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(see also: The Troubling Gap Between Texas...and Everyone Else)

Smaller is better: Athletic director Tom Osborne may not enjoy doing it, but he needs to ask whether golf and tennis programs, which ate up more than $2 million in expenses compared to a little over $100,000 in revenue, are truly necessary, especially when fan support is scant and the men’s golf team conducts its home meets in Nebraska City.

A no-spin zone on baseball: Osborne needs to closely watch Nebraska’s baseball program over the next year and assess whether Mike Anderson has the coaching skill and recruiting acumen to lead NU into the next decade. Not whether he did or didn’t make the grade five years ago.

Volleyball bucks: Osborne needs to consider whether Nebraska’s volleyball team should make the full-time leap from the NU Coliseum to the Bob Devaney Sports Center, where the Huskers can draw twice as many season-ticket holders and the sport can pay for itself. The Coliseum can still be used once or twice a year, for specific big matches, and Osborne can institute a tiered season ticket system for those coveted seats.

Grapplers: He needs to promote the Nebraska wrestling team smarter and harder, especially considering Omaha’s Qwest Center is hosting the 2010 NCAA Championships. NU’s squad has an outside shot at the national title next year, and a solid first semester schedule. Bo Pelini’s a good friend of wrestling coach Mark Manning; maybe it’s time for a TV ad.

Tough questions: He needs to ask, now that Nebraska has a terrific coaching staff, whether the operational side of the football program is being run as efficiently as it could be. Osborne is respected enough to make hard inquiries and necessary adjustments.

Help hoops: He has to figure out some way, any way, to get 10,000 Husker basketball fans inside Devaney before Kansas comes to town. The men’s basketball team was ninth in the Big 12 for revenue while the women’s team was 11th. If that means a better schedule for men and free tickets for the women, so be it. People have to see the product before they buy the product.

To that end, Osborne has wisely vowed to resolve the arena issue within the next year, whether it’s full-speed ahead on some Haymarket palace, or a revamp of Devaney. Wisely, Osborne won’t allow the athletic department to get dragged into city politics and the mercurial nature of Lincoln voters. Lincoln will do what it does, and considering the city can’t devise a way to get across town in 15 minutes, the arena may end up being a long shot. Good to see Osborne has a contingency plan at Devaney. Now, if he can just get some reasonable parking around it.

Spend football donor dollars wisely: Not blow them on baubles and trinkets, like ribbon boards inside Memorial Stadium. Enough of that stuff. The stadium experience is fine. It’s a football game, not a light show. Dump the media guides if you have to do it. Reporters know how to go online, and Huskers.com is a fine Web site anyhow. Spend it on people – coaches, administrators, down-the-line support staffers. Nebraska can’t afford to lose talent over a thousand here or there. In other words: Do what it takes to retain offensive coordinator Shawn Watson.

Beat Texas – and the rest of the Big 12 - where the Longhorns haven’t thought to fight: Osborne’s ahead of the game there with his student life complex initiative, which can be turned into one of Bo Pelini’s best recruiting tools when it is completed.

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See also: A Conversation with Phil Steele

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(Pictured above: Oklahoma State's practice facility, courtesy of Picasa)

With the Haymarket Arena deal put on ice for the next year or so, Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne dished to the Lincoln Journal-Star earlier this week about his plans to proceed with a new practice facility that would include space for the men’s and women’s basketball teams, the wrestling bunch and the women’s gymnastics crew.

The price tag is around $16 million - $8 million more than Iowa State’s much more focused, ongoing project and $6 million less than Texas A&M’s recently-opened Bonanza.

If you follow Husker hoops at all, you know the local media is pretty firm in its belief that NU is currently at a competitive and recruiting disadvantage because it practices at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Players occasionally miss practice because of scheduling conflicts, and the team occasionally had to bunch together in the undersized second floor gym of Mabel Lee Hall – a joint they probably don’t show to recruits on their recruiting trip.

Nebraska coach Doc Sadler is more deferential on the matter; wisely, he defers to Osborne and Co. when it comes to a development timeline. But he’s straight up about it: NU could use a practice facility as soon as it can get one.

“Most definitely we need it,” Sadler said. “…If you just want to be a part of this league, then you really don’t need anything. You can be a part of it. But if you want to compete, then you need to do what everybody else is doing, and that’s the commitment Nebraska has always made.”

Now, practically, a new facility doesn’t necessarily solve every scheduling conflict for players. Guys will miss a workout at times, or leave early, or arrive late. Heck, that’s Bo Pelini’s life every day.

Rather, this boils down to recruiting, and the image Nebraska presents. A building, the argument goes says “we’re big-time committed.” Did kids appreciate those subliminal messages?
While junior forward Ryan Anderson said it “always helps to have nice facilities,” he added: “I based my decision solely on people and academics.”

In other words, not the surroundings?

“Man, it has to be deeper than that,” Anderson said.

That said, Anderson mentioned he hadn’t seen a wrestling meet at NU until last week. Why? Space constraints meant if the Husker basketball team was around Devaney, the wrestling team wasn’t.

“A new facility would help out everybody,” he said.
We’re not entirely sure a new practice facility would be the clincher for any recruit anywhere. We are after all, talking about practice.

But could the absence of a facility in, say 2012, when every other Big 12 school has one, turn a recruit off? It’s worth considering.

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