Is There Too Much Husker Football Content?

Jack: I mean, this time of year, I don't really want to talk football, but I do. I want to talk about about what I'm thinking about, and I'm not really thinking about football for the most part right now.

Josh: Interesting.

Jack: At least as it stands right now. Now, it won't be long, Josh, and I will; I will be very soon, like very soon within weeks, but I'm just not right now. It's still sort of basketball. I'm sort of in a sports break right now but we have the Crown and that's taking it over. But, I can tell when we do shows, people want people want football. People want football. Even if it's not about this season and it's about football generally, right? Or rankings or lists or remembering nostalgia whatever. People 100% want it.

Josh: Dave Feit says, “I can see both sides of the argument. Severe didn't need to be condescending. Bigelow didn't need to go scorched earth and claim it was a bit.” And you mentioned Schaefer a couple moments ago; I would almost say subscribe and just go check out what Schaefer said in the Discord because the discussion that was good. Dilo says Schaefer's insight was great. Brendan added, “Schaefer super transparent and measured about it. Found it insightful.”

And that's kind of why I find this discussion interesting. It's not so much, “do you wish you did more? Do you wish you did less football?” But more, how I think about the job, how he thinks about the job. Cause I think Schaef is obviously really good. I think you agree with me that Schaefer is very good at being able to do a variety of different things at a very high level. And turning random spring press conferences into discussions this time of year. How do you do that? I'm happy that I don't have to do the written stuff like he does. The people who have to go in the weeds on the writing every day? Dude, that seems way harder than the stuff that we get to do.

What do think about this? Dilo says, “We as a consumer need to demand better content. We are the problem.” Are the fans not demanding better stuff? And if so, what would that even look like?

Jack: I agree with it. Again, the market is driven by what people are reading. You can be mad that people don't do what you want them to do, but, as people who are in the market, Josh, our entire business is going to what people want to hear and is going to keep them listening. Or subscribing or for clicking or whatever, right? The only way you change where people go is if there's a critical mass of consumers who go in a different direction. He's exactly right. If you want to critique where they're going, that's capitalism, man! It's capitalism.

Josh: Don't hate the player, hate the game?

Jack: Yeah, pretty much. That’s what I would say about it. 

Volleyball State is now a member of the I-80 Club! For bonus episodes, newsletters, and more, subscribe to the Volleyball State tier today.

Josh: Some comments coming in. Corny, who lives down in Georgia, says, “It's like the Masters here. People just want to talk about it for the whole week. Every place has things you have to talk about. Also, no market talks about this College World Series at all besides small team specific media.” Yeah, that's one of the things even though we have the College World Series. What do I want to spend most of that week doing Jack? I want to talk football, you know, the entire time.

Feit writes, “market is not one thing. Some want 100% sunshine and rainbows, some want analysis, fewer want honest criticism.” Yeah, I will say you and I and what we do different stuff than like Damon [Benning] is going to do or even Mike’l is going to do, and it's different than what John [Bishop] and I do and what Schaefer does and what Brian Christopherson does and what Sam McKewon does.

And so, whenever that criticism of, “there's too much media” comes in, I am always like, “okay, well, these are jobs, most of them are paying, you know, survivable money. What else are we supposed to do at this time of year?” We’re feeding the beast, I guess.

Jack: Frankly, I think the same thing's happening in the SEC when Alabama and Auburn and Florida and all those places. They were in the NCAA tournament. And I'm gonna guess football is still king down there in terms of content.

Josh: Well, I remember hearing a story about like Cleveland sports talk radio and like the Cavaliers won the NBA Finals and the audience was still hoping for Browns talk like the next day. They just won the NBA Finals and people are like, “yeah, but what's going on with that quarterback position? Are we gonna be okay this year? You think we're gonna win eight games?”

Jack: I'll give you a great example. I'm a Royals fan, but I'm not necessarily a Chiefs fan and last year when the Royals were in the playoffs, I would sometimes listen to Kansas City radio just to listen to the coverage of the playoff. They do an opening segment and it was on the Royals with a playoff game that night or whatever and I'm like, “alright, here we go. I need more of this!” And then the next three segments are on the Chiefs, right? I'm like, “come on, man. It's the playoffs!” But it's the same exact thing, right? They're gonna do the Chiefs.

Josh: Yeah, there was a comment [that said], “you know in Dallas, they're talking about the Cowboys all the time.” The Rangers are a couple years removed from the World Series the Stars are playing really good [hockey]. The Mavericks are a tire fire right now, but they still want to talk about the Cowboys. Sometimes I think like this place is pretty unique. We live in a unique market and then other times I think no, we're a football market like the other football markets and that's what we're gonna do. Just like down in Dallas, they're gonna talk about the Cowboys. Just like in Philadelphia, they don't wanna talk about the Sixers. They wanna talk about the Eagles still. You know, it's like that in Cleveland. They're gonna talk about the Browns. That's what it's like.

Jack: The one commonality among the biggest bulk, the critical mass of the fans is football, right? If you were like, “what do really wanna talk about in sports right now?” Mine would be about who Nebraska basketball is gonna get in the transfer portal. That's just me personally. I know I can't do a show on that, right? But I'd like to do an entire show on Nebraska basketball, right at this moment. But again, you've gotta find where the critical mass. There are very few people who are like, “I'm a basketball fan, but I'm not a football fan,” right? For Nebraska, or I am this, but I'm not this in the type of audience that we're all catering to because football is always there for all of them.

Josh: I like this [comment] from Dave. He says “the biggest loss with no spring game is speculation instead of analysis.” Yeah, it is going to be interesting. Even as the spring game has lost a lot of its luster over the last few years, what not having a spring game is going to mean for the summer, you know, doldrums, if you will. 

But I wanted to run this by you, Jacob [Bigelow] is in his mid-20s. So, to kind of call back in a way to how we started the pod, if you look at his time on this earth, Nebraska has never won a conference championship. They have barely played for any. His teenage years and beyond, they have been bad, not even like the Bo era, but they've been actual bad. Do you think that that plays a part in maybe someone of his ilk saying, “why do you put so much time and effort into this? Because it's not what it what it once was.”

Jack: Yeah, I do. Because when we talk football about half of it, Josh, is about what's currently going on. And about half of it is about some kind of bigger picture topic about the history. The biggest rivals or individual games or worst losses; That's all in the whole football stratosphere that we talk about, right? Some things that are evergreen and some things that are timely to the moment. It's about half and half, right? And so those evergreen things become less interesting the less time you've been following it, to be honest. And so you've got you've got a whole bunch less of that, I would think too.

Watch the entire episode here:

For more from the I-80 Club, including bonus episodes, newsletters, and access to the I-80 Club Discord server, become a Patron today at patreon.com/i80club.

More From Nebraska on SI

• How to Watch Nebraska Baseball vs. Rutgers: Preview, Breakdown, TV Channel
• Three Reasons to Believe the Hype Around Nebraska’s Wide Receivers
• Nebraska Holds Off Georgetown, Advances to College Basketball Crown Semifinals with $50K
• Nebraska Baseball Drops In-State Rivalry Game at Omaha
• Nebraska Football Making Moves on a Michigan State Football Commit