Dr. Rob Gives An Honest 2nd Opinion

Dr. Rob

Conspiracy theory!? Please. The Big 10 was likely highly aware of
NU's AAU status last year (tenuous) when Nebraska's admission to the
conference was being debated.

At that time, the likely loss of AAU status was a non issue for a number of reasons. Foremost, as also pointed out by a number of blog respondents(the enlightened ones, at least), if Nebraska, like most current AAU members, maintained their medical school as part of the rest of the institution (NU keeps them under separate chancellors, but within the same "system"), NU would rank AHEAD of 11 other schools, including nearly half the Big 10.

The vast majority of AAU membership maintain their med schools under the same administration as the rest of their campuses, thus creating an illusion of research and academic superiority that suddenly evaporates
if one actually compared apples to apples. The AAU conveniently forgot that there's a reason my former stomping ground is named THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA Medical Center.

For those who really want to channel their inner Mel Gibson-esque conspiracy theorists, how about the fact that the chair of the membership review committee for the AAU is emeritus chancellor for the University of Texas. While the conspiracy naysayers point this out as too easy of an obvious target for NU fans, administrators at NU I maintain contact with (the University itself, NOT the athletic
department) have told me this did, in fact play a larger role than it's getting publicity for. UT hates few thing more than not being able to launch a rebuttal snub. This is the mother of all such snubs.

Finally, while the remainder of the Big 10 belong to the AAU, and administrators at both NU and the rest of the Big10 pay verbal respect to the AAU, most are highly aware that the AAU is an antiquated, archaic organization with little true functional impact in this day and age. While membership apparently has it's privileges, pretty much no one knows what they are. In fact, several administrators I queried at both AAU and non-AAU schools, were at a loss to delineated the AAU's function outside of being a giant, poorly defined, status symbol.

So, for those of you whose fathers framed their fifth grade science fair participation certificates, and still have them mounted on the wall in the den, go and gloat all you want. The rest of us NU alumni have actual jobs and societal contributions of substance to go make.

About Dr. Rob
Former Husker
1994 Big 8 Athlete Of The Year
Former N.Y. Giant
And even though we disagree on this issue, still the smartest man I know