Blades apparently gone for good
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So you think they shouldn't have taken his commitment at all? What good would that have done?
No I don't think we should take a commitment if the kid has a zero chance of qualifying. The kid had an offer list a mile long and no one else was willing to take his commitment after Florida pulled their offer.
People will debate his chances of qualifying - I believe they were zero. The kid is really talented and if their was some chance, even remote, he would have held numerous commitable offers late in the recruiting cycle - he didn't.
Your belief has nothing to do with it. The kid said the staff wanted him to take the partial qualifier and he decided not to.
He'd rather play at a JUCO than sit on our bench and basically start next year.
He also said he was "tricked" into believing he would qualify at Nebraska - do you believe that????
You don't have to misquote, the word "somewhat" is in that conversation as well.
What I believe happened is here's a kid who is very borderline. NU is a school with an unrivaled academic support system and decides it won't be all that much work to try and get this kid into D1.
Florida say "meh, we get a Blades every year" and indicates to the kid its not going to the mat for him if he can't clear the bar.
DW probably tells this kid 2/3 of the outcomes are good for him, he either clears the bar, or he partial qualifies and plays later. But he also tells Blades that Blades is a winner, so he's optimistic he'll get it done. Or something rather open ended.
Blades is a Top 50 prospect and probably has some experience with faculty and administrators bending rules for him in his circle. Maybe interpret's DW's comments that NU is going to find a way to get him on the field in Aug 2017, when in reality NU is committed to get him on campus, and the field whenever it can by statute.
The open endedness of the scenarios and the lack of cogent thought/patience by an 18 year old superstar I think makes up 99% of the delta between "the truth" and "somewhat misled". He's probably more accurate if he says "we weren't explicitly on the same page". I find it really hard to believe Riley and DW went into this straight up lying to the kid.
Of course Riley and DW didn't lie to him - he is an immature high school kid trying to save face the same goes for his claim that he could have enrolled at Nebraska as a partial - and yes I know what Sam McKeon tweeted
I leave this board for a week to move, and I come back and it is a s*** show of negative news. Blades does not qualify and says the coaches lied to him... Watts quits football all together... Griffith CB's changing back to FSU... Jones injury out for 4-6 months. Can we get some good news please, now that I am back?
You act like this is something unusual that we or anybody else never does-going for a player with a lot of talent who you have major doubts about qualifying but hoping for the best. It is not unsuual at all. We and other schools have done it before, and will again. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. If he would have qualified, you would have never praised our coaches for taking a chance on him, yet because he didn't you criticize them for trying.
Of course it occurs ... I have never said it doesn't. It should continue to occur just not with kids who have zero chance of qualifying. Again why is no one else willing to gamble on a top 50 talent with an offer list a mile long ? It is because they have no chance of qualifying. There are numerous other programs in the exact same boat as Neb, who also have no problem over signing and yet he still didn't have any offers. This is a highly rated recruit who every program was following and they ALL, (not some, not half, not most) ALL said they wouldn't take his commit due to academics.
Keep in mind NU has more support staff willing to do the legwork in playing all academic angles than most, if not all D1 schools.
Its a selling point to the program.
Surely we shouldn't just put that weapon down.
I don't think having a kid come out in the media stating he felt "somewhat tricked" into the belief he would qualify is a positive.
The reality is really none. If they wanted a 3* late January option they could have had couple in addition to Blades (even with Blades we were at 20/22).
The decision was made to give DW room to work this year.
Its not a huge negative either. This kid won't be a blip on the national radar in a day or two, if he is at all now.
Absolutely .. This is huge.
But my impression is that these programs do
nothing to get a kid qualified out of high school. Just keep them qualified once here. It is up to the kid to meet qualifying standards. We should continue to tell kids "you have worked your tail off to get qualified . Congratulations! We have the best academic support staff in the nation to help you progress toward your degree and academic goals."
It's simple. You are under the 85 limit, if for some reason he gets the necessary test score and GPA to enroll, even with your undocumented 0% chance, you have a steal. When you consider that no one else was on the hook at that position, you have nothing to lose. You either leave the spot empty or take a flyer. Nothing is lost. If he doesn't qualify, you use the scholarship in a small 2018 class, if you leave it empty, you use the scholarship in the 2018 class, butbif a miracle happens and he qualifies, well you have a top 50 player on your roster. I am really looking hard to find the negative.
If you can show me who Nebraska had, as a DB recruit, that was passed over and had an offer pulled so that Blades could be part of the class, I will be glad to reconsider my position.
If you can show me who Nebraska had, as a DB recruit, that was passed over and had an offer pulled so that Blades could be part of the class, I will be glad to reconsider my position.
Well, part of the issue with Blades is that he isn't sold on Nebraska. He just gave us a commit because we were the only ones to offer. The fact that he states he doesn't want to come here after JUCO tells you all you need to know. There is something to the kid that has the heart and desire to play for the university and for the state.
From what I understand, we have in the past done some upfront legwork but I don't know the real extent of this. We certainly have enough folks to dedicate to these onesie and twosie cases. The fact that we have folks like this, gives the program a little more strategic patience though, hard to imagine McElwain sweating out Blades' status every day of the summer.
But " It is up to the kid to meet qualifying standards. " is exactly the reason this kids story won't fly long. He knows what he has to meet, and he's probably had no shortage of HS faculty trying to help him get there. There's no trick about it, especially since the rumor is he was waiting on an ACT score, not some minutiae of policy to go his way.
I think all know that this is 100% on Blades and not the only school who would give him a landing spot if he did a little work.
The fact that he thinks going to a JUCO is an easy way to D1 is what you need to look at Tom. I would bet dollars to donuts that he doesn't realize he has to leave Arizona Western with an associates or that in order for him to get that associates and have the necessary courses that will transfer, to go on to a D1 school he will more than likely need to redshirt at the JUCO level.
Again this was an illinformed kid that was looking for a place to lay blame.
That is fair. But one can make the argument as to why Nebraska didn't have a viable division 1 DB recruit. I understand they went after a numbe of highly ranked recruits and struck out - so be it. Just hope we aren't in this position too often. Had Nebraska had
been in on a midtier DB 3* with a couple of other low level power 5 offers I believe they would have taken him and passed on Blades. I don't think we should be in a position like this where we are out of recruits and therefore will take a commit that requires a miracle to get on campus. Would like to have better plan C options if plans A and B don't pan out.
But you are missing the point. He was asked IF he completes JUCO would he come back to Nebraska and he said, "I don't think so." He was never sold on Nebraska in the first place...we were the only chick that said we would dance with him.
Goes back to what I said before. Why tie up a scholarship for 4 or 5 years on a mid tier 3 star with only offers from Purdue and Illinois when you have just hired one of the best DB recruiters in the country? Donte was able to get Lenoir and others to at least look at Nebraska in a very short period of time. These types of decisions are always based on more than one class and one recruit.
Like this kid? A 3* DW had known all year?
http://dataomaha.com/huskers/player/6321/michael-onyemaobi
They are both valid points. Different but valid. Kid thought we were going to open some magic door for him and apparently thinks it might be easy in the future too.
Im not missing the point. He is pissed he didn't qualify, he blames Nebraska. If he had qualified, he wouldn't be pissed at Nebraska. He wants to play right away and didn't want to sit out a an academic redshirt year. It's no different than when your girlfriend broke up with you for cheatingbon her. You say things about her to make yourself feel better but in reality you know it's your fault.
In his eyes, by telling him Nebraska is (basically) the only school in his finalists that could get him accepted. Florida wouldn't, which is why they didn't hesitate to cut him loose and gets commitments from other top rated guys. He tried to commit to USC, which is where he wanted to go, but they didn't accept it due to his academics.
We knew exactly what we were getting, and was blunt with him. There was a snowballs chance in hell he'd qualify, you're basically a functioning dipshit not to qualify at Nebraska for football. NCAA requirements met, UNL admissions allows the recruit in.
Nobody? Holy hyperbole, wow.
Yeah, I doubt hardly anybody outside of our fanbase knows about this. You hear a lot in national recruiting circles about where players go, but very little about who qualifies and who doesn't.
It's obvious he wasn't interested in playing for us in the first place. We were chosen for only one reason...we said "yes, c'mon." We need guys who want to wear the N.
I stand corrected. In addition to the high level 4* recruits we also struck out on the 3* recruits leading to the blades Hail Mary ... Agree that DW was in a tight spot and forced to scramble.
Or, it might have been that the push for Blades and his subsequent commitment pushed Onyemoaobi to TCU. Don't know the exact timing but Onyemoaobi made his decision on signing day.
While I would have never put it as bluntly as you did .... We are in agreement. Nebraska shouldn't be recruiting functioning dipshits
Just curious, do you feel the same about Bubba Starling and Monte Harrison. We accepted their commitments basically knowing full well they weren't coming... I get that he was a long shot, but it was a long shot that didn't hurt us in any way whatsoever to try for. And the worst case scenario with Blades is happening right now...and all that means is he isn't coming. Move on to 2018 and let DW earn his pay. Maybe look for a potential transfer or juco to try and balance the classes a little better. But I hope that if this exact same scenario happens again, Riley and co do the exact same thing and gamble to get a game changing athlete
jlb, not sure I still get your angle. Couldn't you say NU probably did the most to try and make Blades part of a D-1 program in 2017? Granted it wasn't going to be PT on the field, but they were willing to invest in him to get his academics on the right track, get stronger, and more polished for the following year. If I read you correctly, nobody else was willing to take the risk to offer that. NU has nothing to be ashamed about how this all went down.
