Shady Recruiting Today

[maplesyrup95]

With National Signing Day quickly approaching, I think it is necessary to look at shady recruiting and to bring up the importance of how it potentially weakens Nebraska's recruiting.

For instance, some coaches straight-up go for the jugular and Negative-Recruit certain kids. Others use Comparison Recruiting. It's also not amiss to say certain SEC schools pay players once they sign their LOI. What has really astounded me lately is that all of these slimeball tactics has College Football turning into a reality TV show. I truly wonder what happens behind the curtain sometimes.

My 2 favorite stories that I've heard involve a rumor about Brent Venables when he was at Oklahoma. Apparently, he had a kid stay committed to Texas A&M until signing day then flip to OU just to screw 'em over.

My other is when Rick Neuheisel was at Washington. He would fly recruits to his house on a big lake. The planes landed on the water and glided to his house, where Neuheisel's wife would have baked cookies there for the recruits.

Still, at the end of the day, our staff cannot twiddle their thumbs. They have to be proactive. With these things in mind:

(1) What wild recruiting stories have you heard?
(2) How do you think Nebraska plays into this equation today (are we a victim program of it, does our staff do it, etc.)?

 

[Truehuskerfan]

Here's a story I read last year. The two schools involved were unnamed in the story. There were two rival schools after the same player. He committed to one school. Shortly after, a writer for one of the rival school's recruiting sites contacted the player and told him that he knew that the school he committed to already had a silent commitment from another player at his same position. That angered the player because he was told he was the only player they were recruiting at his position. When the player asked the writer who the other player was, the writer gave him the name of a player on the west coast that he knew was making a signing day announcement. The writer convinced the player to flip to the rival school on signing day to get back at the school he originally committed to for lying to him about not recruiting somebody else at his position. The player did just that, and the other player that was supposedly a silent commitment to the school he originally committed to picked a different school on signing day. Apparently he was never even recruited by the school he supposedly had a silent commitment to.

Probably the craziest recruiting story I remember though was the story of Kevin Hart of Fernley, Nevada who in 2008 called a press conference to make his college choice, put a hat from Oregon and one from Cal on the table, and picked Cal. His high school coaches were surprised because they didn't know he had an offer from Cal. It turned out they were right-he didn't have an offer from Cal nor had even been contacted by them. He didn't have an offer from Oregon either. He just made up the story and called the press conference because he wanted to get some attention.

 

[Solana Beach Husker]

This discussion falls into the category of "running up the score". College football has ALWAYS been a cesspool of corruption and greed, and has only become more so as time has passed, especially relative to changing nature of other sports such as baseball or the NBA. It is a hyper-competitive institution, where there is a grey area where adults with marginal skills can make hundreds of millions of dollars over their lifetime. You cannot negatively recruit against Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson, Florida State because they have great programs, great institutions, great history, great players, great results, and great advertising. They are competent in every way. Nebraska on the other hand has plenty of negatives, and has had such negatives since this years class was 3 years old. We think we are moral and clean and honest but our championship teams had child rapists, murderers, drug addicts, wife beaters not only on the team, but contributing to the championships. That then lead to mediocre teams that fans think or moral because they are bad, but we have our greatest recruit and player of the last 15 years turn into a guy who repeatedly gets suspended for kicking people, we have had our best offensive lineman nearly get kicked out of the NFL for bullying. Our best RB killed an inmate and then himself. Our last coach was the laughing stock of the CF for berating his own fan base, and our best recruiter and position coach was caught for a second time with a DUI, and is still coaching. And we just hired a guy that would have been fired by OREGON STATE!!!!!!!!!!! by now. And is older than TO was when he retired. Take the fact it is cold in peak recruiting season, we refuse to adapt to what adolescents want in a program, and we spend 15% of what other programs spend on recruiting and coaching staff. We are altogether followers in every way as a program. I almost miss the days of Cally. That dude had proprietary software to learn plays, got us exclusives on the NFL network for spring games, and had novel approaches to recruiting, that showed we could get great players to Nebraska, even while losing. The reason we will never be great again is because our fan base will not let us overhaul the entire system without firing an innovate and abrasive mind after 3 years. We will have to continually get these tunnel vision coaches who think toughness, hard work are the key to championships when we all know that freaks win, and the best only get the freaks.

 

[TheNewNU]

This discussion falls into the category of "running up the score". College football has ALWAYS been a cesspool of corruption and greed, and has only become more so as time has passed, especially relative to changing nature of other sports such as baseball or the NBA. It is a hyper-competitive institution, where there is a grey area where adults with marginal skills can make hundreds of millions of dollars over their lifetime. You cannot negatively recruit against Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson, Florida State because they have great programs, great institutions, great history, great players, great results, and great advertising. They are competent in every way. Nebraska on the other hand has plenty of negatives, and has had such negatives since this years class was 3 years old. We think we are moral and clean and honest but our championship teams had child rapists, murderers, drug addicts, wife beaters not only on the team, but contributing to the championships. That then lead to mediocre teams that fans think or moral because they are bad, but we have our greatest recruit and player of the last 15 years turn into a guy who repeatedly gets suspended for kicking people, we have had our best offensive lineman nearly get kicked out of the NFL for bullying. Our best RB killed an inmate and then himself. Our last coach was the laughing stock of the CF for berating his own fan base, and our best recruiter and position coach was caught for a second time with a DUI, and is still coaching. And we just hired a guy that would have been fired by OREGON STATE!!!!!!!!!!! by now. And is older than TO was when he retired. Take the fact it is cold in peak recruiting season, we refuse to adapt to what adolescents want in a program, and we spend 15% of what other programs spend on recruiting and coaching staff. We are altogether followers in every way as a program. I almost miss the days of Cally. That dude had proprietary software to learn plays, got us exclusives on the NFL network for spring games, and had novel approaches to recruiting, that showed we could get great players to Nebraska, even while losing. The reason we will never be great again is because our fan base will not let us overhaul the entire system without firing an innovate and abrasive mind after 3 years. We will have to continually get these tunnel vision coaches who think toughness, hard work are the key to championships when we all know that freaks win, and the best only get the freaks.

People are going to lose their minds when I say this but I would have much rather had Callahan for 7 years than Bo for 7 years. Guy is a great coach and had he been given some more time to get a few more recruiting classes in. I think he would have won a Big 12 title eventually, but I digress.

 

[N-sane]

People are going to lose their minds when I say this but I would have much rather had Callahan for 7 years than Bo for 7 years. Guy is a great coach and had he been given some more time to get a few more recruiting classes in. I think he would have won a Big 12 title eventually, but I digress.

IMO, Callahan wasn't the problem. His D.C. Cosgrove was the problem.

 

[nudan92]

IMO, Callahan wasn't the problem. His D.C. Cosgrove was the problem.

The bigger problem was that Cosgrove was Callahan's best buddy and no way was he getting fired.

 

[cubsker]

we were never winning anything with coz in the big 12. maybe would have had a chance in yhe big ten, but prob not

 

[HuskerRick]

This discussion falls into the category of "running up the score". College football has ALWAYS been a cesspool of corruption and greed, and has only become more so as time has passed, especially relative to changing nature of other sports such as baseball or the NBA. It is a hyper-competitive institution, where there is a grey area where adults with marginal skills can make hundreds of millions of dollars over their lifetime. You cannot negatively recruit against Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson, Florida State because they have great programs, great institutions, great history, great players, great results, and great advertising. They are competent in every way. Nebraska on the other hand has plenty of negatives, and has had such negatives since this years class was 3 years old. We think we are moral and clean and honest but our championship teams had child rapists, murderers, drug addicts, wife beaters not only on the team, but contributing to the championships. That then lead to mediocre teams that fans think or moral because they are bad, but we have our greatest recruit and player of the last 15 years turn into a guy who repeatedly gets suspended for kicking people, we have had our best offensive lineman nearly get kicked out of the NFL for bullying. Our best RB killed an inmate and then himself. Our last coach was the laughing stock of the CF for berating his own fan base, and our best recruiter and position coach was caught for a second time with a DUI, and is still coaching. And we just hired a guy that would have been fired by OREGON STATE!!!!!!!!!!! by now. And is older than TO was when he retired. Take the fact it is cold in peak recruiting season, we refuse to adapt to what adolescents want in a program, and we spend 15% of what other programs spend on recruiting and coaching staff. We are altogether followers in every way as a program. I almost miss the days of Cally. That dude had proprietary software to learn plays, got us exclusives on the NFL network for spring games, and had novel approaches to recruiting, that showed we could get great players to Nebraska, even while losing. The reason we will never be great again is because our fan base will not let us overhaul the entire system without firing an innovate and abrasive mind after 3 years. We will have to continually get these tunnel vision coaches who think toughness, hard work are the key to championships when we all know that freaks win, and the best only get the freaks.

Glad you got that off your chest, the weight alone must have been unbearable!

 

[Jm9008]

This discussion falls into the category of "running up the score". College football has ALWAYS been a cesspool of corruption and greed, and has only become more so as time has passed, especially relative to changing nature of other sports such as baseball or the NBA. It is a hyper-competitive institution, where there is a grey area where adults with marginal skills can make hundreds of millions of dollars over their lifetime. You cannot negatively recruit against Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson, Florida State because they have great programs, great institutions, great history, great players, great results, and great advertising. They are competent in every way. Nebraska on the other hand has plenty of negatives, and has had such negatives since this years class was 3 years old. We think we are moral and clean and honest but our championship teams had child rapists, murderers, drug addicts, wife beaters not only on the team, but contributing to the championships. That then lead to mediocre teams that fans think or moral because they are bad, but we have our greatest recruit and player of the last 15 years turn into a guy who repeatedly gets suspended for kicking people, we have had our best offensive lineman nearly get kicked out of the NFL for bullying. Our best RB killed an inmate and then himself. Our last coach was the laughing stock of the CF for berating his own fan base, and our best recruiter and position coach was caught for a second time with a DUI, and is still coaching. And we just hired a guy that would have been fired by OREGON STATE!!!!!!!!!!! by now. And is older than TO was when he retired. Take the fact it is cold in peak recruiting season, we refuse to adapt to what adolescents want in a program, and we spend 15% of what other programs spend on recruiting and coaching staff. We are altogether followers in every way as a program. I almost miss the days of Cally. That dude had proprietary software to learn plays, got us exclusives on the NFL network for spring games, and had novel approaches to recruiting, that showed we could get great players to Nebraska, even while losing. The reason we will never be great again is because our fan base will not let us overhaul the entire system without firing an innovate and abrasive mind after 3 years. We will have to continually get these tunnel vision coaches who think toughness, hard work are the key to championships when we all know that freaks win, and the best only get the freaks.

I'm not sure where you get the idea we only spend 15% of what other top programs do on recruiting. Last year we spent right around a million on recruiting, which led the big 10. I'm sure that's close to the top nationally as well. We might be pretty low on overall coaching salaries tho, I'm not sure about that.