Welcome to Husker Heartbeat - a sampling of links and quick wit to start your morning! Keep checking each morning, Monday-Friday, for new links! We look for the offbeat as well as the straightforward - so don’t just think of us as a typical link farm!

A quick abbreviation key FYI: OWH=Omaha World-Herald, LJS=Lincoln Journal-Star, CN=Corn Nation, BRN=Big Red Network, HI=Huskers Illustrated, BRR=Big Red Report. If we need to add more - we will. Others, like ESPN, are self-explanatory.

Cool? Cool!

*Joba Chamberlain’s two-year-old documentary, produced by the New York Yankees, finally gets aired on NET Tuesday night. And Celtic Thunder on Friday!

*LJS’ Steve Sipple applauds the work of Connie Yori, tracing at least some of her success to closing practice. This presumes, of course, that anybody before this season was all that interested in watching. Sorry for the jab, but six spectators in the caverns of the Devaney Sports Center wouldn’t make one lick of difference to the excellence of this team. Open practices don’t appear to hurt the Nebraska volleyball team, either.

*Big 12 Commish Dan Beebe isn’t necessarily married to keeping the Big 12 football Championship in Dallas every year. Nebraska fans may prefer this, but we don’t - unless a different site other than the frigid Kansas City is found.

*You want to know what the Nebraska’s women’s basketball team is up against in the NCAA Tournament? Nothing less the greatest dynasty in women’s college basketball. Hooray! Time the strike the Philistine, eh?

*ESPN’s Joe Schad put out his list of 100 college football players to watch for 2010. Jared Crick weighs in at No. 30. He’s the only Husker on the list. Oklahoma, meanwhile, has six players. So pencil in OU for the national title, we guess. There isn’t an offensive lineman on the list, and only four defensive linemen, so it’s eminently clear Schad did copious research on the topic.

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... and then they ranked Gerald McCoy ahead of Ndamukong Suh (not to mention Eric Berry, who is also significantly better at his position than McCoy is at his). Despite the stats, the workouts, and all other indications staring them in the face, the "expert" NFL Draft analysts (most notably supergenius Todd McShay) insist on rating McCoy (2010 All American, 34 tackles, 6 sacks) ahead of Suh (2010 All American, Nagurski Award/Bednarik Award/Outland Award/Lombardi Award winner, Heisman Trophy Finalist, 82 tackles, 12 sacks, int) because he is a "better all around DT". Not really that important, i just found this a bit amusing.

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Nebraska will be playing a Thursday night road game on ESPN for the second straight season.

NU will travel to Kansas State Oct. 7. The game had originally been scheduled for Oct. 2. Kickoff time will be determined later.

The schedule change will reduce the amount of time NU has to prepare for the Oct. 16 Texas game, but may allow the Huskers to switch out the Sept. 25 opponent, South Dakota State.

ESPN wanted Nebraska and Texas for Oct. 14. The Huskers were on board; the Longhorns were not.

Last year, Nebraska beat Missouri 27-12 in a driving rainstorm on ESPN.

The Huskers also announced season ticket prices would not go up in 2010. Season ticket holders will pay $54 per ticket. Students will pay $21.

“Our fans have been the most loyal college football fans in the country for several decades,” Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne said. “We certainly appreciate their continued support and expect that they will continue to enjoy the experience of coming to Memorial Stadium in 2010.”

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Per the Omaha World-Herald's Tom Shatel Tuesday morning, ESPN offered Nebraska and Texas Thursday night, Oct. 14, for a showcase spot. NU, hosting the game at Memorial Stadium, was on board.

UT was not, citing, apparently, concerns over missing class.

Nebraska is now looking at moving the Oct. 2 Kansas State game back to Sept. 30. That would mean NU only had four days to prepare for the Wildcats, but, considering the Sept. 25 opponent is South Dakota State, you figure the Huskers could manage.

Of course, if Nebraska does opt for the Sept. 30 KSU/ESPN game, it's unlikely NU would try to replace SDSU as the Sept. 25 opponent, as had been rumored.

Maybe Texas will change its mind. Given that a Thursday night in Lincoln for UT would be nothing short of utter chaos in the Memorial Stadium stands, we somehow doubt it.

Talk about it here!

Join Husker Locker today - it's free!

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Excellent piece on Nebraska's former quarterback, now coach at Buffalo, and his response to not being hired at Auburn.

Well worth the watch...

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So it's Nebraska's turn today in ESPN's "College Football Live 50 States" Tour. The show airs at 3:30 ET and 2:30 CT. The show recounts the history of football in the state - Nebraska's ought to be quite rich - and looks at the team in 2009.

Here is the place to vote for the best Husker players, teams and coaches in history.

We'll have a full recap later today.

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ESPN's Tim Griffin predicts a Big 12 North title for Nebraska next year, with the runner-up being...Kansas State and Colorado. No Kansas.

Take it for what it's worth, Locker Nation. Griffin knows his way around the league. He's also wrong about K-State.

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As writer Mark Schlabach - an SEC/Georgia guy, but still a general lover of college football - tabs NU 19th in his second of what will be many preseason top 25 polls.

NU's got quite a few foes in that same list. OU is No. 2. Virginia Tech is No. 5 (and probably better than that) and Kansas is No. 20. No Missouri, Texas Tech or Baylor, which I think could be knocking loudly at the top 25 door next year, and stands as one of Nebraska's toughest games next year.

Here's what Mark sez:

"In his first season as Nebraska's coach, Bo Pelini went a long way toward restoring the pride in the Cornhuskers' defense. Nebraska will have to worry more about its offense going into the 2009 season after losing quarterback Joe Ganz, tailback Marlon Lucky and receivers Todd Peterson and Nate Swift. Patrick Witt and Zac Lee will battle to replace Ganz, and Roy Helu looked like Nebraska's best running back at times during the 2008 season. Seven starters should be back on defense, including Ndamukong Suh, who returned to school instead of entering the NFL draft. The Big 12 schedule might set up nicely for the Cornhuskers, who will play Texas Tech and Oklahoma at home and won't play Texas during the regular season."

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(Above, the ESPN logo, all Vadered out)




And if you think this is great news, eh, think again.



Here's the skinny: ESPN's gonna get the BCS for 2011-2014, taking it away from Fox, which owns it for two more years and never seemed all that interested in college football in the first place.




CBS and NBC apparently don't want to bid (although there's little doubt, after NBC's great, compelling camerawork in the Olympics, that they certainly could pull it off, with an Al Michaels/John Madden called BCS title game). And ABC is owned, like ESPN, by Disney.




When the deal is finalized, Disney will shift all of the BCS games to ESPN. Let me repeat: The BCS title game will be on pay television. And not just any pay television; it'll be on ESPN. The network that invades our lives daily with annoying crosstalk and noise as it continues its never-ending quest to pit USC against Florida in some game, any game.




The BCS and university presidents, which are negotiating this deal, don't much care, because ESPN's bid was higher and most college football fans have the network anyway.



But here's why you should care.




1. Your cable/satellite dish bill will go up. Might as well simply count on it as ESPN will be able to charge a much higher fee to any cable company to carry the network, and that cable company - say, TimeWarner or Cox or Comcast - will in turn pass those charges on to the consumer. How much more will it be? Good question.




If you think this is a small issue - trust us. It's not. ESPN has had negotiating wars with many cable companies/dish networks over its "carriage fee." There was a particularly public fight with Cox four years ago that went all the way to Washington, D.C. You're talking about two corporate giants, duking it out.




We don't have to tell you about what's going on with the NFL Network; chances are you already know. Could cable companies cut off ESPN, or send it to a higher tier of subscription? Maybe, but the BCS is a giant bargaining chip for the Sports Mouse. Chances are good the cable companies will yell "uncle" and just pass the costs on, knowing full well the consumer can't do without college football bowl season.




2. Forget a playoff. At least until 2014, when this current deal would expire, but likely well beyond. ESPN was a primary critic of the BCS in recent years - because it didn't have the BCS. Now that it does, expect the criticism to dial down to the SEC only guys on CBS - and nobody much cares what they think.



And if you're imagining that ESPN might morph the BCS into an eight-team playoff or something, just remember: A true "playoff" likely falls back under the domain of the NCAA. That would possibly be an entirely separate contract to negotiate for television rights. And ESPN might not get those rights.





3. More ESPN talking heads talking more rot. The worry about ESPN trying to influence public opinion - the voters in the Coaches' Poll and Harris Poll, for example - is entirely legitimate. Then again, ESPN's stabs at undue influence haven't much worked, have they? Nebraska made it in 2001 over the loud protests of the network. Ditto Florida State in 2000, an undeserving Oklahoma in 2003.





Mostly, this is bad because ESPN/ABC analysts are trying to stir the pot every week by staging phony debates just to get football fans riled up and hooked on the banter. It makes for a long, annoying day where the coverage is focused on "storylines" instead of the game itself. Hence, we'll see the same four highlights of the same four games for four days. And I don't know about you, but Alabama is one boring team for repetitive highlight packages.





4. More sports will follow. If college football makes hay on pay TV, even bigger sports will follow. March Madness. The Super Bowl. All of the horse races. The World Series. Every golf major except the Masters, which still appreciates something other than the highest bidder.




In the long-term, that's a bad thing, because it begins to move other sports off the basic extended cable platter to an even deeper level of cable tiers, or maybe on to pay-per-view. Might there be a day when you can't watch the NFL Playoffs unless you're willing to pay $29.95 for a one-day pass? Probably.




But could it happen to the Duke-North Carolina basketball series? Maybe.



I guess there is one industry that could be pleased over these developments: Radio.


Agree? Disagree? Let us know about it! Join now!

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