The Weekly Rundown: Nebraska AD Troy Dannen faces several tough decisions and Carter Nelson’s memorable senior season
Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen faces several more tough decisions and tight end Carter Nelson wrapped up a memorable senior year this week.
We hit on that and more as we start your Monday with The Weekly Rundown column.
RELATED – Steven Sipple: After another sterling UFL effort, former Nebraska QB Adrian Martinez seemingly moves closer to realizing childhood dream
Sure bets
You have to feel good about these things right now:
More tough decisions for Troy Dannen: Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen made his first tough decision this past week. Dannen and the Nebraska leadership team chose to alter former AD Trev Albert’s original $450 million stadium renovation that called for a complete demolition of the south end zone.
This would’ve displaced 23,000 South stadium ticket holders for two seasons after teh 2024 season. There are roughly 67,000 total season ticket holders, with the South comprised primarily of students and seats with donation values between $0 and $750. The immediate focus now will be on the East and West stadiums, where, presumably, there will be no significant displacement for season ticket holders. Seats in the East and West stadiums have donation values generally between $1,000 and $2,500 per seat. Many are locked into grandfather pricing on donations that will change during a stadium reseat when this is done.
If you are a South Stadium season ticket holder, this was tough news to hear, but the reality is that it’s business. Also, the project would still be happening if the money were at the level it needed to be. Nebraska cannot take on a $450 million financial risk with the unknowns ahead.
And if anybody thought that Alberts would demolish the south end zone and keep ticket prices at the exact costs as before, you are kidding yourself. If the South had been demolished after the 2024 season, my guess is the new ticket prices would’ve resembled the price point in East and West Stadium. Also, the students would occupy more real estate in the south than before. It probably would’ve priced some folks out of their seats and forced them to move to the North, the only bench seating left in the stadium on Alberts’s original plan.
Also, a stadium reseat would happen for that plan, so there was never a guarantee you’d get to keep seats in the South end zone if a full reseat took place based on priority points. Somebody in another part of the stadium could’ve taken over those tickets based on their donor points during a reseat.
Developing the plan and timing for the reseat will not be easy. No matter what you do, folks will have an opinion about it. I’ve heard from many ticket holders that they are concerned because they buy their seats from someone who owns a block of them through their company. That person might be locked into a grandfathered price, and the new prices could potentially force them to reduce the number of tickets they buy yearly.
My advice to anybody who wants to participate in the stadium reseat after the 2025 season is to make sure they have a ticket account. The only equitable way to do a reseat will be based on priority points tied to their ticket account.
A memorable senior year for Carter Nelson: It was a year to remember for future Husker tight end Carter Nelson. He was the most heavily recruited eight-man prospect in decades, as coaches from Alabama, Georgia, Notre Dame, and Penn State, among others, flew private plans into Ainsworth a year ago at this time to see him.
It all wrapped up for Nelson at Saturday’s state track meet in Omaha. He captured the Class C long jump crown and finished third in the 200-meter dash. This was after a dominating senior season on the football field, highlighted by playing in the All-American Bowl in San Antonio and the Polynesian Bowl in Hawaii. Nelson also led his basketball team to an appearance in the Class D-1 state championship game.
In a few weeks, Nelson will start his journey in Lincoln. You can bet Matt Rhule and his coaching staff are excited to get to work with Nelson in the coming months.
Nate Gerry and Cam Taylor-Britt: Congrats to former Huskers Nate Gerry and Cam Taylor-Britt for finishing the job this week. Both players walked on Saturday at NU’s spring commencement ceremony in Memorial Stadium.
Taylor-Britt is a starting corner for the Cincinnati Bengals, while Gerry recently retired from his NFL career after winning a Super Bowl ring in Philadelphia.
Adrian Martinez posted 217 total yards and FIVE touchdowns tonight as the @USFLStallions rolled to their eighth win of the season.This kid has been special. Birmingham has another clear MVP candidate at QB, just one year after Alex McGough took them the distance. #UFL pic.twitter.com/k0k6YrcrFI— James Larsen (@JamesLarsenPFN) May 19, 2024
Surprises
These were my surprises of the week:
Adrian Martinez’s dominance in the UFL: I’ll never forget when quarterback Adrian Martinez was a freshman at Ohio State. He looked like a poised big-time quarterback as the Huskers nearly knocked off the eventual Big Ten champion Buckeyes.
I said, “This is going to be pretty fun,” watching this all come together under Martinez. That all quickly changed in 2019, as for various reasons, we didn’t see that version of Martinez consistently every week. Some of it was injury-related, as was what was around Martinez.
The UFL season wrapped up its eighth week of play on Sunday, and we are seeing the version of Martinez we thought we’d see in Lincoln. He has been dominant for the Birmingham Stallions, leading them to an 8-0 record. Seeing Martinez play so well now is another gut punch to Nebraska fans, knowing they had more than capable quarterback play during the Frost era, but it never consistently came together around him.
DB Jaden Mangham’s quick pick of Michigan: I always thought it was a bit of a long shot for Nebraska to land Michigan State safety Jaden Mangham from the likes of Ohio State and Michigan.
Mangham took his official visit to Lincoln Monday through Wednesday after his weekend trip to Ohio State. This weekend, the Detroit native visited Michigan and announced his commitment to the Wolverines on Friday. I’m not necessarily surprised he ended up in Ann Arbor, but I’m more surprised how quickly things played out. He has to be one of the first-ever Michigan State players to transfer to Michigan, where he’ll go from being a starter for the Spartans to the Wolverines.
The jury is still out
Questions still surround these things:
Big Ten TV schedule and Friday night games: We’ve learned some early kickoff dates for the Big Ten 2024 football season – primarily the priority picks from FOX, CBS and NBC. When will we learn the rest of the early season kickoff times?
I’m interested in the Big Ten’s beefed-up Friday night slate, which is expected to air on FOX. You can bet that besides its game at Iowa, Nebraska will have a Friday night game in September or October.
As for the opener, if CBS, FOX, NBC, or FS1 does not pick it up, Nebraska will have some voice on when the game airs. My guess is NU would prefer that game to be played at night, knowing they have Colorado in prime time the following week.
The possibility of eliminating walk-ons in college football: In an interview on Sirus XM, Rhule discussed the proposal to eliminate walk-ons. Rhule called it an “awful” idea that would take away opportunities from so many deserving athletes.
“I think it’d be awful,” Rhule said on Sirius XM College Sports Radio. “I think a lot of things are being kind of said right now, I think there’s the kind of wait and see how it ends up because you know that might not happen. But if it does, I think it would be just an awful thing. For every player that ends up with a high end commercial, there’s 100 players that are, you know, becoming better people by having played college football and being part of a team and those are the people that usually end up running our country, running our corporations, running our businesses.
“I mean, you know, we spent all this time talking about what great things college football does, and now if we take it away from a bunch of people, I would really, really, really be sad.”
We get so caught up in the elite players that we sometimes forget that walk-on players make up a large number of college football roster spots. Those walk-on experiences shape and develop young men for the rest of their lives.
Nebraska baseball’s pitching depth in the postseason: We know Nebraska has quality pitching for Friday and Saturday on most weekends. The issue has been on Sunday and during the midweek. As they prepare to begin post-season play, do the Huskers have enough quality pitching to make a run over the next two weeks?
This has my attention
Moving forward, this has my attention:
Matt Rhule’s desire for grass: Since Rhule got to Nebraska, we’ve seen a strong push from turf to grass. Both of Nebraska’s main outdoor practice fields are now grass. Wear and tear and player safety are big reasons why.
We saw it in the spring game when two Husker players suffered knee injuries inside Memorial Stadium on the turf. In many cases, grass can prevent injuries like this.
This off-season, Nebraska will continue to improve its grass practice fields. It will be interesting to see if Rhule has enough power to someday bring grass to Memorial Stadium. In 2023, only four Big Ten schools played their games on grass: Penn State, Michigan State, Northwestern, and Purdue. New Big Ten members USC and UCLA also play on grass.
Deacon Hill to Utah Tech: To put into perspective how limited Iowa’s offense was in 2023, their starting quarterback, Deacon Hill, entered the transfer portal this spring. His new home? Utah Tech.
I’m not knocking Utah Tech, but I feel like I’m watching a 1990s college football movie when they used to have made-up colleges play games. I consider myself pretty well-educated on college football, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard much about Utah Tech.
Big Ten baseball crowds: What will the scene be like this week in Omaha for the Big Ten baseball tournament? Because Nebraska drew the No. 2 seed, most of their action during the week has the potential to be day games. I’d imagine we’ll see solid crowds in Omaha, but the only way we see a massive draw is if the Huskers make it to Saturday and Sunday.
Final week on the road recruiting: The Husker coaching staff will spend its final days on the road this week. What will the plan be? We’ve seen them visit several high-value targets already. Are there any other big names they plan to check in on with staff multi-coach visits?
Assistant coach ruling: The NCAA continues to move toward allowing college football staffs to have unlimited paid on-field coaches. This is expected to go through in June. We will hear a lot about this in the coming weeks as staff create more on-field coaching positions.
Sean Callahan can be reached at [email protected] and is heard daily at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall, and each week, he appears on Nebraska Public Media’s Big Red Wrap-Up Tuesdays at 7 pm.
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