Shatel: Nebraska should come clean with statuses of Helu and Green

There's not much left to say about Nebraska football after that game, but I managed to think of a few things.

1. How injured is Roy Helu? Is his long-term health being put at risk by playing him? The coaches won't talk about injuries with any depth; head coach Bo Pelini said his junior running back had a shoulder “stinger'' and was “fine'' on Saturday. If Helu was OK, why didn't he get the ball more than five times and why did Dontrayevous Robinson play so much? If he's not OK — and two fumbles from No. 10 indicates that he's not — then why not shut it down until he is?

2. Is Cody Green going to waste a year of eligibility? If Green isn't close to being ready to start, as the coaches have said, then why was his redshirt burned?

3. If the issue is that Green can't run the offense consistently, why not tailor the offense to what he can do? College football is and always has been about players, not schemes. Didn't we go through this with Bill Callahan?

• I've been a proponent of the Big 12 championship game because I think that it's important to crown a conference champion, and I like the idea of giving the “have-nots'' in the North a chance to win the trophy. But I don't see anyone in the North this year worthy of playing for a conference championship. So here's what I propose:

Create two divisions, the Oklahoma Division and the Texas Division. Who cares about geography? Let the two dominant programs in the Big 12 pick their divisions, as if they were captains taking turns picking schoolyard teammates. Keep the few rivalries that mean anything. And if Texas and OU meet every year in the title game, who cares? Isn't that the game we want to see again anyway?

• My, that Paul Rhoads can coach. And he's an Ankeny boy? Iowa State fans should thank their lucky stars that Gene Chizik left. Rhoads is just getting started, but if this guy can recruit to Ames, he'll see Dan McCarney's legacy and raise it.

• I hear Iowa fans already hoping for Ohio State to lose at Penn State, so the Hawks might not even have to win at Columbus on Nov. 14 to go to the Rose Bowl. What makes anyone think that Iowa is going to lose this year?

• It's only for one season, but it will be fun to watch UNO coach and WCHA veteran Dean Blais take on the CCHA, beginning with this weekend's home series against Bowling Green. I'm sure there are some CCHA members who would like to spank UNO as it leaves the conference, and getting a shot at a big name like Blais will add to the incentive. Blais didn't have a lot of history against the CCHA when he was at North Dakota. He faced the CCHA three times in the NCAA playoffs, losing to Michigan (4-3) in 1998, beating Michigan State (2-0) in 2001 and losing to Ferris State (5-2) in 2003.

• The Phillies-Yankees World Series has a Nebraska connection other than Joba Chamberlain, as some old-timers will recall. The last time these proud franchises met in the World Series was in 1950, when Casey Stengel, Joe DiMaggio and a young Whitey Ford swept the Philadelphia “Whiz Kids'' of Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts. Ashburn, a Tilden, Neb., boy, was in his third season in Philly — a year before he would start rivalries with center fielders Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays — but it would turn out to be Ashburn's only World Series appearance in a Hall of Fame career.

Ashburn did not have a memorable series, going 3 for 17 with a double and one RBI. But his memory will live on when the Series comes to Philly this weekend. The entertainment area behind center field at Citizens Bank Park is called “Ashburn Alley.''

• We've been spoiled by Nebraska volleyball. Even as Husker football hit turbulence the past 10 years, the ladies kept rolling, year after year. Rebuilding happens. Sometimes there are years when you don't get that leadership and playmaking. But what John Cook's team needs to maintain is its home-court edge. In some of the matches I've watched this year, teams such as Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Iowa State aren't intimidated by NU. The Huskers can't allow that to happen at home. They'll be back. But they can't afford to lose their Coliseum edge.

• Well, at least the “Tim Tebow is the greatest player in college football history'' talk has piped down considerably. The way Tebow played last week, he's not even the best quarterback in the country this year. Any idea who is?

• Now that Bill Snyder is working his magic at Kansas State, you don't think that Tom Osborne's getting any ideas, do you?

Contact the writer:

444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com

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