Bigger thorn in our side this round?

[charger78]

USC vs Oregon... (cruits who visited)

Trojans:
Randal Grimes
Joseph Lewis
Greg Johnson

Ducks:
D. Lenoir
Jaylon Red
Thomas Graham
Cj Verdell

Honestly... I think we pull in at least three of these guys we would have had Donte a full cycle. Maybe 4. There are more that were at least mentioned at some point showing interest as well. Like Nick Pickett (Maybe left somebody off)

Im thorn, I mean torn.

 

[litespeedhuskerfan]

I'm always hesitant to buy into the "We came in second place" train of thought with guys who end up sticking close to home. If it wasn't USC or Oregon, it would have probably been somebody else. Close to home is a tough obstacle to overcome and I suspect the gap between them wanting to stay home and coming here was the size of the Grand Canyon and not something that was going to be overcome had USC or Oregon run out of room, for instance.

 

[Toms Wife]

Whose thorn in the side are we? Is there somebody we are beating out for recruits? Perhaps Iowa?

 

[charger78]

Whose thorn in the side are we? Is there somebody we are beating out for recruits? Perhaps Iowa?

That is obviously another question that can be answered... However, since we were literally in it to the very end (signing day) with at least 4 out of the 7 mentioned above, i think it goes w/o saying that these 2 schools created the biggest hurdles for us this year. Just not sure which one was the bigger hurddle. @litespeedhuskerfan it appears distance won out, really interested to see by how much. I think w/ a few of these fellas it was closer than we realize.

 

[nebcountry]

It doesn't all have to be about distance. Oregon and USC (and others) have their selling points just like we do. Concerning Oregon, seems like all on the list committed there somewhat early with the exception of Graham. It looks to me like an uphill battle flipping players. I tend to look at committed players as seeing their current commit school as at least being favored by 51% or more as a whole. We can relish the Blades and Guy Thomas victories, lament the Calvin losses, but they're the exceptions.

On huskers.com live stream, I watched the Bray interview. He commented on how we got after these guys early, Ward was the latest to commit in December. And Bray was happy to not be under the gun to finish up his portion of recruiting.

So, I don't see any thorns that aren't self inflicted.

 

[timnsun]

It doesn't all have to be about distance. Oregon and USC (and others) have their selling points just like we do. Concerning Oregon, seems like all on the list committed there somewhat early with the exception of Graham. It looks to me like an uphill battle flipping players. I tend to look at committed players as seeing their current commit school as at least being favored by 51% or more as a whole. We can relish the Blades and Guy Thomas victories, lament the Calvin losses, but they're the exceptions.

On huskers.com live stream, I watched the Bray interview. He commented on how we got after these guys early, Ward was the latest to commit in December. And Bray was happy to not be under the gun to finish up his portion of recruiting.

So, I don't see any thorns that aren't self inflicted.

I'm confused by this statement... so the fact we missed out on Lewis, Lenoir, and others is our own fault? Please expand on this...

 

[nebcountry]

I'm confused by this statement... so the fact we missed out on Lewis, Lenoir, and others is our own fault? Please expand on this...

timnsun, it just gets people mad at me when I respond to this kind of stuff, lol. People go into the "blessing in disguise" mode and rationalizing, but I do recognize that I may not see the entire picture. I'm not looking at this as a naming names of recruits (Lewis, Lenoir, etc) situation. Now that I've talked in circles, if you really want me to list negatives I will. But, you're gonna have to confirm it.

I'll leave it with this parting thought. If you believe in free will, then you can make changes that will hopefully make tomorrow or next year better. And we have made some recent changes. And, there were some one-time events (hopefully don't happen again) that couldn't have helped the way I see it.

 

[coachDubs]

They both will continue to get the upper hand against us in recruiting. USC is obvious, they're in the backyard of so many elite prospects. Oregon with tons of success of late, especially compared to Nebraska. They're an established brand, especially on the west coast.

We beat out Ohio State for Lyndsey. We beat out Florida for Blades. When is the last we could say Nebraska flipped a recruit from either school, in the last 3 weeks of the recruiting cycle? Heck, I can't remember the last time we flipped guys from either school.

Donte will do his thing in California, and I see 3-5 guys from the state ending up in the 2018 class. We already have one, we'll have another in July - that's 2 I can see for sure. Efforts in Missouri, that's what I want to see, that state is loaded with elite 2018 guys.

 

[Archie Graham]

They both will continue to get the upper hand against us in recruiting. USC is obvious, they're in the backyard of so many elite prospects. Oregon with tons of success of late, especially compared to Nebraska. They're an established brand, especially on the west coast.

We beat out Ohio State for Lyndsey. We beat out Florida for Blades. When is the last we could say Nebraska flipped a recruit from either school, in the last 3 weeks of the recruiting cycle? Heck, I can't remember the last time we flipped guys from either school.

Donte will do his thing in California, and I see 3-5 guys from the state ending up in the 2018 class. We already have one, we'll have another in July - that's 2 I can see for sure. Efforts in Missouri, that's what I want to see, that state is loaded with elite 2018 guys.

Agree with every last nugget of this post.

 

[charger78]

They both will continue to get the upper hand against us in recruiting. USC is obvious, they're in the backyard of so many elite prospects. Oregon with tons of success of late, especially compared to Nebraska. They're an established brand, especially on the west coast.

We beat out Ohio State for Lyndsey. We beat out Florida for Blades. When is the last we could say Nebraska flipped a recruit from either school, in the last 3 weeks of the recruiting cycle? Heck, I can't remember the last time we flipped guys from either school.

Donte will do his thing in California, and I see 3-5 guys from the state ending up in the 2018 class. We already have one, we'll have another in July - that's 2 I can see for sure. Efforts in Missouri, that's what I want to see, that state is loaded with elite 2018 guys.

Thinking Bookie in July? Those are the 2 teams that really stuck out this year in regards to players we had a legit shot at landing. i'd say USC as Lewis was saying that Nebraska was so hard to say no to. Greg Johnson is probably a better all -around athlete.

MO is going to crucial for 2018 and 19, especially since MO is right in our "backyard"

On the flips - felt good this year flipping elite athletes for once. Game changers who will compete day 1.

 

[coachDubs]

Thinking Bookie in July? Those are the 2 teams that really stuck out this year in regards to players we had a legit shot at landing. i'd say USC as Lewis was saying that Nebraska was so hard to say no to. Greg Johnson is probably a better all -around athlete.

MO is going to crucial for 2018 and 19, especially since MO is right in our "backyard"

On the flips - felt good this year flipping elite athletes for once. Game changers who will compete day 1.

Ya, Bookie, all signs point to us. I expect him to commit to us in July when he announces and by that time I'm hoping we have another commit from California. That'd give us 3 California guys before fall camp.

 

[dinglefritz]

Maybe we were a bigger thorn in Bama's side. We landed 4 guys I believe with Bama offers including Gebbia. We landed a lot of guys with offers from big boy programs.

 

[charger78]

Maybe we were a bigger thorn in Bama's side. We landed 4 guys I believe with Bama offers including Gebbia. We landed a lot of guys with offers from big boy programs.

Agree on the guys with offers from big boy programs... don't agree on being a thorn in bama's side...as numerous pundits are calling this "the best class ever signed" time will tell

Landing Tyjon and Donte will do wonders towards landing Bookie, and hopefully landing him early. Let him peer recruit at IMG where we have multiple big time offers such as Pledger and Hightower. Both former Cali kids.

 

[redfanusa]

Neither USC nor Oregon signed a single recruit from Nebraska. So I'd say we clobbered them head-to-head.

 

[BigRedTed37]

USC finishing strong definitely helped them keeping Lewis and Johnson. I think Nebraska would've landed them, if USC's season would've continue to spiral downwards. When there were stories of the USC lineman punching a coach at practice, USC was not looking so hot. After they won the Rose Bowl, they seemed to start locking up a lot of the top recruits out of California.

Really hope we can land Bookie for 2018. Might not be the tallest DB, but damn he sure plays with a chip on his shoulder.

 

[anon_umk0ifu6vj6zi]

Whose thorn in the side are we? Is there somebody we are beating out for recruits? Perhaps Iowa?

Texas San Antonio. Always so hard to pry kids away from the historical giant.

 

[dinglefritz]

Texas San Antonio. Always so hard to pry kids away from the historical giant.

Nah, we only took one recruit from them. We got at least 4 that had Bama offers. It's amazing how Tom's wife is just as big of a troll as Tulsa Tom is and their posting styles are identical....

 

[charger78]

Nah, we only took one recruit from them. We got at least 4 that had Bama offers. It's amazing how Tom's wife is just as big of a troll as Tulsa Tom is and their posting styles are identical....

Trolls will be trolls. Kill'em with kindness.

 

[BigRedballz]

How fortunate are we that Mizzou is a dumpster fire right now. It sounds like one of the best classes of talent to come out of Missouri in quite a while and we should have as good or better shot to land positions of need as anybody. Of the local schools, Mizzou is down, KSU is hanging by a thread, KU is always trash, Arkansas could be a problem, Illinois might take couple but we should be able to fend them off for the ones we really want. Iowa doesn't recruit that well. OU and Texas don't have to leave the backyard much. OSU is a decent school that we will have to contend with. If Mizzou was the team from 10 years ago I think they clean up, but as of now we got Jaevon right out of there hometown.

 

[HuskerLLM]

Biggest thorn in our side this cycle was the lack of recruiting done by Banker, Stewart, Read and Davis. Spent just about the entire cycle with nearly half of the assistants not getting it done.

 

[GretnaShawn]

Whose thorn in the side are we? Is there somebody we are beating out for recruits? Perhaps Iowa?

UCLA and to a lesser extent USC have to see us as a thorn in their side as of this last cycle. The prospects we took and will take this cycle are traditional UCLA and USC kid. It was between USC and us for KJJ.

After KJJ and Gebbia committed last year I remember a thread on the UCLA board about how Nebraska was becoming a pain.

Remember when Angus McClure came in and offered a couple kids from Nebraska? That is a reaction to us being a thorn in their side.

 

[tone1017]

As long as we target cali this hard, especially socal, we will lose a good amount of targets to USC.

 

[redwine65]

As long as we target cali this hard, especially socal, we will lose a good amount of targets to USC.

keep targeting cali hard, but texas and florida just as hard.

 

[LAjayhawk]

Nebraska can beat Oregon for Socal recruits. It is no further to Lincoln than it is to Oregon. Of course those kids want to play in LA and they can do that with Oregon but still Oregon is a very very long way away.

USC selects who they want though, so a good strategy for Nebraska is to identify those players that may not make the USC cut and stay on them. Blades was a guy a lot of USC fans wanted but the coaches ranked him behind Falo and Greg Johnson.

 

[charger78]

Nebraska can beat Oregon for Socal recruits. It is no further to Lincoln than it is to Oregon. Of course those kids want to play in LA and they can do that with Oregon but still Oregon is a very very long way away.

USC selects who they want though, so a good strategy for Nebraska is to identify those players that may not make the USC cut and stay on them. Blades was a guy a lot of USC fans wanted but the coaches ranked him behind Falo and Greg Johnson.

Agree on the fact if beating Oregon for recruits. My original statement applied to this year only - was interesting (to me) to see how many recruits we had legitimate shots at go to either of these schools.

Also agree with you about USC...tough to steal them from their backyard, but possible. Example, Fuller. Just need to hang on to him. Need to find individuals who are willing to leave the area early on and spend majority of time on them. Now, you can't shun 5*s that show legit interest, but like Riley said, need to be smart where they spend their time and resources.

 

[LAjayhawk]

USC has little success developing the small slot guys. Oregon does well with these types. I love seeing NU take Lindsey and Harris out of the PAC. Keep up the good work!

The only player I can remember Oregon stole from USC was DAT and he was electric, so those guys can ball they just do better at other schools than USC.

 

[coachDubs]

Nebraska can beat Oregon for Socal recruits. It is no further to Lincoln than it is to Oregon. Of course those kids want to play in LA and they can do that with Oregon but still Oregon is a very very long way away.

USC selects who they want though, so a good strategy for Nebraska is to identify those players that may not make the USC cut and stay on them. Blades was a guy a lot of USC fans wanted but the coaches ranked him behind Falo and Greg Johnson.

It'll be an uphill battle, one that we'll lose more times than not. Oregon is a brand name, with a lot of recent success, plus the whole Nike thing plus . Nebraska is behind the 8-ball with all things considered, till we win something and/or get in a big time bowl games.

The way I see it, unless we have an in with someone, we'll be at best the fourth pick for SoCal recruits; USC, UCLA, Oregon then Nebraska. We had an in with KJJ (Mike Riley), Gebbia (KJJ) and Blades (Donte Williams). We don't get any of the three without the previous relationship. I guess one could add Lindsey (Dubs) since he's technically from California and Dubs won that recruiting battle over everyone but the facts remain, we lost more than our fair share. Still though, that's 1 recruit with no prior relation we landed compared to the many others we lost out on.

On signing day, Mike Riley said he wants 2-3 kids per class from California. That tells me the Husker staff recognizes the difficulty California (SoCal) is and won't put near the time, effort and/or resources in that area as we did during the 2017 cycle.

And with the loaded talent in Missouri in the 2018 and 2019 classes, I sure hope to heck we put a shit ton of resources in to that state. It's a gold mine over the next two classes...

 

[LAjayhawk]

Love to see Huskers take the Missouri talent. If NU can return to its spot as a national contender maybe they will have the juice to get KU into the big10.