Yesterday, I wrote about Dana Altman's stated preference to play Nebraska twice a year. I kind of skirted around my feelings on the issue in trying to figure out why either side would want to (or not want to) play twice a year. Meanwhile, Matt Perrault took the exact opposite approach and went right for the jugular on "The Big Show" yesterday afternoon.
His rant was pretty extraordinary, boiling down to three main points. One, Creighton and Nebraska need to play twice a year. Two, Nebraska won't do it because they're scared. Three, Creighton knows this, and that's why they keep bringing it up -- to paint themselves as a "Bring it on" type of gunslinger, and Nebraska as running away from a challenge.
Yep, he came right out and called Nebraska scared -- afraid of what losing twice a year to Creighton would do to recruiting, what losing twice a year would do to support, afraid of what losing twice a year to Creighton would do to attendance.
I would love to see Creighton and Nebraska play twice a year. Yes, there aren't many in-state rivals who play twice a year, but there aren't many states with only two D-1 basketball programs either. You're not comparing apples to apples when you say Iowa doesn't play UNI twice a year; they also play Drake and Iowa State every year. That's three in-state games. Why can't Nebraska and Creighton play twice? Its a huge risk for Creighton -- if they were to lose twice to Nebraska, it would be devastating. But if they beat Nebraska, the Huskers would just go back to being irrelevant until spring practice starts up again. Creighton has everything to lose and nothing to gain -- regardless of what Nebraska thinks, it ain't the other way around. They're quite frankly a terrible program that rides the wave of their conference and their football program to a false sense of superiority. Creighton's RPI probably drops by playing them twice (Nebraska's average RPI the last five years: 105). But if Altman is willing to take that risk, I'll all for it.
Based on the emails I got after bringing this up yesterday, it seems most Creighton fans are, in fact, not in favor of playing two. Interesting. For my part, I think its time to drop the whole thing and move on. You bet.
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