Nebraska

Huskers hold the cards Teddy Greenstein Chicago Tribune The Big 12 apparently isn't big enough for both Nebraska and Texas, so I'm forecasting a split along Rose Bowl lines — Big Ten and Pac-whatever. Nebraska appears to hold the cards, even though Texas is the equivalent of a royal flush, desired by all. If the Cornhuskers leave for the Big Ten, the Big 12 might come crashing down. The conference can live with losing Missouri, but Texas might feel like a Huskers-free party is worth bolting.

Sunday night's installment of "The Walking Dead"  on AMC had it all: zombie deaths, human deaths, a car wreck, new characters, a working bar, heated arguments and - to cap it all off - a song by Maryland-based blues -metal band Clutch . The pace has slowed down a little bit compared to the last ten minutes of the midseason finale on Nov. 27, when a bunch of zombies spilled out of the barn and got blasted away in a maelstrom of...

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Los Angeles Times, which was published Thursday. THE SCENE is the president's rented vacation getaway on Martha's Vineyard, after a round of golf and before the next fund-raiser. An aide enters. Aide: This is terrible, sir. Since you took office you have visited 57 other nations and 49 of the 50 states in the Union. For some reason we've missed Nebraska, and the Omaha newspaper has taken up the cause. I guess they don't have anything else to put in the paper in August.

Tradition clearly is overrated. Nostalgia is for saps. "If memories were all I sang," Rick Nelson once sang, "I'd rather drive a truck. " You would think history might mean more in a sport that produced "Win one for the Gipper," but this is no time to be taking sentimental journeys. Before the Pacific-12 Conference called off the expansion malamutes last week, conference realignment directors were prepared to tear asunder the Apple Cup core of some of its most ancient rituals.

The Cordish Cos. of Baltimore announced plans Monday to build an outlet center and entertainment district in La Vista, Neb., a suburb of Omaha. The retail center, called The Outlets at Southport West, will be similar to Cordish's The Walk development in Atlantic City, N.J., and will include numerous brand-name retailers. The entertainment district, called Live! at Southport West, will include a mix of national and regional restaurants and entertainment venues surrounding a plaza for programmed events, including concerts and art festivals.

They met last month at a secret location to exchange materials on mission and branding and culture and finances — all those athletic-department buzzwords that make you want to flip the channel. But what struck Jim Delany, the Big Ten's button-down commissioner, was something more emotional, something that led him Friday to call Nebraska a "phenomenal fit." Delany recalled Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne telling him about how Cornhuskers fans gave Texas' Ricky Williams a standing ovation after he rushed for 150 yards in a 1998 game — a 20-16 Longhorns victory.

All-Metro football Offensive Player of the Year Raytron Leak of Edmondson, whose 17 rushing touchdowns and 15 receiving scores helped the Redskins to a 12-1 record and a state Class 2A title-game trip, has a scheduled recruiting visit today with Nebraska.The Cornhuskers are one of the eight scholarship offers Leak is considering.Others interested in him include Michigan, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Boston College and Maryland.

MIAMI -- Seven straight bowl defeats, and Nebraska wouldn't die. Seven straight bowl defeats, a 17-9 deficit in the fourth quarter, back-to-back turnovers and Nebraska kept coming back for more.Out went Brook Berringer. In came Tommie Frazier. Who would have believed it? Frazier marched the Cornhuskers down the field for a touchdown. Frazier hit Eric Alford for the two-point conversion to tie the score.It was the same stadium where Nebraska had lost the past three Orange Bowls. It was the same end zone where Miami foiled the Cornhuskers' two-point attempt to win their first national championship in 1984.

MIAMI -- Nebraska fullback Omar Soto was looking forward to tonight's Federal Express Orange Bowl game against Miami. It was going to be a part reunion, part redemption.But now it won't happen.Soto, a fifth-year senior from Miami, was ruled ineligible yesterday by Nebraska and the 9-1-1 Cornhuskers likely will have to forfeit two league victories as well as their share of the Big Eight championship.Soto admitted yesterday that he played briefly at Mount San Antonio Junior College during the 1986 season before playing two seasons at Arizona Western and the last two at Nebraska.

MIAMI -- What is this, a death wish? It isn't enough that Nebraska has lost seven straight bowl games. Coach Tom Osborne is so comfortable playing the martyr, he's going to ensure the Cornhuskers lose one more.A quarterback controversy in a national championship game. Who ever heard of such a thing? Even Mark Duffner figured it out -- you play one quarterback or the other. Maybe Osborne should give the Maryland coach a call.Think about it: What if Phil Simms had recovered in time to replace Jeff Hostetler for the 1991 Super Bowl?

College football is a billion-dollar business … here are my two cents: Super conferences appear on the way, so let's get on with it. Rearrange the deck chairs, cut the checks, board up office windows, consolidate and reconfigure. "Things change," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said this week as his school contemplated a move from the Big 12 to the Pac-12. Fine, but let's disassociate "collegial" as college's root relative. This isn't collegial, this is cut-throat. A word you never hear mentioned in realignment talk is "basketball" because it's only the tail on this dog. You also never see summits called based on the hardships of non-revenue student-athletes who soon will be making Big East treks from Fort Worth, Texas, to Syracuse, N.Y. Football is the impetus for all. Change is inevitable.

The Cordish Cos. of Baltimore announced plans Monday to build an outlet center and entertainment district in La Vista, Neb., a suburb of Omaha. The retail center, called The Outlets at Southport West, will be similar to Cordish's The Walk development in Atlantic City, N.J., and will include numerous brand-name retailers. The entertainment district, called Live! at Southport West, will include a mix of national and regional restaurants and entertainment venues surrounding a plaza for programmed events, including concerts and art festivals.

One of the country's most prominent late-term abortion doctors will begin offering the procedure in Maryland beginning next week, a professional association announced Tuesday. Dr. Leroy Carhart will begin performing both early and late-term abortions at Germantown Reproductive Health Services next week, said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, a professional association of abortion providers, of which the Germantown facility is a member. Carhart, who is based in Nebraska but is licensed to practice medicine in Maryland, announced earlier in November that he intended to set up shop in the Washington area and in Iowa because of a Nebraska law banning most abortions after 20 weeks into pregnancy.

They met last month at a secret location to exchange materials on mission and branding and culture and finances — all those athletic-department buzzwords that make you want to flip the channel. But what struck Jim Delany, the Big Ten's button-down commissioner, was something more emotional, something that led him Friday to call Nebraska a "phenomenal fit." Delany recalled Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne telling him about how Cornhuskers fans gave Texas' Ricky Williams a standing ovation after he rushed for 150 yards in a 1998 game — a 20-16 Longhorns victory.

Huskers hold the cards Teddy Greenstein Chicago Tribune The Big 12 apparently isn't big enough for both Nebraska and Texas, so I'm forecasting a split along Rose Bowl lines — Big Ten and Pac-whatever. Nebraska appears to hold the cards, even though Texas is the equivalent of a royal flush, desired by all. If the Cornhuskers leave for the Big Ten, the Big 12 might come crashing down. The conference can live with losing Missouri, but Texas might feel like a Huskers-free party is worth bolting.

Veteran defensive end Trevor Pryce has agreed to a $2.5 million cut in salary that apparently ensures him a fifth season with the Ravens. According to the NFL Players Association, Pryce accepted a salary reduction from $4.5 million to $2 million for the 2010 season, the final year of the contract he signed with the Ravens as a free agent in 2006. Pryce, 34, lost his starting job to Dwan Edwards in October but still led the team in sacks with 61/2. He has a total of 26 sacks in four years in Baltimore.

Top-ranked Nebraska may know today whether quarterback Tommie Frazier is fit enough to start when the Cornhuskers play for the national title against third-ranked Miami on Jan. 1 in the Orange Bowl.Frazier, out since Sept. 24 with a blood clot in his right leg, will participate in a contact scrimmage in Miami.Coach Tom Osborne probably won't announce whether Frazier or Brook Berringer will start until a few days before the game, but he'll have a better idea after the scrimmage. Nebraska flew to Florida from Lincoln on Friday.

COLLEGE PARK -- Welcome to Nebraska.Here, the corn grows as high as the proverbial elephant's eye, the winter snows drift almost as deep and college football is not so much a sport as a religion.And where volleyball is the new craze.Volleyball? In Nebraska?Surely, this is a joke, isn't it? Don't they play volleyball near the surf at Malibu, in the sand with Beach Boys music blaring "Little Deuce Coupe," and the oh-so-blond lifeguard keeping watch over the throng.That is ancient history, or, at least, if the second-ranked Cornhuskers' volleyball team has its way, going into this week's NCAA Final Four to be held at Maryland's Cole Field House tomorrow and Saturday.

LOS ANGELES - Nebraska is still on the minds of Texas' offensive linemen. Facing a fierce Alabama defense in the Bowl Championship Series title game Thursday, the question is whether the Longhorns have enough up front. The Nebraska game was the topic of conversation during Sunday's media rounds and certainly will be touched on during the Longhorns' practices this week at UC Irvine. There are plenty of connect-the-dot comparisons between Alabama and Nebraska on defense, but Texas' Colt McCoy will be happy to know that the way they rush the quarterback isn't one of them.

TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS M. bask. Presbyterian@Florida CN8, CSNP 7 Connecticut@Cincinnati ESPN2 7 Albany (N.Y.)@North Carolina ESPNU 7 George Mason@Radford MASN 7 William & Mary@Maryland CSN 7:30 Baylor@Arkansas ESPN2 9 South Carolina@Boston College ESPNU 9 Providence@Notre Dame MASN 9 NBA Boston@Phoenix NBA 9 Philadelphia@Sacramento CN8 10 C. foot.