Since I know many of you will see "Ohio State" in the headline and will understandably ask:
Something is going on between
Dylan Raiola and Ohio State. What that
something is exactly and why, I don't know. I'm looking into it. That's all I have to say because I'm not going to jump to any sort of conclusions about anything.
Onto another Buckeye-related note:
Nebraska extended an offer to Ohio State DB transfer
Jantzen Dunn, who entered the transfer portal on Tuesday and is a three-star ranked No. 174 overall in the Rivals transfer rankings. There was mutual interest between both sides, but Dunn is not going to land at Nebraska and is looking elsewhere to continue his college career.
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Some background:
Dunn spent two seasons at Ohio State but saw limited action. He played in two games as a true freshman but sustained a season-ending leg injury midway through the year and then appeared in four games on special teams in 2022. Ohio State's plan when it signed him was to develop him as a safety, but he was moved mainly to cornerback and he was cross-training at both positions in 2022. He was ranked as a four-star prospect and was Kentucky's No. 2 player in the state and No. 26 safety in the country in the 2021 class.
Two most important notes:
1) The Huskers pursued Dunn, so we know they at least gave it a shot.
2) Just as important: Their interest in Dunn is another sign of what Nebraska is looking for on defense. Dunn, 6-foot-1 and 192 lbs. at his last official check-in, was a raw, high-end athlete coming out of high school. Going into the OSU program as a true freshman, Dunn had official times of 4.54 seconds in the 40, 4.15 in the shuttle, a 40.80-inch vertical, a broad jump of 10 feet, 4 inches and a long jump of 22 feet, 1 inch. He was, in my opinion, the best pure athlete on defense who OSU signed in 2021. I've talked about this before: Ohio State likes to sign at least one (if not 2-3) of those types of athletes. A player who they don't know exactly which position he's going to play, but they just want to get his athleticism, traits and high ceiling into the program and see if they can develop him. (Dunn was well on his way to doing that before the injury set him back, and it's become a slower development process than what had been hoped for).
I believe that will be part of the recruiting strategy for Nebraska moving forward: Sign 2-3 pure athletes on defense who they believe will develop best at a certain position but who aren't locked into just one position. Bring him on, see how his body and techniques develop in the first year (maybe the first two years) and then move forward with a more concrete positional plan from there. Maybe that happened here under the previous regime, but this strategy/plan feels more concrete because Rhule has examples from his past that prove he has a true vision for those types of players and examples to prove that it can be successful.