good grief what a horrible take
When we stormed Normandy we knew there would be casualties
- Thread starter jlb321
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This is not war but a game. Just a Giant difference.
Agreed.
Curious- during your impassioned flurry of posts yesterday, you offered plenty of snark but nothing definitive as far as your thoughts on the B1G’s decision.
Do you agree with it?
It is a terrible take, because we are not at war.
A better take is that we factor in people dying in all sorts of public policies.
If we reduced the speed limit to 25 MPH on every road, we would save way more young lives than if we didn't play college football.
A better take is that we factor in people dying in all sorts of public policies.
If we reduced the speed limit to 25 MPH on every road, we would save way more young lives than if we didn't play college football.
I don't really like his choice of words...
However, are you sure we're not at war???
However, are you sure we're not at war???
I applaud Nebraska for standing up to the B10 but there are inherent risks associated. The one wildcard that you have is if a man by the name of Warren Buffet is in your corner. He most likely could soften any financial blows that would likely result if is he is indeed on board
Warren made pretty clear over the years he's not going to be T Boone Pickens. All honesty he's probably on B1G side of the train where football isn't life.
obviously I haven’t read the medical-legal conclusions
I firmly believe that if your boss’s boss’s bosses make a decision having been briefed on all the facts - you don’t pop off in the media like a petulant child and start making threats of scheduling outside the conference unless you are fully prepared to do so
if you disagree - you ask for a meeting and communicate privately that you disagree,
explain your reasoning and ask if there is a way that Neb might explore playing some games this fall. If the answer is no - then either fall in line or leave
That's sort of the great mystery of the moment. Frost has alignment in the fact that we want to have a season. But he like Day may not have alignment in the at all costs part of the discussion.
Be interesting to see what shakes out of this and if we are willing to put conference affiliation in the line for it. Or sue.
so, is that a 'no comment', then, on your personal thoughts on the matter?
nobody's read the medical/legal conclusions. just curious your opinion on the actual decision, not more tit-for-tat on the coach's response.
we're not playing. quit crying about what he said and share your thoughts, if you have any.
What's your thoughts on us risking conference affiliation. You took a pretty hard line about president's putting players in the field at all costs I guess I would assume a similar hard line take on the NU rebellion? Or do we fall in line?
I don't think we play one game this year or 16+ games in 2021.
if NU leaves the b1g to play this year, I'd support it. misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows and all that, but I don't think that's a possibility.
it's disappointing. we're between a rock and a hard place. I hope the other 3 p5 conferences play.
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Pop off? I'm pretty sure this was a scripted response from the University. Maybe they should have had Moos or Green or someone else deliver the message, but this is all pretty coordinated and un-related to sports I have help script many of these messages that come out of corporations. I might have thought otherwise if we didn't issue that response from the University right after the decision and if there wasn't speculation running all over the place about out next move. I could be totally wrong, but this looks scripted to me and had pretty pointed talking points that have been reiterated multiple times. I know you are not a fan of Scott and don't mind you having that opinion because if this was smiling Mike I would probably react the same way as I couldn't stand the dude from day one and never thought he was a good coach. That bias came from my wife being an OSU grad and me being friendly with some other coaches at OSU and knowing some of the stuff that went on with him.
I have no dog in the fight about whether jlb is a Frost fan or not.
It is strange though to see so many people be critical of the dude when Frost has been known to run his mouth.
Frost taken plenty of flak from folks here about writing checks with his mouth he has yet to cash or throwing players under the bus.
It would make most of the board not fans of Frost by that standard.
I don't disagree, as Frost has popped off a few times, but that is pretty standard for new head coaches. Also, there were plenty of other coaches talking as well. That whole message was scripted to me.
You do speak some truths here.
Scott has not been able to back up anything that he has said yet. I hope they do join the B12 and they follow through.
If everyone backs down, then we got bitchslapped by Warren and will be treated like the red headed stepchild for all eternity in the B1G.
He’s right what’s horrible about it? Shutting things disown as you can see has caused more deaths. Because every death is Corona related now.
Just took the dog for a walk. Saw a house with a Husker flag at half staff. Apparently, not getting to watch football and the families of John Lewis or George HW Bush not getting to see their loved ones on this plane of existence ever again are the same things.
People put their Husker flags at half staff when John Lewis and/or George Bush died?
Recent news reports stated that Moderna has a promising Covid-19 vaccine candidate but the it is having difficulties finding the 30,000 volunteers is needs to commence Stage3 trials The company still needs another 14,000 volunteers before it can launch IIRC. Lou Holtz should do his part and sign up for a couple shots.
Probably not....but we lower flags to half-staff to honor people lost that were military or public servants.
Don't get me wrong....his property, his right to do it. I just think people are losing perspective...especially when none of them will be on the hook for the consequences of the decision, be it right or wrong one (Lou Holtz being a prime example).
My parents are at risk individuals, despite not being anywhere near death's doorstep otherwise. Probably be going more than a year without seeing them (in person, anyways), when I usually see them 4-6 times a year. I feel bad for the kids, and I don't blame them one bit for however they feel. But, in terms of being a fan (and I'm a guy that watches as much as he can on Saturdays), not seeing the Huskers is far less important than not seeing my parents.
Holtz isn't wrong. We are at war. We're at war with a virus. It's a multi-front war with the goals being the same: you need to identify the enemy, isolate him, find his weakness and destroy him. Which is what we're trying to do. And the battlefields are hospitals and labs.
And just like any other war, we are going to take casualties. What, the USA was going to be the only country with no COVID deaths? So the issue isn't how many casualties are acceptable. The issue is how many casualties can you prevent while still doing your job, maintaining an economy and living your lives on the home front.
I suppose we could have won WWII a year early by shoving every civilian into "Metropolis"-style workers dorms, seizing every private car and bicycle from everybody and make everybody at home over 16 turn 18 hour shifts making bombs and planes. How many thousands of lives would we have saved.
But we didn't do that.
Every year, we lose 35,000 people to highway deaths. We could drop that number to almost zero tomorrow by invoking a national 20 mph speed limit across the board. Why don't we do that? You know the reason.
In this case , we are at war with an enemy that poses practically zero danger to college students. They're more likely to die in a car wreck driving to their dorms on move-in day.
Life - like football - is a contact sport. Wanna stay clean? Stay home. But it makes zero sense to bring regular college kids back to campus while at the same time prevent them from playing sports.
Makes no sense. The numbers don't support it. But these are political decisions, not athletic or scientific ones.
All this to say that Holtz isn't wrong. It just sounds bad.
And just like any other war, we are going to take casualties. What, the USA was going to be the only country with no COVID deaths? So the issue isn't how many casualties are acceptable. The issue is how many casualties can you prevent while still doing your job, maintaining an economy and living your lives on the home front.
I suppose we could have won WWII a year early by shoving every civilian into "Metropolis"-style workers dorms, seizing every private car and bicycle from everybody and make everybody at home over 16 turn 18 hour shifts making bombs and planes. How many thousands of lives would we have saved.
But we didn't do that.
Every year, we lose 35,000 people to highway deaths. We could drop that number to almost zero tomorrow by invoking a national 20 mph speed limit across the board. Why don't we do that? You know the reason.
In this case , we are at war with an enemy that poses practically zero danger to college students. They're more likely to die in a car wreck driving to their dorms on move-in day.
Life - like football - is a contact sport. Wanna stay clean? Stay home. But it makes zero sense to bring regular college kids back to campus while at the same time prevent them from playing sports.
Makes no sense. The numbers don't support it. But these are political decisions, not athletic or scientific ones.
All this to say that Holtz isn't wrong. It just sounds bad.
You people would have everyone huddle (6 feet apart) in a dank basement using a string and 2 tin cans to communicate, tell your children we are all dead men walking.....and you are mistaken if you don't understand the invisible war we ARE engaged in.
By the way take ALL risk factors that apply, what do you get? NOTHING a big fat depressed NOTHING, you people have to be riot to hang with during a family reunion...but wait you dont have those either "cave dwellers"
The decision by the B1G and Pac 12 wasn't about COVID deaths.
People in World War II were asked to sacrifice. Men enlisted or were drafted into the military. Those that weren't medically fit for service helped out by working in war-related industries (maternal grandfather flew 35 combat missions in a B-17; paternal grandparents met and got married while working for Boeing). Civilians were restricted in, and largely complied with, new regulations as to the amount of certain goods they were allowed to purchase (milk, bacon, sugar, coffee, gasoline, etc.). All people are being asked to do right now are wear effing masks while out in public areas, and not have large gatherings...and that's too much of a loss of freedom according to way too many people. Or....they're worried about a 5G tracking chip being embedded in their mask, as they sit using their cell phone to tweet or check in on Facebook, and paying for everything with a credit card.
We lose World War II if Americans had the same attitudes about the rationing of goods then as they have about wearing masks now.
Yeah...we'd likely save more lives if we lowered the speed limit. We'd also lose more if we allowed drunk driving, had no speed limits, could drive on whatever side of the road we want...at anytime we want, made seat belts optional, and took other safety features off of cars (who really needs windshield wipers, right?).
The purpose of a college is education, not a forum for college football. Therefore, having class is a risk they are willing to take, as opposed to sending some students to another part of the country and spending 3 hours breathing on each other. BTW--there is no way any of the schools don't have a plan to transition to on-line/remote if the campus has an outbreak...which would end football anyhow.
Perhaps most importantly.....neither you nor I will be held accountable for any consequences (good or bad) for decisions made regarding college football, and nor were we privy to the same info provided by the folks that are more knowledgeable about this situation than you or I are. In short, it's pretty easy for you, Lou Holtz, and myself, to bark from the cheap seats about decisions we don't like.
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I appreciate your perspective.
But once you get college kids back to campus, put them in dorms, classes, rec centers etc . . . kids are gonna get COVID. It's going to happen. And that sounds like a risk Universities are willing to take given that college age kids are practically immune to this crap.
But if an athlete gets sick, how is anybody supposed to determine whether that athlete got sick playing his or her sport as opposed to just getting it by doing what regular students do? Including playing sports, if not organized ones? It seems that the assumption is that if an athlete get sick, its a result of playing sports. From a causation standpoint, that's an impossible thing to prove.
If kids are back on campus, then athletes should compete since the risks to both can't be parsed out.
The easy road is to say we aren't playing. That's just a fact. It's that way in life, 'no' is generally the way out.
Virtue-signaling liberal sports media is clearly trying to force the other three conferences to fall in line (and N as well). The cost to society of stepping-aside is not a consideration in their minds. All that matters is compliance.
Virtue-signaling liberal sports media is clearly trying to force the other three conferences to fall in line (and N as well). The cost to society of stepping-aside is not a consideration in their minds. All that matters is compliance.
"And that sounds like a risk Universities are willing to take given that college age kids are practically immune to this crap."
The death rate is very low. They're not immune; kids have tested positive.. The issue isn't deaths; it's the frequency and severity of myocarditis infections, and the mysteries around what they're seeing.
Another concern of the Pac 12, besides the heart issue, was that the time it was taking for test results to return was pretty varied among the locations within the conference footprint.
Regarding your second paragraph....that's why I have said in other posts that if Nebraska and Michigan were to go rogue, the university leadership needs to tell Frost and Harbaugh to keep their mouths shut about how hunky-dory everything is, and about how their players are adhering to strict protocol and not taking stupid risks.
Going by your user name, I am assuming that you work in the legal field. Let's say Michigan went rogue and played. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if a player developed complications and sued Michigan, wouldn't the kid's lawyer use Harbaugh's own words against the school in order to help establish that the player got sick through football-related activities ("If your players are adhering to strict protocols, then how else did he get it")? Then, I'd imagine the school would throw the player under the bus...say, for hanging out at his girlfriends house. It just seems to me that the school loses in the public opinion/PR realm in that situation...even if it wins the case.
As far as your last paragraph....to me, it's an extra risk to the student body as a whole when you send 50-75 of your students to another state for the weekend when you don't have to...regardless of how many risks exist in your locale. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.
And, like I said...easy for us when we're not going to be on the hook for anything....but I appreciate the civility; it often lacks on here, and I'm guilty of that at times myself.
Yeah not much of a comparison considering Normandy had a 90%+ mortality rate in the 1st waves and COVID is basically....next to zero.
I mean there's a general disconnect with comparing a war and playing the game of football.
A more specific problem with the "we were willing to tolerate casualties" line of reasoning is that in that era in particular, we had govt censorship and delayed timeframes on news reporting. Americans wouldn't be in the loop enough to influence the action in advance and wouldn't always get the full story anyway.
That's certainly not the case in a modern media environment where football sources damn near livestream closed door meetings over twitter in real time and American parents are painfully aware of all the different routes they could use to seek money from the Unis if they feel their little Johnny was endangered.
A more specific problem with the "we were willing to tolerate casualties" line of reasoning is that in that era in particular, we had govt censorship and delayed timeframes on news reporting. Americans wouldn't be in the loop enough to influence the action in advance and wouldn't always get the full story anyway.
That's certainly not the case in a modern media environment where football sources damn near livestream closed door meetings over twitter in real time and American parents are painfully aware of all the different routes they could use to seek money from the Unis if they feel their little Johnny was endangered.
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