Not to get all Fisk-y on a Friday, but...this happened. 

So did you hear that inescapable sound echoing across the great state of Nebraska earlier this week?

No! The howling wind rolling unimpeded across the frozen tundra? Ndamukong Suh venting his mighty innards after after eating half a cow at a Lincoln training table? The constant sucking sound made by the Cornhuskers' offense? Warren Buffett's only luxury, his 500 foot long hydrogen-powered alpenhorn? WE MUST KNOW WITH A COMPELLING, LOST-esque LEAD LIKE THAT!!!

Silence. Exactly.

Because silence makes a sound, something we learned from reading a 12 year old's journal in 1968. 

On Monday, University of Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne gave the football staff raises that made Bo Pelini the first $2 million coach at NU, put defensive coordinator Carl Pelini at $375,000 per year and the entire coaching staff at $4.335 million — or third among Big 12 football staffs, for those keeping score at home.

So now Nebraska, a major top 25 football program, is paying their coach a salary putting him in the top 26 coaches by annual pay. In other news, now that you're making more than $23,000 a year, you ditched the Honda and got yourself a sexy only slightly used Honda. Your decadence knows no bounds, but you'll try and find them, you sybarite you. 

Are we just growing numb to the culture of big-time football? As the silly money continues to pile higher and higher, does it even register anymore?

Hey, that's not silly money. That's cash money that Bo Pelini will not hesitate to spend on only the sweetest ho-magnetizing sports cars he can let loose on flat Great Plains highways in the pursuit of happiness. Silly money gets you Bill Callahan, who still to this day attempts to pass off those bogus Tom Osborne bucks in New Jersey AutoZones when paying for the robot oil he needs to stay alive. Real money gets you Bo Pelini and the Nebraska Pain Train that nearly won the Big 12 this year. Choo-fucking-choo. 

Ten years ago, the thought of a Nebraska football coach getting 2.1 million smackaroos a year would have been as believable as, well, a Nebraska coach running the West Coast Offense. Five years ago? You might buy it, but it would make a lot of folks squirm in this hard-working, humble land.

Oh, mindfouls in every direction. Is there any part of the United States that doesn't immediately clasp lips to the gaspipe of their own innate virtue? Who among you will stand up and admit to being both arrogant, lazy, and greedy without diligence? Miami? Okay, Miami's in. But they need company, so don't be shy. Also, we bought a real doozy of a jalopy with some smackeroos we made mowing old biddy's lawns in Squaresville once! IT WAS THE GOAT'S WAINSCOTING WE TELL YOU!!!

Fast forwarding...

This week, no protesters offered a peep. And if they did, they were drowned out by the silence of acceptance.

Smothered by the darkness of acquiescence.  Suffocated by the chloroform of agreement. Autoerotically strangled by the thorny hand of the erotic great-aunt of accord. 

Got a problem? Blame the athletic directors (KU's Lew Perkins gave Turner Gill $2 million before he had coached a game). And blame the presidents, who approve the money. Speaking of the presidents, they might need a playoff to pay for all these salaries.

Or not, since OU, Texas, and Nebraska clear those checks easily, and because this is a market, YOU COMMIE, and they pay what the market will bear. Maybe you want college football death camps and radish soup for lunch every day, and that's fine. It's called the ACC, commissar, and it's right over there when you're ready for seven wins a year and a dacha on Lake Burton, comrade. 

Nebraskans don't have a problem. That's actually not a surprise. Nebraskans are practical sorts.

Iowans cannot step on cracks, and cannot turn left. Kansans fear the color chartreuse and have an innate ability to accurately state the ambient humidity of a room. Arizonans drop their left legs when frightened and can regrow one in six to eight weeks depending on their age and diet. Wisconsinites are complete binge-drinking alcoholics--wait, that one's actually totally true and empirically solid. We apologize for its appearance in this column. 

A prediction: there will be a Nebraska coach making $3 million, and possibly $4 million, in our lifetime

US IN 1992: Someday I'll pay two dollars for a cup of coffee? WHAT IS THIS COUNTRY COMING TO? Next thing you know you'll tell me Kurt Cobain will blow his head off? WHY WOULD A MAN WITH A FINE WOMAN LIKE COURTNEY LOVE AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS DO SUCH A THING? Two dollars? That's crazier than a Ministry concert there! 

/endfisk

/economics should be taught to toddlers right after rhetoric, mathematics, and their krav maga classes