ESPN Radio had the University of Houston's A.D. Dave Maggert on their program yesterday. The discussion centered on Nebraska breaking their oral committment with UH and ESPN television to play 1-AA Maine. Maggert said he had to hear about Nebraska dumping the game with Houston from a third party...he then had to call Steve Peterson who said that "NU had decided to go in a different direction". Maggert then called ESPN television to see if they were aware that Nebraska had broken their oral contract...their response was "you've got to be kidding!" I move like this is so unpresidented that ESPN is assisting UH in attempting to find them an opponent for there now open date. Maggert has been in this game a long time and has never seen anything like the actions of the Nebraska athletic department. We truely are in a new era for Nebraska football...an era where your "word" means nothing... an era where it is more important to have a home game with a 1-AA school than play a respectable D1 school on national television...an era where style is much more important than substance. What a disgrace.

Heres what really happened


"I guess it is true that SP did agree to the game. However, he gave them a 3 wk deadline to get the contract done & he required that the ESPN deal be in writing as well. Well two months later, the contract showed up. It wasn't signed by anyone for one thing & also didn't include anything about being on ESPN. When it didn't have the ESPN deal in writing, that is when he called up the AD from Maine & got the deal done in a short period of time."


(not originally written by me)

I agree. SP may not be the greatest, but this thing is Houston's fault.
And ESPN is helping them, because ESPN will lose out if they don't have the game. They aren't helping because of what Nebraska did, but because they will lose money.

Why didn't the A.D. from Houston require a written contract? Why was ESPN shocked that Nebraska backed out? There were many conversations between ESPN, UH, and NU ...all agreeing on the date, game and national television coverage. ESPN can and will find a game for that date...they will lose nothing. In December, there aren't many D1 schedules with holes in them for the 2005 season. Was Peterson afraid UH would back out? UH sure hadn't given him any reason to believe that was going to happen. Was it an attempt to pad the schedule with another patsy in an attempt to show improvement? ABSOLUTELY! What a coward.

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Originally posted by guest:
Why didn't the A.D. from Houston require a written contract? Why was ESPN shocked that Nebraska backed out? There were many conversations between ESPN, UH, and NU ...all agreeing on the date, game and national television coverage. ESPN can and will find a game for that date...they will lose nothing. In December, there aren't many D1 schedules with holes in them for the 2005 season. Was Peterson afraid UH would back out? UH sure hadn't given him any reason to believe that was going to happen. Was it an attempt to pad the schedule with another patsy in an attempt to show improvement? ABSOLUTELY! What a coward.

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No you are just taking the ignorant view the anti-SP/BC media *cough*LJS*cough* is showing you...

SP agreed and said have a contract in writing by this date and you have a deal, SP even gave them extra time but when ESPN started making changes and Houston was being ESPNs pawn with the scheduling and saying they will play whenever. Then Steve Peterson said fine, I'll find a team that will be more than happy to play us HERE if you guys arn't going to get the job done...


Just another time SP does the best thing for the program and the media bends it to make him the bad guy... It's really getting old

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Red Rocker,

Please watch your language Shane.

Not true...I am quoting the A.D. of the University of Houston, Dave Maggart, who went on radio yesterday to explain "what really happened". This is NOT the media's interpretation of what happened...these are the words of the Athletic Director of UH. I don't believe he would go on public radio and lie about what happened. Besides, since when is playing Maine(1AA) "better for the program" than playing UH(D1), with or without ESPN???

An away game generates no money for a team... A home game generates approximately 3million for the team... and of course Dave Maggart is going to be biased, he's trying to cover his own butt...

For those of you that don't know what happened is while he was in the process of making the contract he let it out to the boosters and the media that it was going to happen and even started selling tickets to the game, thus being why he was so mad when SP got impatient with how much time he was taking with the deal and decided to go for the $$$..

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Originally posted by Red Rocker:
Please watch your language Shane.

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Sorry :-P wasnt aware the ole B-word was frowned upon, they let them say it on prime time TBS 3 times a 30 minute segmant :-P

December?
I thought the game was supposed to be sept. 10.
and ESPN wanted to move it to Sept. 1 or something like that, so they could have a thursday night game, which left NU with a hole the next week.
Thats why we backed out.
Now, I agree, Houston might be a lil tougher than Maine, and might even be a loss, but from what I remember from the newspapers is that it was an administrative backlog that kept it from getting done.

Houston had agreed to come here in 2005 and 2006...this has nothing to do with money...it has everything to do with honesty and intergrety...qualities that our A.D. seems to be lacking. Oh and by the way...we did'nt offer Houston Nutt a contract either.

quote:

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Originally posted by guest:
Houston had agreed to come here in 2005 and 2006...this has nothing to do with money...it has everything to do with honesty and intergrety...qualities that our A.D. seems to be lacking. Oh and by the way...we did'nt offer Houston Nutt a contract either.

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And we will have homegames scheduled for 2005 and 2006 also, dont say its not about the money, lol everythings about the money... Our AD did what any intelligent person looking out for the wellbeing of the program did and made sure we didnt get screwed out of Millions of Dollars at the last second... and we sure as didnt offer Houston Nutt anything over 2 million dollars considering we got a much higher profile of a coach and paying him 25% less than that

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Red Rocker,

How ridiculous...not every team can play every game at home...the only way you get 7 home games is to play patsies (Maine)that are only looking for a payday and don't require you to go to their house. Nebraska was in no danger of "getting screwed out of millions at the last second". This was all about padding the schedule for next year to show that progress? is being made after the season fell apart and ended with the first losing record in 40 years. SOS404, are you on the payroll of the athletic department to do damage control?? Your views are contradictory to about 75% of the objective people in this state who have witnessed and question the very peculiar happenings from the athletic department...this being the latest chapter. Dave Maggert said it best yesterday on ESPN radio..." I have always had nothing but the greatest repect for the people of Nebraska and their Athletic Department. I knew Bob Devaney, I knew Tom Osborne, when the gave you their word on something, that was all you needed. Things have definitely changed at Nebraska".

To be honest with you i don't care what % of the people agree with me... :-P then 75% of the people in this state are wrong lol how about that for arrogance...


Why else wouldnt we go down and play houston? Consider this is a week after we scheduled Wake Forest, A BCS conference team and a year after scheduling a home and away with a team in the national championship game this year?

So just look at the big picture for a second and you will see the media is just spinning this like a professional chinese table tennis player

It truely is a sad day in Nebraska Football history when we start ducking the likes of the University of Houston because our schedule is too tough.

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Originally posted by Rubiks Cube:
It truely is a sad day in Nebraska Football history when we start ducking the likes of the University of Houston because our schedule is too tough.

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if they are afraid of houston why schedule Wake Forest after the deal was made?

And just to prove my point Steve Pederson just said himself that the Maine deal was already done and would happen regardless of the Houston deal, Wake Forest replaced Houston

Turns out this whole thing was about National Exposure and when the Houston AD said heres the contract and btw the games going to be on CSTV instead of ESPN SP sayd whoa and went and got a bigger game with Wake Forest

You aren't so naive to believe everything Steve Peterson says are you?...we didn't offer Houston Nutt a contract either.

What I'm seeing here is this...when Bob Devaney stepped aside and Billy Byrne took over, there was a marked change in how the AD handled the athletic program and the fans who support it. Devaney was a charming, friendly, good-ol boy who could hang with the average fan even though he was the head of the athletic department.

We lost that when Byrne took over, but there wasn't a lot of turmoil within the department because there was the stabilizing force of Tom Osborne -- who Byrne was clearly playing second fiddle to because of Osborne's integrity and stature within the state -- and the fact that many of the athletic programs were in periods of success (except for baseball, which came on toward the end of Byrne's reign).

Now we have Pederson, a disciple of the program who obviously has forgotten his roots and figured that gutting an athletic program the way he did at Pittsburgh is the way to turn an athletic department around. He has started with football, and the results are fairly obvious. Before long, Barry Collier's job as basketball coach should pretty well be done (especially after watching them fizzle at Marquette last night) and the dominoes will fall accordingly among the revenue-negative sports. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sports at UNL eliminated...and when that happens you know wrestling will be in his crosshairs, regardless of how well Mark Manning has done to bring that program up.

A disregard for history in shaping an athletic program in your own image may have worked wonders at Pittsburgh, and there is a pretty good reason for that...THEY HAVE NO HISTORY! They had a short run with Tony Dorsett and Dan Marino, but other than that, what have they done in the world of college athletics?

Nebraska has won five national football titles, numerous gymnastics titles, two volleyball titles, been to the College World Series twice and competed very well among the nation's best in track and field, wrestling, softball and many other sports. Most, if not all, of that success came during the Bob Devaney/Bill Byrne era when integrity and continuity meant something and ego ran a distant (or, in Byrne's case, close) second to the overall best needs for the program.

Pederson, in his short reign, has trashed all of that integrity and reputation that UNL athletics has built over the last 40 years. There was once a time when a man's word was good enough when it came to Nebraska athletics. That day is now a distant memory, thanks to the efforts of Steve Pederson.

I trust Steve Pederson about as much as I trust the talking heads on the nightly news. And as long as he continues in his current position and continues his style of management, UNL athletics is going to suffer in all areas, from football on down.

I've been a Husker fan all of my life, and continue to this day. Right now, though, it's something of an embarrassment to be a Husker fan because of his abominable work.