw $1.7 million with his contract which ends in 2019. Bo Pelini is getting $128,000 per month for fifteen more months, which comes in at 1.9 million.
I read some comments that stated that is why the tuition is so high at Nebraska. But you have to remember, the athletic program is self-funding, no tax money spent on salaries. AD Moos stated they don’t have an unlimited budget, but they have a support system that is good. That is why this next football coach hire must be a good one and the program needs to get back on track. When Memorial Stadium looks like it did in the second half last Saturday at the beginning of the game is when the program will be in financial trouble.
Who is going to be next to walk the sidelines? There are some names out there of available coaches and some good names to boot, but Scott Frost seems to be one you hear a lot from those who want the Huskers to look like the 1990s again. Not sure that will happen no matter who you get. But Frost is a hot coach now.
As an offensive coordinator at Oregon, he has a team that could win. They are 11-0 going into their conference championship game. He is a native son, playing for his dad at Wood River. He is a former quarterback on a Nebraska national championship team. He knows the culture of Nebraska. The money will be good. Regardless of his strong points, I would bet it will still take some time to get things going. Patience is needed and sometimes that doesn’t happen. Expectations are high at Nebraska. Time will tell and whoever is coach will have some obstacles to overcome.
Five on Three
This caught my attention over the weekend and I don’t think it happens very often. During the Minnesota and Alabama basketball game, a couple of players got into a spat. Some pushing and shoving happened but then the entire Alabama bench came onto the floor. Big mistake!
The rule is if a bench player comes onto the floor during a fight, they are ejected from the game. So the entire reserve bunch of the Alabama team got ejected from the game, leaving them with just five players. Then one of the Alabama players fouled out, leaving them with four against Minnesota’s five. Next, an Alabama player went down with an injury and it became five on three.
The Alabama three outscored the Minnesota five 30-22 in the last 10 minutes of the game, but ended up losing the game 89-84, which is a pretty good effort in a one in a million situation.