[Husker] Mizzou Pregame Stunt

[Agris Taurins]

That "stadium employee" was me.  I typically work sideline security and got
pulled into this.  To be honest, I wasn't sure who had the "right of way"
when I got called over but I had no ability to move the Missouri players,
coaches & staff out of the way even if I had wanted to.  There was quite a
shouting match going on between someone from our athletic department in
charge of the visiting recruits and someone who claimed to be head of MU's
head of football operations.  I decided to move "our" folks out of the way
just to prevent anyone from getting hurt.  I actually only moved folks into
the bench area instead of all the way to the 50.  MU wasn't going to be able
to make use of that area in any event because of the pre-existing bench
equipment.

As I was trying to move folks back, I was blind-sided by a MU player doing a
drill.  Although several NU folks started yelling "cheap shot" and "he
targeted him on purpose!!" I don't believe that.  It wasn't a hard hit and
when I got up and looked back, they were doing a drill where the LBs where
running backwards.  I'm sure he just didn't know I was there and just ran
into me.

But Dan's report here is pretty much spot on as far as what was going on.

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Dan Draney <ddraney at windstream.net> wrote:

> Before the game the Missouri coaching staff pulled a bush league stunt on
> their hosts. According to the radio, they demanded full access to the
> sideline during warmups on their half of the field. This meant that all the
> Nebraska people and guests had to move to the north side of the 50 yard
> line. I haven't seen anything about this in the paper, but I can attest
> that
> NU did clear out the sideline south of the 50 during the warmups. That made
> the area north of the 50 pretty crowded.
>
> According to the radio report at the time, a Mizzou player doing warmup
> drills collided with a stadium employee on the sideline who was helping to
> clear the area. I did not see that. Meanwhile, MU players, staff and guests
> had full access to the entire west sideline area.
>
> I'm inferring that this demand was made on gameday without any advance
> notice, although that may not be the case. If so, it seems to be an
> attempted "psyche-move" on Pinkel's part to intimidate NU. Obviously, given
> the Huskers' slow start yesterday, it was quite effective. :)
>
> Dan Draney
>
> P.S. Best sign I saw at the game: "Hey, Mizzou. Congrats on your invitation
> to join the Big 10. Oops. NevermindŠ"
>
>
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