If you're paying attention, you know it's Nebraska week at Off Tackle Empire (OTE). I've already shared part of today's story about Bo Pelini, and I agree with the author that Bo Pelini's biggest problem is that he's living in the shadow of Tom Osborne. Unfortunately, that's how it's going to be for any coach at Nebraska.

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Did I ever tell you about the time I ran for student body president at the University of Nebraska? No? Well, I did. In fact, I did on multiple occasions. It started out as a joke, actually. I was walking back to campus late one night, probably after spending a few hours at the Zoo Bar or Horsefeathers, and I saw a bunch of people in line for tickets for a concert (it wasn't the Bruce Springsteen line in 1984, I was in that line but that's an entirely different story). Being the smartass that I've always been, I walked up, started shaking hands and started telling everyone my name and that I was running for student body president.

A few weeks later I was encouraged by a roommate who was involved in to formally announce my election bid, which I did, by standing up on our kitchen stove and announcing that I wanted everyone in the house to write my name in on the ballot in the upcoming election. (Just to be clear - the stove was not on at the time, but holy crap was it hot near the top of the room. I nearly fainted from the heat of having so many people crammed into our house.)

Being a non-Greek, there was no chance of being elected, but I didn't have to buy a beer for the next few weeks. The next year, we got a little more formal with it, but maybe I'll talk about that later. It's a long offseason. One thing I know - I might not have even done as well as Craig James, but it didn't cost me near as much to get destroyed and I had a helluva lot of fun in the process.

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When Nebraska joined the Big Ten, the general feeling amongst Husker fans was that the Big Ten was bad in baseball. Not BAD as in good, but bad as in awful. The attitude towards B1G baseball was so negative that when Husker fans talked about baseball they had a tendency to separate "Nebraska baseball" from the rest of the new conference. It made for an interesting contrast - in all the other sports, Nebraska was happy to be in the B1G. In baseball, it was like the B1G had a disease.

There was also a tendency by Husker fans to blame the last guy out, which in this case was former baseball head coach Mike Anderson. Anderson's last three teams finished tenth, ninth, and ninth in the Big 12 conference, missing the postseason conference tourney all three seasons.

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CN would like to thank the veterans of our armed services for having stood in harms ways so that we haven't had to. And a special thanks to those who have given the supreme sacrifice, laying down their lives for our freedom.

It's another elimination game for both teams as Nebraska faces Ohio State this morning at 11:05 AM. Nebraska gets here by virtue of their 12-3 win over Penn State while Ohio State lost last night 5-4 to Purdue. The Buckeyes kept it close and made it interesting in the ninth inning, scoring one run and placing runners on first and second before Purdue closer Nitt Wiggren closed the door, striking out the final batter.

Nebraska wil start Senior RHP Dexter Spitsnogle. Spitsnogle has not been a regular starter, having only two conference starts on the season. His last start, however, was the finest of his career, going 6.2 innings against Michigan, striking out six and throwing a shutout until the bottom of the seventh.

The winner of this game will face Michigan State in another elimination game after this game is completed.

You have to feel somewhat good about Nebraska's chances today. They've scored 21 runs in the past two games and now that we're a few games into the tourney, the pitching ranks are getting thinner. The good thing (in a twisted way) about the Huskers is that we don't have a shutdown pitcher - we have a number of pitchers of whom are all about the same caliber, and if THE SPITSNOGLE can deliver some quality innings, the Husker offense should be banging in more runs.

The biggest concern facing Nebraska is that the tourney is being played in Columbus, Ohio. Huntington Park isn't the Buckeyes home field, but it's in Columbus just the same.

Join Us Here at CN if for no other reason than baseball is staving off a long, cold offseason of Husker sports. That and it would be sweet to beat Ohio State in any sport!

GO BIG RED!

Nebraska faces Penn State today in the Big Ten Baseball tournament. Both teams lost yesterday, dropping both to the loser's bracket, which means the loser that loses today will have doubly lost and therefore will be eliminated.

Penn State will start Steven Hill, while Nebraska will go with Ryan Hander.

The game will be televised on BTN and streamed online at BTN2GO.com. You can follow the Live Stats tracker here.

Join us as we hope the Huskers don't end their season just yet. One more win, guys, just one more win.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers meet the Michigan State Spartans in the first round of the 2012 Big Ten tournament this morning. The two teams didn't meet during the regular season, so there are no angles on revenge or keeping Sparty down (although that'd be nice).

The game will be televised live on BTN and streamed on BTN2GO, so I expect lively game thread action as you all stream the game at work and try to keep your overlords from finding out.

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The Big Ten released its annual all-conference baseball teams and individual award winners today. Purdue picked up the majority of the individual awards with Doug Schreiber winning Coach of the Year, catcher Kevin Plawecki Player of the Year and pitcher Joe Haase Pitcher of the Year.

Several Huskers were named to Big Ten All-Conference teams. Nebraska shortstop Chad Christensen, outfielder Rich (Sangria) Sanguinetti and designated hitter Michael Pritchard made the first team.

Third baseman Josh Scheffert made the second team while first baseman Richard Stock, second baseman Pat Kelly and pitcher Kyle Kubat made the third team.

Kelly, Kubat, and outfielder Austin Darby made the All-Freshman Team, while Cody Burleson was honored with a Sportsmanship Award.

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Good news for those of you who are waiting in line for Nebraska season tickets! You can pick up four Nebraska Cornhuskers football season tickets right now on eBay!

All yours for the price of $13,215!!!!

Now, I'm not a Nebraska season ticket holder, but it seems to me that if I were paying just over $3,300 apiece for a season ticket to anything, they'd better be damned good seats.

Fear not! They're great! Best in the stadium!

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Purdue won the regular season outright this week, but frankly, in pretty lousy fashion. They only needed to win a game, and that's what they did - one game against a pretty mediocre (being nice) Iowa squad - a pretty disappointing ending to a great regular season.

Maybe I'm being harsh on Purdue. And then again, maybe not.

Indiana, though, wow! Way to come out of nowhere to finish second when you weren't even on the radar at the beginning of the season.

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The Big Ten conference has released the bracket for the 2012 Big Ten baseball tournament. The tournament is a double elimination format featuring the top six teams of the conference and is being played at Huntington Park in Columbus, Ohio. (Warning: clicking on the Huntington Park link at this time will bring up a photo of REO Speedwagon trying to masquerade as twenty-somethings.)

Purdue earned the #1 seed after winning their first Ben Ten title since 1909. The Boilermakers finished with a 17-7 record and this is the first time in the history of the tournament that Purdue is the top seed. Indiana earned the #2 seed with a 16-8 record. Those two teams will earn a bye in the first round.

The next seeds in order are Penn State (15-9), Nebraska (14-10), Michigan State (13-11) and Ohio State (11-13). Ohio State tied with Minnesota and Illinois, but won the three-team tiebreaker.

The tourney will start Wednesday at 11:05 AM Central when Nebraska takes on Michigan State. The next game will start at approximately 2:35 PM Central as Ohio State takes on Penn State.

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Nebraska travels to Ann Arbor to take on the Michigan Wolverines in the Big Ten last conference series of the 2012 season. The Huskers will fight to see what seed they'll earn in the Big Ten tournament next week. That's assuming they don't get swept, of course.

The series will run from Thursday through Saturday this week, with the Thursday and Friday games starting at 5:05 pm, and the Saturday game starting at 12:05 pm. None of the games are televised, but will be streamed live on the Big Ten Digital Network (subscription required).

The Huskers are one game behind second place teams Indiana and Penn State, with a one-game lead over Ohio State and a two-game lead over Minnesota. Nebraska is currently tied with Michigan State.

Nebraska needs to win one game to secure a spot in the tourney.

Nebraska (32-20, 12-9 Big Ten) at Michigan (21-32, 7-14 Big Ten)

Thursday - 5:05 PM
Kyle Kubat, Fr., LHP (4-0) vs. Matt Ogden, Fr., RHP (3-3)

Friday - 5:05 PM
Ryan Hander, Jr. RHP (2-0) vs. Brandon Sinnery, Sr., RHP (4-5)

Saturday - 12:05 PM
TBA vs. Ben Ballantine, Jr., RHP (2-3)

This isn't much of a preview, but it is a spot for a game thread. NOW!

Below are the current standings in baseball as we enter the last weekend of the regular season. Given the logjam below Purdue, the weekend could result in a fair amount of drama.

What I'm trying to do here is predict the results for the weekend just to project as to where everyone might end up with regards to seedings and who makes the Big Ten tournament.

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Last year during the offseason, I swore that I'd spend more time learning about football statistics and how to present them in a visually interesting format. It never happened. This year has rolled around and it remains a goal. I think it would make things more interesting to digest, although, I have to be honest, it's probably less interesting to people than if we were to do more photoshops of Urban Meyer or Brady Hoke in compromising positions involving farm animals. Maybe that's another goal.

In any case, I have taken what might the most uninteresting set of statistics in college athletics - Big Ten baseball statistics - and created a few data visualizations if for no other reason than to see if I can get any reaction from them.

After the jump are the data visualizations. I am using IBM's Many Eyes, which is fairly simple to use. It requires that you have java running in your browser, but a lot of sites use java so that requirement isn't so uncommon.

I'll be honest - the visualizations do have some problems. Percentages, for example, are rounded to the point that there are little differences between them. If you look at the Fielding Statistics visualization you'll see little difference between the teams until you look at the individual statistics (Indiana - passed balls and erors, wow!).

In any case, I hope you find it interesting. If you do, leave some comments, please, and if you think it's just a waste of time, well let me know that too.

Enjoy.....

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A couple of weeks ago I was asked by the mothership to implore y'all to go over and subscribe to the SB Nation Youtube channel. I had it all written and ready to go, but right around then I had a problem while at work that lead to me taking my first ambulance ride and I'd forgotten all about it until I happened to see it amongst my unpublished drafts.

So, I'd appreciate it if you'd consider subscribing to the SB Nation Youtube channel. There you go, I've done my bit.

Oh, except that SB Nation released a new game called Pick 6 - a type of baseball fantasy game where you have limited cash and have to pick the best six baseball players at their position. It's addictive and then you win. There you go. Now I have my bases covered.

My ambulance ride happened after I completely lost control of my balance, suffered from slurred speech, and basically became a blubbering, useless mass.

I know what you're thinking.

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My predictions from last Friday as to how the weekend would turn out were pretty close. Penn State and Indiana remain the surprise stories of the conference, although Purdue should remain in the spotlight as they clinched at least a share of the Big Ten title, their first since 1909.

Nebraska stepped on Minnesota's head, driving them into desperate territory and giving the Huskers a boost by sweeping them in Lincoln. Penn State swept Illinois at home and drove them from postseason consideration.

Things are taking shape for the Big Ten tournament. At this point, it's Purdue's conference. With Penn State and Indiana sitting at second and RPI's of 116 and 105, they're not exactly qualifiers for the NCAA tournament. Someone besides Purdue, Indiana or Penn State needs to win the tournament to get a second qualifier from the Big Ten into the NCAA tournament.

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It's pretty simple. Nebraska needs to win their series against Minnesota this weekend if they want to maintain their chances of postseason play.

Nebraska is currently in seventh place in the Big Ten in baseball. Only the top six teams make the Big Ten Tournament.

If that seems melodramatic, it's not. This is a team that hasn't made a postseason tournament in three years. They're also basically the same team that got Mike Anderson fired. If they want to stop people like me saying things like that, then it's time to suck it up and win a home series against a good team.

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There's NO OFFSEASON!

Such is the battle cry of college football. It's complete load of poop, of course, but we keep making things up anyway. How's that for cynicism?

There are issues lingering from 2011 I still haven't written about, and Nebraska spring football left us with little to nothing tangible. There are questions, but we have a while to get to them - it's a ways to go before August.

In the meantime, there's a Top 25 to update. Things have happened. A coach of a team I had ranked in the Top 10 had an affair, wrecked his motorcycle, then lied about it to his boss and lost his job. He was replaced by a coach that most people remember for saying silly things and slapping himself in the face.

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Jon: This article is inspired by tonight's debate about banning college football that's being sponsored by Intelligence Squared. The debate features Malcolm Gladwell and Buzz Bissinger versus Tim Green and Jason Whitlock. Let's just say I wouldn't have chosen Bissinger or Whitlock and be expected to be taken seriously, although I'm sure they'll both provide plenty of colorful commentary.

I've tried to break this down into what are basically talking points similar to what each side has proposed for the debate.

Before the debate starts, let me point out that there is nothing new here. Pundits and fans alike bemoan the loss of "student" in "student athlete" but one can look back as far as the 1929 Carnegie report for evidence that corruption and issues with academics were prevalent in college football. And college football history fans are well aware than in 1905 several footballers were killed due to the violence in the game, and had it not been for Teddy Roosvelt's intervention to make the game safter, it might have been outlawed at that time.

With regards to the point that college football detracts from the educational mission at most universities, I'll point to the University of Chicago, which dropped football in 1939 to focus on education. Ivy League schools sponsor football teams but do not provide athletic scholarships (which is somewhat of an embellishment - if you are going to play a sport there, they'll provide some tuition relief for you). All have faired well with regards to academics, but your average Joe's kids aren't going to get into any of these schools. It may well be that grade point average isn't a problem, but the cost would eliminate the rest of us riff raff.

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What a wild weekend for the Big Ten. Indiana moved into second place in the conference, taking their series 2-1 over Nebraska on the road. Penn State did the same to Minnesota. The Hoosiers moved into second place in the conference and by doing so, dropped the Huskers to seventh place and in danger of missing the Big Ten tournament.

For once, Purdue was a disappointment, losing a huge series to UCLA on the road. Michigan State stayed in contention for second by winning their series over Illinois.

As it stands right now, the biggest surprises of the season as follows:

- Purdue's absurd dominance of the Big Ten conference.

- Indiana in second place

- Penn state tied for third

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These are the Big Ten baseball standings going in this weekend's series with Indiana:

Granted, they're a little skewed because they include the result of yesterday's games, but they do illustrate a point - Nebraska has the possibility of not making the Big Ten tournament this season should they falter in these last few series. After the road trip to Indiana, Nebraska returns home to face Minnesota, then finishes the season at Michigan.

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It not need be said that football is a voilent sport. At its base, its fans revel in 300-plus pound men mashing into each other play after play. As Nebraska Cornhusker fans we hope that our big men squash the other team's big men, bringing back the glory days of Husker football when Tom Osborne's "pipeline" destroyed opponents by wearing them down and crushing them with a relentless rushing attack, sometimes with a result that was so lopsided it could be considered near slaughter.

That we're rooting for violence tends to be forgotten until a moment at which the violence stands by itself, refusing to be ignored. Such it was this week with the shock of Junior Seau's suicide. That such an icon could take his own life has given pause to football fans as they contemplate whether his death was a direct cause of playing their favorite sport.

It's left a particular mark on those who are parents who are now wondering about the sport itself, spending a lot more time pondering what may have previously been an easily answered question:

Will you let your son play football?

Andy Staples wonders about it. Former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner would rather his sons not play the game. It's the topic of forums, sports-related or not, across the Internets.

As a father to two sons, (19 and 13), I've already answered the question for one of them so I have some insight as to how I handled the situation.

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Purdue has a 3.5 game lead over Minnesota and Indiana (WHAT?) as they head into their big series at UCLA this week. Most of the top teams are about where everyone thought they'd be except the Hoosiers.

And how ‘bout Indiana, with their 93 errors on the season? How the heck they keep winning? They brought a milestone to their head coach Tracy Smith, who earned his 500th career win in the first game of Sunday's doubleheader.

Look at those standings. Keep in mind that the top six teams are the only ones who'll make the Big Ten conference tourney. There will be plenty of drama over the next couple weeks.

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Soon after the NFL Draft ended last night, several former Husker players were pleased to announce on twitter that they would get their shot at the big time by joining teams as undrafted free agents.

Brandon Kinnie will get his shot with Kansas City Chiefs:

Terrence Moore got picked up by the Baltimore Ravens:

And Jermarcus Hardrick got picked by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

They all get their shot, their opportunity, to make a team.

I'd like to think that all three of them are decent enough to make a team, but honestly, Kinnie has to cure his dropsie problem and Yoshi needs to get a quicker first step. I can see Hardrick making the cut at guard, but as a tackle he was beaten by South Carolina's Melvin Ingram in the Capital One Bowl, and Ingram is the kind of guy he'll face every down in the NFL.

We wish them the best of luck at making it at the next level!