For What It's Worth -- SI Writer "Encouraged" By NU's Spring

1 comment so far April 27, 2006 by Darren K. Carlson

I firmly believe all good sports news happens on a local level. The beat writers covering teams and the fans paying close attention are the ones who really know a program and a team well enough to know if a squad or a player is trending up or down. That being said, positive publicity from national magazines, major newspapers and a little known cable channel in Connecticut never hurts. For people on the coasts and for potential recruits, national perception too often equates to reality. So, I guess it is encouraging that SI's Stewart Mandel leads his encouraging/discouraging list from spring ball with positive news about NU.

At face value, this kind of coverage is very good for NU. SI is a national magazine. The Huskers were "encouraging" to the author, instead of "discouraging". They are the first team mentioned, and it includes a picture of Zach Taylor. I'm happy about all of that. That being said, I'm going to call Mandel out on a couple of things.

I don't like his use of the phrase "three long years of mediocrity". Nebraska had one losing season. One! The other two of the last three years, they went to bowl games and won them. Mediocre teams don't win bowl games. Next, by making reference to three years instead of two muddies the water about how long Bill Callahan has been the head coach. It infers that he has been here for 3 seasons, and not for 2.

I guess I could also take umbrage with the phrase "Callahan's West Coast experiment finally paying off", since it's not an experiment. Its a proven system and he's our head coach. And, saying "finally" makes it seem like we've languished in the wind for a long time. He's been coach for 2 years. We won the bowl game last year.

Wow, I kind of feel like a jerk nitpicking about a positive one-paragraph summary. Oh well. It's the off season, and Mandel isn't one of my favorite writers anyway.

One other interesting Big 12 item in the article. It concludes with Baylor as "encouraging". And, I didn't know they had installed the Texas Tech style of offense. That will be curious to watch, I think.

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