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Does high school football in-state need to improve before NU can?

Suhrreal

Defensive Coordinator
Jun 1, 2009
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If you go back to the 90's, we ripped off a good string of skill position players that made an impact at WR, RB, and QB. You had Reggie Baul, Lance Brown, John Gibson, Matt Davison, Vedral (may be SD can't remember), and so on. These were real football players. Blocking and catching. The RBs don't even need to be mentioned. We had about 6 or 7 from Omaha alone. And then the Pipeline. That Nebraska beef was going to good use.

I'm looking at the in-state players on the team and some of the ones playing can't do the most basic things. Ketters, Reimers dropping balls all over the field. Then you have the ones who are not playing. The optics here say a lot. I know there are a lot of small towns in Nebraska, well, let's skip that thought for now.

For those that follow the high school ball, how is it stacking up these days?
 
It would certainly help, but it's not needed. We've proven we can recruit nationally.
 
It would certainly help, but it's not needed. We've proven we can recruit nationally.

I think it is needed for a number of reasons. The competition in practice between all units needs to be elevated for one. You also cannot understate the pride of playing for your state, city, friends, family, etc.
 
The state does have talent, it is limited. Some dude is a captain on Stanford's defense! Adam Holtorf is the starting center for KState! Both players were not offered by us
 
If you go back to the 90's, we ripped off a good string of skill position players that made an impact at WR, RB, and QB. You had Reggie Baul, Lance Brown, John Gibson, Matt Davison, Vedral (may be SD can't remember), and so on. These were real football players. Blocking and catching. The RBs don't even need to be mentioned. We had about 6 or 7 from Omaha alone. And then the Pipeline. That Nebraska beef was going to good use.

I'm looking at the in-state players on the team and some of the ones playing can't do the most basic things. Ketters, Reimers dropping balls all over the field. Then you have the ones who are not playing. The optics here say a lot. I know there are a lot of small towns in Nebraska, well, let's skip that thought for now.

For those that follow the high school ball, how is it stacking up these days?

I think it is down.
 
If you go back to the 90's, we ripped off a good string of skill position players that made an impact at WR, RB, and QB. You had Reggie Baul, Lance Brown, John Gibson, Matt Davison, Vedral (may be SD can't remember), and so on. These were real football players. Blocking and catching. The RBs don't even need to be mentioned. We had about 6 or 7 from Omaha alone. And then the Pipeline. That Nebraska beef was going to good use.

I'm looking at the in-state players on the team and some of the ones playing can't do the most basic things. Ketters, Reimers dropping balls all over the field. Then you have the ones who are not playing. The optics here say a lot. I know there are a lot of small towns in Nebraska, well, let's skip that thought for now.

For those that follow the high school ball, how is it stacking up these days?
Yes the instate talent is bad but if you mention the above none of them are remembered so foundly if Guys like Richard Bell and Nate Turner Anthony slick Steels Kenny Brown were not first in line .Don't let anyone B S you we had the best talent in the country. And depth from 1970s through the 1990s. Instate recruits was not our only advantage in the 90s. But it is blown way out of proportion.No caps on scholarships ,prop 48NATIONWIDE recruiting of walkons Boyd Eppleys Athletic index Christ Mark Schelien ran a fourty in 4.25 and Fryar came here with a 4.7 and left running 4.23 Every skill player on our rosters were athletic freaks I would and can mention more.But my main point is Staying the course on Recruiting is the only way we save our program .Cant keep blowing up coaches and expect to recruit enough quality players to compete with teams from huge population bases. Riley should only replace Cav And look for a OC Langs should only handle the QBs. Rest of the coaches are some of the best in the country.
 
Nebraska kids have proven throughout time they can play big time college football, but it seems we the program allows in state kids to go elsewhere or ask them to walk on. Nebraska has to keep kids in Nebraska.
 
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Whats proven is we fail if we attempt to run pro style offenses and defenses for that matter. That is why coaching matters...if we get cookie cutter coaches that are going to run their stuff regardless of talent we are going to lose and lose and lose. The option worked because we could recruit the best athletes and make them qbs, skip wr recruiting, bring in great olineman and TEs, and put the rest of our recruiting time into an explosive defense. I think a very high tempo power game with a big running qb is the way to go at NU. Shotgun triple option.
 
Is that something we could do with big 10 money is try to improve the high school football programs across the state?
 
I don't think the U is wanting to share with that cash with the highschools...

Local kid who went to ASU went to Lincoln Christian, not Lutheran. Anybody know how he's doing down there?

GBR
 
I don't think the U is wanting to share with that cash with the highschools...

Local kid who went to ASU went to Lincoln Christian, not Lutheran. Anybody know how he's doing down there?

GBR
I agree it's probably not realistic and the thinking is they'd probably squander it anyway. But I don't think it would require too much funding to have the university lobby the NSAA, the legislature, high schools, etc. to try to improve the talent in the state. I'm not saying the high schools should be football factories for the university, but with enough commitment you could probably approach that.
 
The state does have talent, it is limited. Some dude is a captain on Stanford's defense! Adam Holtorf is the starting center for KState! Both players were not offered by us
This. The talent is down in-state, but it isn't non existent. From Callahan on, we have not offered Nebraska kids that Osborne would have. Yes we recruit nationally. But go back and look at Osborne's rosters. There were a lot of Nebraska kids on those. And it matters
 
This. The talent is down in-state, but it isn't non existent. From Callahan on, we have not offered Nebraska kids that Osborne would have. Yes we recruit nationally. But go back and look at Osborne's rosters. There were a lot of Nebraska kids on those. And it matters

There are other issues than just not offering kids. I think you need to look at all the Nebraska kids on Osborne's rosters and see how many started as walk-ons. The cost of tuition in the 1970s and 1980s was no where near what it is now. There wasn't a lot of FCS football teams nearby. UNO played DII and so did NDSU, SDSU, USD etc the scholarships to DII are not all full ride. The offense was more conducive to walk on linemen and WRs. That allowed the scholarships to be spent on RBs, QBs and defense. Going back to tuition, kids that would have normally walked on are now taking scholarships elsewhere because parents don't want to drop all that money on tuition when they don't have to.

There have been misses, but there were misses when Osborne was here too.
 
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There are other issues than just not offering kids. I think you need to look at all the Nebraska kids on Osborne's rosters and see how many started as walk-ons. The cost of tuition in the 1970s and 1980s was no where near what it is now. There wasn't a lot of FCS football teams nearby. UNO played DII and so did NDSU, SDSU, USD etc the scholarships to DII are not all full ride. The offense was more conducive to walk on linemen and WRs. That allowed the scholarships to be spent on RBs, QBs and defense. Going back to tuition, kids that would have normally walked on are now taking scholarships elsewhere because parents don't want to drop all that money on tuition when they don't have to.

There have been misses, but there were misses when Osborne was here too.
All true. Excellent points. But despite all you say there are several D1 caliber players we have passed on that went elsewhere and had good college careers. And it is that kind of recruit I had in mind, not the walk ons. Sorry I was so unclear
 
All true. Excellent points. But despite all you say there are several D1 caliber players we have passed on that went elsewhere and had good college careers. And it is that kind of recruit I had in mind, not the walk ons. Sorry I was so unclear

There always will be players that were passed on. Some kids just didn't show well on HS tape. Some kids didn't work the recruiting. But there are several that passed on Nebraska. Not every HS player in the state grew up dreaming of playing at Nebraska. How many kids from other states have come here and been All-Americans? Did their respective state schools fail? Did those kids all grow up Texas fans or Miami fans?

Nebraska isn't in the situation they are in because they passed on a few players that ended up succeeding elsewhere and because they don't have a large number of Nebraska HS players on the team. IMHO
 
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Until our fan base realizes it isn't 1995, and every Nebraska kid is going to try and walk on, we are going to keep hearing stuff like this. We have an 85 scholly limit, and unless kids are willing to walk on, it makes it more difficult to offer them. In this day and age, they will just go down the road to have free schooling paid for. It's a tireless argument acting like we just keep passing on all of these Nebraska kids. Maybe we should have a Nebraska only team going forward, and see how we turn out. It's one of the bigger misconceptions out there that our title teams were basically Nebraska only kids. Did we have contributors, absolutely but our roster was full of people from outside of Nebraska.
 
Well said. Can't miss on in-state kids. Makes no sense.

So Florida, Florida St and Miami all failed on Frazier. Those schools can't miss on Florida kids. Oregon and Oregon St failed on Suh. You can't miss on Oregon kids. Nebraska is no different than anywhere else. Kids fly under the radar, some kids look great in tshirt and shorts, some kids DOMINATE at the high school level, some don't. Some kids fit in a system, some don't.

Hell up until 2005, I would bet a majority of the high schools in Nebraska ran some version of option football with an athlete at QB. Defenses were all designed to stop full back, QB and pitch guy. CBs filled alleys and didn't defend the pass much at all. WR blocked and got an occasional reverse. Those things were needed for the Huskers then, not necessarily the case now.
 
As a Clemson fan who sometimes lurks here (I've just always liked your program and getting out to one of your games is on my bucket list), I really can't emphasize enough how much I believe Nebraska should hire Paul Johnson away from Georgia Tech.

He has a hard time recruiting at GT considering how heavily the area is mined by southeastern football programs...but I'll go ahead and tell you that there is no team on our schedule every year that terrifies me as much as Georgia Tech. When we were interviewing Brent Venables for the DC position to pull him away from Oklahoma, the first question asked was "Can you stop the triple option?"

GT is a team that you can either stop...or they will make you look silly. Somehow Tennessee capitalized on a bad 4th quarter and snagged a win earlier this year...but Tech had 655 yards in that game. That offense is the answer to how to beat tempo teams.

IMO in a state where he had the primary school (Nebraska or LSU) he would terrorize college football. They embarrassed Mississippi State and Dak Prescott in the Orange Bowl a few years back too.

There's a lot of focus with big programs on putting guys in the NFL and using NFL systems to supposedly help recruiting...but at some point you have to decide whether you care more about putting guys in the NFL or winning football games. Taking the NFL and recruiting route puts the fate of your program almost entirely in the hands of consecutive signing days.

I realize nobody asked me but I think a dominant Nebraska program is good for college football. Paul Johnson is the answer for that, in my opinion.
 
There always will be players that were passed on. Some kids just didn't show well on HS tape. Some kids didn't work the recruiting. But there are several that passed on Nebraska. Not every HS player in the state grew up dreaming of playing at Nebraska. How many kids from other states have come here and been All-Americans? Did their respective state schools fail? Did those kids all grow up Texas fans or Miami fans?

Nebraska isn't in the situation they are in because they passed on a few players that ended up succeeding elsewhere and because they don't have a large number of Nebraska HS players on the team. IMHO
I never said we are in the situation we are in because we don't have enough Nebraska players on our roster. All I said was having a good number of home state kids on the roster matters. And it does.

I also think comparing us to talent rich States like Florida is not helpful. Sure the home State schools missed out on Frazier. But maybe it also had something to do with the fact that none of the big three schools in Florida (Miami, FSU, and Florida) ran the kind of offense for which he was a fit. Also, in States like that there is so much talent that it is very possible, if not likely, that there will be a lot of kids who fly under the radar and get missed. Finally, there are only 75 scholies a year cumulatively from those three schools, but there are way more than 75 D1 caliber high school players in that State every year. So of course lots of them will go elsewhere.

But Nebraska churns out, in a good year, about 5-7 D1 caliber players. Some years more, some less. And it is my view that we need to lock down those players for good ol' Nebraska U. It is my view that that is important. Yes, we will occasionally lose a kid who just wants to go out of State. But that is different than a situation where a kid wants to play for NU but does not get offered. And it is also my view that under Callahan and Pelini there was a prejudice against Nebraska kids. The presumption was that a kid from California or Florida or Texas or Ohio must be better than a kid from the Sandhills who played 8 man football.

And sure some kids don't look good on film or don't grade out well on speed and agility drills, but who are ballers who can play. But in a State that literally has a handful of D1 players a year it shouldn't be hard to give every kid who shows some promise a second, third and fourth look. I don't think Callahan and Pelini did that. And I am sorry, but I think that is bad for our program
 
As a Clemson fan who sometimes lurks here (I've just always liked your program and getting out to one of your games is on my bucket list), I really can't emphasize enough how much I believe Nebraska should hire Paul Johnson away from Georgia Tech.

He has a hard time recruiting at GT considering how heavily the area is mined by southeastern football programs...but I'll go ahead and tell you that there is no team on our schedule every year that terrifies me as much as Georgia Tech. When we were interviewing Brent Venables for the DC position to pull him away from Oklahoma, the first question asked was "Can you stop the triple option?"

GT is a team that you can either stop...or they will make you look silly. Somehow Tennessee capitalized on a bad 4th quarter and snagged a win earlier this year...but Tech had 655 yards in that game. That offense is the answer to how to beat tempo teams.

IMO in a state where he had the primary school (Nebraska or LSU) he would terrorize college football. They embarrassed Mississippi State and Dak Prescott in the Orange Bowl a few years back too.

There's a lot of focus with big programs on putting guys in the NFL and using NFL systems to supposedly help recruiting...but at some point you have to decide whether you care more about putting guys in the NFL or winning football games. Taking the NFL and recruiting route puts the fate of your program almost entirely in the hands of consecutive signing days.

I realize nobody asked me but I think a dominant Nebraska program is good for college football. Paul Johnson is the answer for that, in my opinion.
Good post. There are a good number of Husker fans who would agree with you. I would love to see us go back to a smash mouth, run oriented offense. However, I just don't know enough about Johnson and his overall career to have an informed opinion of him as our coach.

Thanks for stopping by. You used your first post to say something on another team's board? Hmmm
 
So 60 year old Paul Johnson, who has trouble getting southern talent to stay go to Atlanta is going to be able to get them to come to Lincoln?

Hard pass
 
Good post. There are a good number of Husker fans who would agree with you. I would love to see us go back to a smash mouth, run oriented offense. However, I just don't know enough about Johnson and his overall career to have an informed opinion of him as our coach.

Thanks for stopping by. You used your first post to say something on another team's board? Hmmm

I think it tracks the first post per board. I'm one longest active members of Tiger Illustrated (11 years or so).
 
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So 60 year old Paul Johnson, who has trouble getting southern talent to stay go to Atlanta is going to be able to get them to come to Lincoln?

Hard pass

A lot more competition in that part of the US down there I would think. Also, I don't think you have to have the 5 star QB to run his offense. The QB he has now was a 3 star athlete. What would Crouch have been rated?
 
A lot more competition in that part of the US down there I would think. Also, I don't think you have to have the 5 star QB to run his offense. The QB he has now was a 3 star athlete. What would Crouch have been rated?

I am not sure that is the point. Johnson is a guy that has won 59% of his games at Georgia Tech. He is 60 years old and hasn't shown the ability to consistently win recruiting battles. What is the reason? There has to be one right? In 9 plus seasons at Tech, his teams have finish ranked 3 times with an average record of 7-5 Sound familiar?

The only thing he does that people around here like is he runs the option.
 
I never said we are in the situation we are in because we don't have enough Nebraska players on our roster. All I said was having a good number of home state kids on the roster matters. And it does.

I also think comparing us to talent rich States like Florida is not helpful. Sure the home State schools missed out on Frazier. But maybe it also had something to do with the fact that none of the big three schools in Florida (Miami, FSU, and Florida) ran the kind of offense for which he was a fit. Also, in States like that there is so much talent that it is very possible, if not likely, that there will be a lot of kids who fly under the radar and get missed. Finally, there are only 75 scholies a year cumulatively from those three schools, but there are way more than 75 D1 caliber high school players in that State every year. So of course lots of them will go elsewhere.

But Nebraska churns out, in a good year, about 5-7 D1 caliber players. Some years more, some less. And it is my view that we need to lock down those players for good ol' Nebraska U. It is my view that that is important. Yes, we will occasionally lose a kid who just wants to go out of State. But that is different than a situation where a kid wants to play for NU but does not get offered. And it is also my view that under Callahan and Pelini there was a prejudice against Nebraska kids. The presumption was that a kid from California or Florida or Texas or Ohio must be better than a kid from the Sandhills who played 8 man football.

And sure some kids don't look good on film or don't grade out well on speed and agility drills, but who are ballers who can play. But in a State that literally has a handful of D1 players a year it shouldn't be hard to give every kid who shows some promise a second, third and fourth look. I don't think Callahan and Pelini did that. And I am sorry, but I think that is bad for our program

How do you identify these kids though? We fall in love with the stories in hindsight, but I imagine there is a reason they don't get an offer. In the past those kids would have walked on, but it isn't the past anymore. College football has changed, and fore the most part I'd rather take the risk in other areas unless these are clear cut studs like Bradley, Jurgens, etc.
 
I am not sure that is the point. Johnson is a guy that has won 59% of his games at Georgia Tech. He is 60 years old and hasn't shown the ability to consistently win recruiting battles. What is the reason? There has to be one right? In 9 plus seasons at Tech, his teams have finish ranked 3 times with an average record of 7-5 Sound familiar?

The only thing he does that people around here like is he runs the option.

OK how about Ken Niumatalolo? :)
 
OK how about Ken Niumatalolo? :)

ha ha only on the list because he runs the option.

If he came here I would support him, but the reality is, that is a 9 win offense at best. Elite defenders will beat that most of the time. Especially within the conference. IMHO
 
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I am not sure that is the point. Johnson is a guy that has won 59% of his games at Georgia Tech. He is 60 years old and hasn't shown the ability to consistently win recruiting battles. What is the reason? There has to be one right? In 9 plus seasons at Tech, his teams have finish ranked 3 times with an average record of 7-5 Sound familiar?

The only thing he does that people around here like is he runs the option.

Recruiting at GT is hard. I won't go much more into it than that. They also dealt with a couple of tough injury years in there.

2014 is probably the best example of what Johnson can do though. They went 11-3 and decimated Mississippi State in the Orange Bowl, barely lost to FSU in the ACC championship game, beat my Tigers 28-6 and set the all time offensive efficiency record in the history of college football.

https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2...on-course-to-break-ncaa-efficiency-rating-fei

He did this with recruiting classes that ranked:

2014 - 47th
2013 - 84th
2012 - 56th
2011 - 41st
2010 - 43rd

I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure Nebraska can sleep walk to better recruiting classes than that...regardless of who's coaching.

In 2009 he won the ACC in a championship game against Clemson that's to this day, one of the best football games I've ever seen. Neither team punted. Nobody saw the game because the Nebraska vs Texas game was on at the same time.

Not going to try to sell you on it much more than that, just saying he's gotten a lot out of a little over there. With more consistent recruiting, I swear he'd kill. In my opinion, y'all should have hired him years ago but even at 60 I'd say better late than never.
 
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Recruiting at GT is hard. I won't go much more into it than that. They also dealt with a couple of tough injury years in there.

2014 is probably the best example of what Johnson can do though. They went 11-3 and decimated Mississippi State in the Orange Bowl, barely lost to FSU in the ACC championship game, beat my Tigers 28-6 and set the all time offensive efficiency record in the history of college football.

https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2...on-course-to-break-ncaa-efficiency-rating-fei

He did this with recruiting classes that ranked:

2014 - 47th
2013 - 84th
2012 - 56th
2011 - 41st
2010 - 43rd

I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure Nebraska can sleep walk to better recruiting classes than that...regardless of who's coaching.

In 2009 he won the ACC in a championship game against Clemson that's to this day, one of the best football games I've ever seen. Neither team punted. Nobody saw the game because the Nebraska vs Texas game was on at the same time.

Not going to try to sell you on it much more than that, just saying he's gotten a lot out of a little over there. With more consistent recruiting, I swear he'd kill. In my opinion, y'all should have hired him years ago but even at 60 I'd say better late than never.


I totally understand what you are saying. The issue isn't offense necessarily. Something I have preached for years is that most any offense can be successful. The issue with hiring offensive minded coaches is that is there main focus. Defense becomes an afterthought and is only important when the HC is about to lose his job. Georgia Tech has stuggled defensively even with an offense designed to keep the ball away from opponents they rarely, if ever, finish higher than top 35 in scoring defense.

Nebraska HAS to have a defensive identity. Without a defensive identity, we will be no better than Nebraska from 1973 -1992 (sans 1982-83) 9 or 10 wins, losing to top teams beating the teams we should.

Nothing about Ken N at Navy or Paul Johnson at GaTech shows me that they give a damn about defense. Its nothing more than Mike Leach but with the run instead of the pass.
 
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