This week’s media notes column is a bit of a smorgasbord. Among the topics: Kyle Crooks walks us through his call of Dylan Raiola’s Hail Mary last weekend against Michigan, and Scott Van Pelt offers some grooming advice to the newly-bald Will Compton.
Before we get to those notes, I have a World-Herald note that ties into a broader theme.
The Football Writers Association of America announced last week that World-Herald sports columnist Tom Shatel would be the 2026 recipient of the Bert McGrane Award, signifying Tom’s induction into the FWAA Hall of Fame.
When you have a minute, I strongly recommend reading this column by Tom’s longtime friend Dennis Dodd.
This is an especially good week to be talking about Tom — and what he brings to Husker coverage.
A lot of sports media — not the lion’s share of it, but definitely a lot — falls into two categories that don’t serve fans very well.
On one extreme, media members wave pom-poms for the home team and carry water for players, coaches, and executives.
On the other extreme, people take gratuitous shots or craft hot takes that are based on ignorance or, worse, intentional misrepresentations.
Good sportswriters stay as far away as possible from either of those buckets. The best sportswriters — and especially the best columnists — do that and a whole lot more: They serve as steady, trusted guides to fans’ favorite teams, producing a blend of wisdom, exclusive reporting, and entertainment value.
Tom has done all of that and more for decades. And he’s continued to do it this season.
NU is a program in transition — one with a glorious distant past, an embarrassing recent past, and a promising but uncertain path back toward contention.
Tom has been a steady guide through this era for fans. And as someone new to Nebraska and new to this beat, he’s been a steady guide for me, personally — both in what he’s published in The World-Herald and what he’s told me in the conversations we’ve had over the past few months.
Before the season, Tom diligently noted the “lack of evidence” that accompanied some of the offseason Husker hype.
When NU eked out a win over Cincinnati in the season opener, he reminded fans that it was the type of game the Huskers would have lost in prior years.
When NU suffered a disappointing 30-27 loss to Michigan last week — Matt Rhule said he felt like he’d been “hit by a hammer” — Tom did not say Husker fans should jump off a bridge or cancel the rest of the season. He did note that NU’s offensive line needs to get better.
Even on the latest social media controversy, Tom’s been a steady, rigorous hand.
My social media feeds lately have been all but overtaken by dialogue about whether Dylan Raiola is “cosplaying” as Patrick Mahomes.
I’m not here to shame people for taking part in that conversation. I find it mostly amusing and somewhat interesting. But I also find it mostly lacking in rigor. That’s where Tom comes in.
While Raiola has legitimate connections to Mahomes, Tom reported something last month that I don’t think very many people knew: Raiola originally started wearing No. 15 in honor of Tim Tebow. Tebow, it turns out, wore it to honor the most famous Husker No. 15, Tommie Frazier.
As Dodd wrote:
Like any metro sports columnist he has been cussed and discussed. But Tom was never not respected. You had to read him. Generations of Nebraskans now have had their opinion shaped — and sports IQ elevated — by a guy who grew up a Dodgers fan.
Bald Will Compton
I want to be a little careful in how I talk about this: I do not think the media buzz around Bald Will Compton is better for Nebraska than the buzz the Huskers would be getting if they’d beaten Michigan and were ranked and undefeated heading into the bye week.
At the same time: Between Compton’s appearances on ESPN’s Get Up and Rhule’s appearances on The Pat McAfee Show, there’s an interesting Husker media feedback loop that’s leading to a lot of exposure in a lot of places.
The flywheel goes something like this: Rhule and Compton do or say things that generate a lot of social media interaction. That engagement creates fodder for TV appearances. The footage from the TV appearances then feeds right back into more social media content.
The biggest source of that feedback loop this week: Compton and his Bussin’ With the Boys co-host Taylor Lewan — a Michigan alum — made a bet heading into the NU-Michigan game.
The co-host whose alma mater lost would need to shave his head and face and concede the 1997 national championship, which NU and Michigan split. Bussin’ would also donate $50,000 to the NIL collective of the winning team.
Compton lost the bet and paid up.
It would be an understatement to say that Compton has leaned into the story line. He’s been posting about it on social media almost non-stop for the past several days.
He got a standing ovation from the Get Up cast when he walked onto the set for an appearance on Thursday morning. And the Bald Will storyline has spilled over onto other ESPN programming.
Scott Van Pelt and his co-host “Stanford Steve” Coughlin had a conversation on Van Pelt’s podcast on which Van Pelt and Coughlin offered Compton some grooming advice.
Van Pelt’s guidance: “I don’t use any postgame lotion. I just shave. I think the key is, you want to make sure, don’t be afraid to swap that blade out.”
Kyle Crooks calls his first Hail Mary
A successful Hail Mary is rare enough that play-by-play broadcasters can go years, if not an entire career, without calling one.
Kyle Crooks got to call one Saturday, less than a month into his regular-season tenure as the radio voice of the Huskers. (You know what happened by now: Raiola connected with Jacory Barney from 52 yards out as time expired in the first half.)
Here’s how Crooks called it:
Snap to Raiola.
Rolls right, looks down field.
To the numbers.
Raiola plants, launches. Far right side of the endzone, jump ball.
WAS IT CAUGHT?! WAS IT CAUGHT?!
TOUCHDOWN HUSKERS!
Jacory Barney! On a prayer! 52 yards!
Crooks filled me in on a mechanism he used in order to make sure he got all the information right: He told me he knew the ball had been caught, but wasn’t 100% sure who could caught it.
The double “was it caught?” bought him some time to confirm that Barney was the Husker receiver who caught the ball.
Crooks said he wasn’t even thinking about the possibility of a Hail Mary until his spotter, Ben McLaughlin, got in his ear about it heading into the play.
“At first, I’m thinking they’re near midfield, maybe they just bring the punt team out and just have Archie (Wilson) run around and end the half,” Crooks said. “Then Ben, my spotter, kind of went into my ears, and just threw out the words Hail Mary. And then the light bulb went off like ‘oh yeah, they’re going to punt this. Why not just throw it to the endzone?”
Crooks said he’s watched the Huskers execute the Hail Mary in practice “almost every day.” So he knew what he was looking at when NU snapped the ball.
“Getting into the call, Dylan, you know he has a pretty solid arm, and then he throws it down there, and I kind of see that Barney has pretty good positioning, sort of like boxing out a rebound. And I could see he caught it. Wasn’t sure right away whether it was him. I kind of knew it was him. I kind of wanted to wait until I could see his number 2 a little bit better.”
Crooks said he was about 90% sure it was Barney who caught the ball but stalled for a moment, until he saw Barney celebrate, to make sure he didn’t get that important detail wrong.
“There’s always that 10% that you could say something that again, it could have been Dane Key and then you have to backpedal,” Crooks said. “The thing I’ve learned in this job is it’s better to be right than fast and quick to something. So taking that extra few seconds to make sure it was Barney was critical.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Crooks said he had listened back to the call “probably a little over 10 times.”
I asked him how he’d evaluate it.
“I think it was fine,” he said. “Fans seemed to be OK with it, which I think is sometimes a good enough barometer. … You want to be as quick as possible with the identification as to who caught the touchdown. So there’s always things there. You can give yourself a little bit of grace. … Was it perfect in terms of identifying right away who caught it, this that? No. But there’s always room for improvement. I think it was OK for a really big moment, energy-wise, and I think Husker fans were OK with it.”
This week on the pregame shows
Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff will be in Champaign for Southern California-Illinois.
ESPN’s College GameDay will be in University Park ahead of Oregon-Penn State.
What I’m watching this weekend
All these games are on Saturday and are listed in central time.
No. 21 USC at No. 23 Illinois, 11 a.m. on Fox
No. 1 Ohio State at Washington, 2:30 p.m. on CBS
No. 4 LSU at No. 13 Ole Miss, 2:30 p.m. on ABC
No. 11 Indiana at Iowa, 2:30 p.m. on Peacock
No. 6 Oregon at No. 3 Penn State, 6:30 p.m. on NBC
No. 17 Alabama at No. 5 Georgia, 6:30 p.m. on ABC
Media stats of the week
388,000: That’s the TV viewership on Fox Sports 1 for the Nebraska volleyball team’s five-set victory at Creighton last week, according to Fox Sports. It’s the most-watched volleyball match in the network’s history.
5.3 million: That’s the TV viewership for Nebraska/Michigan on CBS last week, good for third among all college football games.
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