1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Nebraska MBB enters top ten, Huskers land QB in portal: January 5th, 11:00am

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Huskers enter the top ten after a win over Ohio State. Kenny Minchey heads to Nebraska after transferring from Notre Dame.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-the-ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. It is Monday. Oh, man, 1101. Lake of Nebraska. Appreciate y'all hanging out with us, 44 degree. It's a beautiful day.

Downtown Lincoln. A higher 54 later on. Well done. It should be a decent week until Friday. It gets a little weather on Friday. But we'll deal with that. That greatly appreciate y'all hanging out with us here on 93-7. The ticket during 101, greatly appreciated.

start with a couple of things in play 402-464-5-6-8-5 is the sort of text sorry having me text line you want to appreciate appreciate you want to reach out you want to be a part of the show you want to add to please do download the ticket app it's good for you good for your soul take us with you but you can follow on all the live video streams facebook youtube x please make sure you hit follow on all of those areas so that uh You help us, and we can help you get you detailed and connected. Also in the space. I'm going to start a project next week for nonprofits,

just to be able to get shy. We'll have a daily nonprofit shoutout. It won't cost you a thing. We just want to talk about the folks, the good folks who are doing good things in Lincoln, Nebraska. So you guys can just, email me at uh derrick at the ticket if you don't how to spell my name get get to google the e 2 r's i ck like henry derrick at the ticket fm.com right so you can you can because

don't misspell it they'll misspell it i'll get dirk i'll get derrick with the e e one are I'll get I get the whole range I'll get Daryl so all of that but over the course of a month that would give me 20 nonprofits a month that I can I can shout out of the course of a of a month and I want to just celebrate and highlight good folks doing good things in Lincoln so if you do that kind sir before I have you pay the bills Bach. How the heck are you? Hey, I'm doing pretty well. Pretty good weekend, I think. Obviously, in Nebraska basketball,

moving the way into the top 10 today. We'll see when the polls come out, but it's all but official here, so kind of waiting for it. It's a good day to be alive. Are we going to be grimy and then not be satisfied at where in the top 10 they're ranked?

How quickly do we become those basketball fans? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think they should be number one. You're undefeated. There's only so many undefeated teams like it be at least number five right how many undefeated teams are i think there are five let me double check yeah check the numbers uh to see what that is i would i would be fully intrigued by that um to know what's uh what's in point who we comparing ourselves to you know our our our ball bounces bounces higher and our red shines brighter so we have to make sure that that we say those things uh

Bach, if you would, why are you doing that, sir? I need to have you multitask. I need for you, sir. To pay the bills, pay the bills. Yeah, so it looks like, by the way, six teams. Arizona, Iowa State, Nebraska, Michigan, Vanderbilt in Miami of Ohio. Only two of them should be ahead of those. Only two.

For now. Just for that. Only two. This show today is sponsored by Hamilton Telecommunications, bringing you the latest quality technology and communication services since 1901. Whether it's residential or business, Hamilton has the answers. Visit Hamilton.com for more info today. Thank you, guys, sir.

Yeah, I'm going to say it out loud because I really want to ride the ship. Like, I really want to enjoy this. So if I said to you, Bach gets to set his own top 10. Let's start with the top five, right? and you're a member of the club that if you're undefeated, right? Undefeated. So as of last week, Michigan was undefeated. They were number

one, Arizona, Iowa State, and then Vanderbilt and then Nebraska. So that's our top five. We're riding with that. And if we're outside the top five, we light brooms, and we march.

The Yukon, Dukes, Purdue, no. They already lost. One loss. Everyone's got one loss. Listen, we're Nebraska fans. If your team's lost a game, we can't relate. We can't, we can't relate. We need to get, listen, we, we need to be as obnoxious for as long as possible.

Right? How many times, Bob, could you say that you were 14 and O sitting in the top five? Never. Right. So, so listen. this is the run man this is it this this is it this is the moment you have as buffer says this is the moment you have all been waiting for you are undefeated and put us at five put us in five while I will fight you I mean think about listen sorry Duke you lost the game that's not our fault

Purdue, listen, we already know we beat you when we weren't undefeated in top five. So we are, we don't really, we're not really afraid of you. Michigan State, sorry. BYU, we saw you already this year. We paddled your behind. It should be out of that. Yeah. So what are we talking about? What are we talking about? Put it. Put it at number five. Book it. Book it. Text line. Let me know if I'm wrong.

I'm not wrong. Well, the only thing I would say is like a team like Duke, Nebraska. So Nebraska is obviously 2 and O against their top 25 teams. Duke's 4 and 1. Now, that one is important, right? But still, I mean, that's what still might hold Nebraska back for those that wonder in some of these polls. Some of these, you know, the major powers in college basketball. It's one of my favorite things.

They all play each other at the beginning of the year. And it sometimes goes unnoticed because you're still paying attention to football. But they didn't invite it. They didn't invite Nebraska. Yeah, Nebraska didn't get invited to them. You didn't invite us to the party. Like, this, this is a thing. We could have told you how cute we were this year.

You just didn't invite us. You didn't see us. You know, Nebraska's the hot girl in the movie that wears glasses. Yeah, yeah. And then, and then all of a sudden, Fred Hoyberg, where he's walking around like Clark Kent with his glasses on. And then one day he just walks in front of Tom is, and he takes his glasses up.

And Thomas was like, man, that Fred Herbake's hot. He's hot right now. Enjoy the ride, enjoy the run for as long as it goes because it is a temporary thing, but it is a beautiful thing while it exists. So there's my buddy. There's my neighbor, Wayne, the unofficial mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska. I think in fairness, that to enjoy the space. And quite frankly, Bach, if I asked you what the top story of, of on a Monday morning in Lincoln, Nebraska.

What say you, what is the top story when it comes to sports here in Lincoln, Nebraska? I think it's on Nebraska basketball has got a game tonight. They're getting into the top 10, so, or very close to it. We'll see. So I, that's got to be it. Now, there is some news. You got a new quarterback.

There's all. Yeah. There's all sorts of, but hey, in this business, you start with the headline. You start. I don't I don't open the Husker basketball post game shows telling you how much player number nine had off the bench because really is it the story. It's not the story. Don't bury the lead. Husker basketball is undefeated and will be in the top 10 shortly.

Everything else falls in the line and there's plenty of news. You get, you're in a transfer portal. We know that that things are going to happen. Bach, I asked you this question off air. I will ask it to you and the text line. And I mean this in full, right? But I have to set the boundary first. The transfer portal is a nightclub, right?

It's a dating app. It's a dating app. I think it's more of a nightclub, quite frankly. And everybody has a need. Everybody who walks into the bar knows what they need. They have in their head what that perfect partner looks like. But Bach, the part that always gets forgotten is not everybody's going to match up.

Not every player in the transfer portal is going to swipe on Nebraska. Not everybody's going to do that. We spent all last week and they threw out the quarterback level, But, you know, Levin would be a great addition. And, you know, Sorsby would be, hey, man, Cameron Diaz is a single. You're not Brad Pitt. Doesn't mean you're in the race.

You're currently, Nebraska football is not Brad Pitt. Currently, it's more of a Kevin James, quite frankly. To be fair, Sam Levitt's flirting with Kevin James to the world, I suppose. Right. Yeah, pie's bitter. Leah Remedy finds Kevin James very attractive. She chose him and made a full long career of it. But I don't.

Bach, everybody doesn't want to play quarterback at Nebraska. Everybody doesn't want to do it. So it's wonderful to say, here's who, here's who we want, right? Here's what we want. then you have to say, would they want us? And then can we make the numbers work, right? Because we, collectively, Bach, any of us, don't know how much money Nebraska has or has set aside for each position for the transfer port.

We don't know what their magic. So I would imagine that down at football headquarters, there's several white boards of what an ideal Nebraska roster looks like now and forward. So the players on one panel, there's the wall of commitments, the people who are freshmen and who have committed to it. Then another wall with all the returning players who have signed their agreements for next year. Then there are the question marks because you have players that may not have made their decision. And you have in the back of your mind whether you want those players to return or not. Whether it be for talent, for contract agreements, do you re-up?

Do you want to re-sign them, whatever the case may be? And then you have your project board, the people that in an ideal perfect world are Huskers next year at whatever number it takes. But we don't know. What are they spending? $18 million? $15 million?

Do we know? We don't know. Right? So if you're going to do that, then you have to determine for the 105 players, how many of those 105 players go into revenue share versus NIL? Right. Right, because the two aren't the same.

They're not the same. We don't know how much Nebraska has. We can speculate on the revenue share. We don't know when it comes to NIL. We don't know what the number is. At least I don't know. If the text line knows what number they're spending, cool. But I haven't heard it from Nebraska.

So, quite frankly, we don't know. The range is phenomenal. In the revenue share, it could be anywhere from $15 million to $30 million. We don't know. And in the NIL, we don't know how much money is set aside and how that money is going to be distributed. The general manager will say, okay, I've got $10 million to spend in NIL next year, aside from revenue share, right?

So you set your balance from the revenue share because that's a set number that they will determine. And again, you know, for the sake of conversation, we can say it's 15 million. It could be 10, right? But 15 million. But 10 makes it easy to do math and figure, the figure shares. So 10 million, right? Are you going to evenly share all $10 million with all 105 players? Do you, do you, do you, are you given equal shares to your long snapper punter kickers as you do your quarterback?

I highly doubt it, yeah. Probably not. Are you going to pay your first team quarterback the same amount that you pay your second team quarterback? Not likely. Not likely. Are you going to pay, what are your positions of priority financially? Left tackle? Pretty important.

pretty important right now do you have somebody that fits that financial structure for those two tackle positions for the amount of depth that you want how many tackles do you want on your roster next year on your active roster right and remember you have the 105 but then you have the 60 or 70 that you travel with now why if you're the GM are you paying the travel players but not the players who don't make the travel list? Are you paying the scout team? Or is that just scholarship money? Yeah, I mean, it depends, again,

with how much money I've got to work with, but the $10 million in the red share. Let's say, even if you said $20 million, okay, then you're breaking down the shares. And I would imagine that kickers and specialists don't necessarily get the share amount that they could get a share, right? But NIL covers some other space, right?

Because that's different, that's buffer money. But the 105, if I said there's 100 players, that means that I have 20, I have five different tiers of 20 players, first team offense, first team defense. Right? 10 and 10. We're just going to go with that.

We could say 11 simply. but let's let's work with ten and ten right if we have 20 million dollars to play with are you spending 10 million on offense and 10 million on defense box no this is how this is how really deep it runs i wouldn't i wouldn't do necessarily a set number because you're also working with you know returning and in expectations from guys um you'd want it to be close though right i mean you would expect for at least to be close unless you lean heavily in one side of the ball. Need matters.

Need matters, priority, because depending on the system that you're running, different players have different levels of responsibility. Some would say the defense is linebacker based, right? Right? So you need a bunch of lines. What positions do you carry the most of in your roster of 70 and 105? What positions? Defensive backs and receivers?

Yeah. Right? The most? Lyman, yeah. Right? There. Right. How many linemen do you want on your roster? How many linesmen, offensive linemen do you take when you travel on the road in the Big Ten? So you have 70 players, right? So you have to know what those numbers are. Yeah. And if you want to be really specific, you get into depth,

right, that quite frankly, we go through seven receivers in the game, including special teams, right we go through nine defensive backs right because they played special teams those are the cover guys those are the sprint guys right they all in play and then how do you inspire because this is the one time in negotiating the contracts that you have to set motivation and ambition for your players so do you pay your fifth group of 20 at all or are those your scout players because the bottom 20 players that's your scout team Matter of fact, it's the bottom 40 players, but hey, for the sake of this conversation, right, the bottom 20 players, scout team, how much of your revenue share do they get? Do they get a full share, or do they get the scholarship and all the perks and benefits, and then they can play their way up to the next level? Yeah, I think that's generally how you'd do it, though. I do you think you'd probably stick them on base, something. Right, something, right? Yeah.

Right. So you could say we're going to take a share and split it amongst that bottom tier. The end, you're motivated. You don't like being on the scout team. Play your way off of it and play yourself into some money. Play yourself as the money. So you've got to beat out the guy in front of you. All right, 14, 14 guys, right?

We're now at 80 players. Half of this group of 20 is not going to make the top travel roster. Right. You got it. It's crabs in a barrel. You can pay them the same amount of money, or you can say, if you make the travel roster, this is what you can make.

This is how much we're going to... This is what the share value is for that. You could say we're going to split this $20 million into shares of $25,000 or $50,000 or $100,000. It depends on you. Right? In truth,

if you're spending $20 million out of the revenue share and you have 100 players, that's $200,000 a player. Right? Quick math. But we also just said We're not going to pay the bottom, the fifth team, the scout team, the same as we do the starters.

So, hey, man, a large portion of that money is going to go back to the top tier, right? We're going to water down effect. Cool. Now, starters currently sitting at $400,000 each, right? Practice players have to play their way up. Now, I need more money for my top end. So it comes from the fourth team guys, who could be freshmen? Right. Incoming freshman, redshirt freshman, and players who are playing on the practice squad but have an opportunity to play up.

Right. If you make the practice squad, you get another tier. If you do not, if you stay on the practice squad, you stay at the lower level. Right. That takes us to the top 60s. So first team, second team, third team offensive defense. Now, top tier, that's $400,000. Can you get a top tier quarterback for the big team? 10 for $400,000. No, you cannot. No, you cannot. We ended up with one because T.J. Lateef ended up in the space.

But that tells me that's a second and third team quarterback, right? Mm-hmm. You're a third team quarterback. Who was Nebraska's third team quarterback this year? Now I'm blaming on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right? Young man, dual option guy, right?

Yeah. Okay. Is he worth $400,000? Probably not. $200,000. Probably not. 100,000. If you need him in the game, really.

Right, right. But this is, understand. Your scouting quarterback is valuable, but let's say he's worth $50,000 to come and give the best look. 14 quarterback, sometimes in scout situation, injury, other, you know, sickness, illness, whatever it is. But the 14th quarterback is a project.

He's not going to, he may not or may not make the travel squad. third team quarterback's probably going to make the travel squads or he's in the top 60 second team quarterback what's your second team quarterback work how much how much would you would you have had to set aside for t j latif as the second team quarterback one year ago well it's just again it depends on the situation Dylan and tj is a different representation or different money share than minchi and tj right because who's who's first team they're battling it out we don't know and and quite frankly whatever you offer it. Now, if you tell me that you just set aside a budget for a half a million dollars for your new quarterback, because we don't know who's starting. So I tell you what, we're going to set a number as the baseline for quarterback play. Is that $250,000? Is that $500,000?

What is it? Don't know. We don't know. Running back position. Now, how much would you have given Emmett a year ago? quite a bit before he became Emmett yeah how much what would you have given him after the ball game last year again it's tough to tell because I go with the range when people scream from the rafters that this is who we want and this is who I'd like and all those things there is a whole matrix

of numbers that Neo has to slow down and pick out and say this is what we're going to pay now But if what number is appropriate for offensive linemen in the Big Ten as your start to compete with Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan, USC, Oregon, what do you think the five starting offensive linemen's worth is in Big Ten football? I mean, for tackles, I think you're up there in a million dollars. you know, interior office alignment made that the high-end ones could be in there as well. Right, that there's a number.

Yeah. Remember, you have $10 million to field every offensive player. 10 billion on defense. Now, it may actually be less than that. But you have to share out what each position is worth and then set aside that.

You allow players to to what they sign as a baseline, right? Here's what you're guaranteed. You can play your way up from third team to first team. There's more money if you're the starter. If you beat out the two guys ahead of you, you deserve their money. But that's where NIL comes in.

Because that's your value to the team in the community. And you have more value as a starter than you do as a guy whose name isn't said on Saturday on national TV. So we can sit through and go through all of the numbers. But the reality is this. Nebraska has to determine what each of these things are worth to them. And then they have to find out from the players who are available what they think their number is.

And then you have to negotiate. And then you have to come to agreement. It's not that easy. it's not that simple it's not that simple it's not that simple just going to say there are some news but just some of the names of players who have who have committed to Nebraska in the past 72 hours yeah so they've got two two on the board now one was today

this morning many people probably saw over the weekend quarterback Kenny Minchie from Notre Dame did commit to Nebraska not a whole lot of experience there as backup at Notre Dame, but has mobile, big arm, athletic. So that's the expectation there in my mind is at least to come in and compete with T.J. Latif. They also landed today this morning, Brennan Black, the Iowa State Interior Offensive lineman that looks to be a plug-and-play type of deal here for Nebraska. They've got some outgoing players, of course, that was part of the news too.

Keona Davis, kind of the biggest one of the weekend. But, yeah, as of for now, they've got two in their transfer portal class in Minchie and Brennan Black. I'm just letting y'all know, sit back and go, hey, this is a good fit. Really? If you spend four of it, if you have 10 million for offense, for all 50 offensive players or all 35 offensive players that you're going to travel with, 35 office of players, Bach. Well, it can be hard, but I'll also say this. You think Nebraska spent more or less than Illinois, you know, Iowa?

There seems to be teams that are doing it. Maybe they are spending more. We don't know. But I don't know. That part. That part, we don't know. And the likelihood. I mean, so Nettie said in his, when they were off, when he was being interviewed, look, if you just give me average money, I'm going to win.

win in the big tag. Yeah. That's, that's the sauce I want. Yeah. I win with whatever you, will you give me? Just get, get me close and I'll get you over the home. Fred Hoyer. I don't think he's got probably the top dollars. Say that. Yeah, and big and basketball. Compared to to what Purdue and Michigan and Michigan State are spending on basketball, Fred Hoyberg, Nebraska is not spending half of that money. I guarantee. And hey, it should be top five. I said it. I said it. I said it. More of a hundred on one with Bach and D.P. We'll come back.