[NU Sports] Turkey and Big Ten football ...

[Roy Lamberton]

Personally - I'd also like to see the Big 10 [and NU] open the season at least a
week later. We'd then have a better chance of getting students on campus, etc.
It also might make for a fall atmosphere for the first home game, instead of
playing in the middle of a Chicago summer weather with the Students still at
their Summer jobs.

I know the players will appreciate the bye week during the season, and playing
the week after Thanksgiving would also increase TV coverage, not that the Cats
will benefit from that - we'll probably be in the bye week. 

On the bye week, I can remember seasons where Michigan and dOSU used to get us
the week after their bye week - their guys would come in well rested and ready
to defense the spread. Our guys were still nursing injuries from the previous
week.

But anything that Gets NU, and maybe the Big 10 on TV after Thanksgiving has to
be a good thing....

rsl



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
& sometime Unix Guru....
Computer Applications & Support Associates 
==========  Go Cats -  Beat 'em All  ============
"You have a Republic Madam --
     If you can keep it" - Benjamin Franklin
============================================


> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
> Behalf Of SjT (Stephen J. Truog)
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 11:37 PM
> To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Subject: [NU Sports] Turkey and Big Ten football ...
> 
> Saw on ESPN that the Big Ten approved an additional
> bye week to the football schedule, allowing games to
> be played after Thanksgiving next year.
> 
> It's probably a good move - you could see the need for
> it with the week after Thanksgiving and the title game
> week making a season that ended before then long
> forgotten. It helped this year, but this was an
> extraordinary year in many respects. Without a title
> game, the league needed to do something like this.
> 
> This will likely hurt the ACC and Big East, who used
> to use our absence to get on ESPN (NU alum had that
> great line in his SI column the week after
> Thanksgiving this year about dreaming of a Saturday
> morning and finding nothing but ACC football on TV ...
> then waking up to find it a reality :) ). Maybe the
> Big Ten will move times (and days?) around a bit for
> BTN or other TV options. Maybe a Thanksgiving night
> game? Friday game?
> 
> I know some fans won't like it, but I can remember two
> post-Turkey day games. The NU-Illinois 2001 game was
> probably the "case against" the move, with the game in
> Champaign on a Friday, with the Illini playing for a
> Big Ten title, and half the seats empty. It was fun to
> have family in town for turkey, wake up the next
> morning and pack the tailgate gear for a short (yet
> dull:) ) drive down to Champaign for the game - but
> the atmosphere left a lot to be desired.
> 
> The "case for" was in 1997 (or 98?) when we went out
> to Happy Valley to visit my brother for Thanksgiving
> and saw the PSU-MSU game. Turkey Day itself was
> bizarre as State College was a ghost town with dorms
> closed and no one in town. But things picked up by
> Saturday and as usual, State College was buzzing for
> game day and it was a perfect place for some holiday
> weekend fun, festivities and football (but then again,
> any gameday weekend at PSU seems like a little holiday
> event).
> 
> We'll see how it works. We pretty much had to do it
> and I'm sure the coaches and teams will appreciate the
> bye week again during the season to rest up. Plus,
> another weekend of Big Ten football can't be a bad
> thing, right?
> 
> GO CATS!!!
> -SjT
> 
> * * * * * * * * *
> STEPHEN J. TRUOG
> sjtruog at yahoo.com
> GO CATS!!!
> 
> 
> 
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