No First Downs and Second Guesses in the paper this week with the CWS, so here's an extremely shortened version:

1. I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one in the paper, but I do know several attorneys and they tell me they don't expect Nebraska and Colorado to have to pay the entire exit fee, or damages, or whatever you want to call it, to the Big 12.

First, there's the word "damages.'' The remaining Big 12 schools must prove that NU and CU damaged the league by leaving. That might be hard to do in light of the (reckless) rhetoric last week, with Big 12 commish Dan Beebe and others talking about how the league was now better without NU and CU, how the remaining schools stood to make more money, how it would be a much better basketball league (Frank Martin and the Missouri governor both weighed in on that), etc. Those statements can and will be used against the Big 12 in proving that the league has been lessened or damaged.

Also, one attorney friend of mine said he expected NU to request emails from each Big 12 school to other conferences in the past year, to see who was saying what to which league. The attorney said he suspected some schools, including UT, might not want those emails made public in court.

Finally, a word about Harvey Perlman's "shots'' at Mizzou and Texas at the NU Regents meeting 10 days ago. A lot of folks got their dander up over that. It was clear then, and now, that Perlman was merely laying out his case for a future financial tussle with the Big 12. In other words, Perlman was stating that NU had to leave because Missouri was strongly hinting it wanted to leave, and Texas and others would not commit to staying in the league if both MU and CU left. It was a classic legal play, two moves ahead, by Perlman, nothing personal.

My attorney friends expect NU to have to pay something, but nowhere near what is being reported by media types in Texas, and more than likely half of that. We'll see. But the Big 12 case certainly looks like it has holes in it. It will be interesting, considering both Perlman and Beebe are attorneys.

2. Enough of this talk about Nebraska and Oklahoma playing a non-conference game. It's not going to happen — and shouldn't. That ship sailed in 1995, when OU chose not to continue the series. Too late now. OU will be playing nine conference games and NU will be playing eight and possibly nine depending on what the Big 10 decides to do. Non-conference games will be needed for home game revenue — and W's. Plus, NU is tied up for the foreseeable future with Washington, UCLA, Tennessee and Miami. As painful as it might be, it's time to turn the page. The old days are over and aren't coming back.

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