The Next Husker Controversy

Inside Memorial Stadium’s Nebraska Athletic Performance Lab — where Epley serves as assistant athletic director of strength and conditioning and part of the Huskers’ performance team — he’s already tested athletes in 12 sports. Epley said he’s resetting school records in athletic testing and starting over for a standard benchmark.
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OWH - December 15, 2015

 
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Moiraine said:
Gonna play devil's advocate here.

What if the way they were doing things before Boyd came back made it so none if the new players (as of the changes) could crack the top 10 in any category. Not because they're weak but because they're doing the lifts correctly. Is it fair to the new players to be made to look weak when they're doing lifts the right way but don't show up on the board because their numbers are lower?

It seems like a Boyd Epley thing to me rather than a Mike Riley staff thing.

Epley left in 2006. 10 years ago. Probably not a coincidence.

But imo a much better way to do this is to weight the lifts of the past 10 years to match them up to what they would have been in Epley's system. Might be a pain but it could be done. All of the rankings would have to be edited though.
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Bingo. And the guys who we're racking up records doing girls pushups (for lack of a better analogy-sorry Moiraine) are now up in arms because their paper lion records are being scrubbed. Personally, there isn't much from the last 15 years, if it disappears, that is going to bother me too much. Or, maybe it's nothing...

 
This seems like a bookkeeping issue more than anything. If recent Husker players really feel they're being officially forgotten, maybe follow any of the Huskers social media accounts that constantly gush about them.

 
I know Kenny is a polarizing figure.

Think about Ameer and Rex, both 2-time lifters of the year, and their records being taken down.

 
Mavric said:
Moiraine said:
It seems like a Boyd Epley thing to me rather than a Mike Riley staff thing. When did Epley leave UNL again?

2006. 10 years ago.
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Pretty sure that's the case. Bell even specifically said it had nothing to do with the coaches.

I remember Epley saying something a month or two ago about not having the data to compare over the last several years because things were done differently. Curious what all that entails.
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Curious how many records remain from the late 80's early 90's era when it was pretty obvious a "few" of the guys were "enhanced". How would todays players be able to get to those levels now with all the testing. Some might get there with nutrition.

 
cm husker said:
Husker nation is in real trouble based on some of the vitriol I'm seeing in the Twitter universe over this. The divide that was ripped open in 2003 remains today, I don't think we have a person who can come in and fix it. The fan base is seriously fractured.
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If Nebraska isn't careful, we will end up like every other football program with a fanbase controversy.

 
I'm curious to hear how players can do a "girlie" vertical leap or shuttle run, for example. Wonder if Suh was doing "girlie" reps on bench in 2010.

Maybe Epley is trying to establish a new set of records, but why carve out 10 or 12 years or whatever? Wouldn't we need to take down Tomich and Ahman records too?

Innocuous or not, it's odd. And people's reactions to it are just more examples of how fractured the base is.

 
BigRedBuster said:
cm husker said:
Husker nation is in real trouble based on some of the vitriol I'm seeing in the Twitter universe over this. The divide that was ripped open in 2003 remains today, I don't think we have a person who can come in and fix it. The fan base is seriously fractured.
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There is something hilariously ironic about you posting that.
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I heard they're only getting rid of records from former players that live over 500 miles away because they aren't true Nebraskans and their records are hurting our strength and conditioning culture.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
cm husker said:
Husker nation is in real trouble based on some of the vitriol I'm seeing in the Twitter universe over this. The divide that was ripped open in 2003 remains today, I don't think we have a person who can come in and fix it. The fan base is seriously fractured.
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If Nebraska isn't careful, we will end up like every other football program with a fanbase controversy.
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I take your point, but this isn't about an "X should be starting over Y" debate.

Divides like this can fundamentally disrupt the mission of a program. I would guess that if we looked similar examples going back in time, these sorts of divides precipitated disaster more often than prosperity.

In '07, things got so bad that almost everyone (but surprisingly not everyone) understood the need for change and we had a rare figure who could step in and right the ship. I really hope we don't need to get awful again before the base is once again united. Because I don't see someone who will be able to intervene.

 
QMany said:
I know Kenny is a polarizing figure.

Think about Ameer and Rex, both 2-time lifters of the year, and their records being taken down.
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I thought about it and they're adults. Taking the records away doesn't necessarily mean they're not listed as lifter of the year, and their names are in plenty of other record books. Ones that have to do with on field performance.
 
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