Trevor Robinson at center and Woodhead at RB. Neither one went to UNL
I wonder sometimes if we overlook Nebraska kids - these guys are an example and you have 3 defensive starters at Iowa that also we missed out on
Maybe we should be offering more in-state kids
Let;s get the facts straight, shall we? Callahan never banned walk-ons. I could name walk-ons who came while he was coach(Alex Henery comes to mind immediately), but you don't even have to do that. Go back and look at the rosters for 2004-2007. There are more than 85 players on those rosters. The only way that is possible, is if there were walk-ons.Schools like NDSU and even SDSU (brookings), figure in Chadron State (where Woodhead played) and even Kearney are picking up the good players that used to be walk ons at Nebraska. It is really bad how far Callahan put the program behind without allowing walk ons. The players now playing at these schools used to "play for the huskers" just so they could say,"I played for the Huskers!"
We have lost 9 kids to other P5 schools in the last five years - that is way too many especially since everyone always states we have limited in state kids to recruit fromIIRC, Robinson was somebody Nebraska went after hard. And nobody offered Woodhead outside of Chadron State. I remember watching him in high school. He always had a bunch of yards. But I remember my teams RB botching about what how many yards he would have if he got 30+ carries a game.
I think most everybody wanted Ott to be offered. But Bo and nepotism prevailed. Bo did a poor job with some Nebraska kids. I'm not sure if there is a huge outcry for Batza (or whatever his name is) or Fisher. Anyway, I think we can all agree that Bo missed the boat on several local recruits. (I used to work with a relative of Harrison Phillips, I learned not to get him started on how Pelini handled Phillips. Embarrassing.)
Just because KSU, Iowa or Ohio recruits a NE kid doesn't mean they are worthy of an offer from us. Yes, you have players like Drew Ott and maybe Bazata or Fisher that are currently at Iowa that we should have offered, but how many NE kids that have gone to KSU or Ohio in recent years have been players that have shown we should have given them a scholarship offer? Noah Keller at Ohio is the only one I can think of, and that's going back about 10 years.We have lost 9 kids to other P5 schools in the last five years - that is way too many especially since everyone always states we have limited in state kids to recruit from
It appears that we KSU, Iowa and then Ohio are the main culprits on recruiting Nebraska kids - I would start by making sure every kid they offer we offer and recruit hard - Lets get them out of these HS to start
Point is that this is a Nebraska football team - even if everyone of those recruits did not pan out it is still better than having them go to Iowa and contributing to a win over NUJust because KSU, Iowa or Ohio recruits a NE kid doesn't mean they are worthy of an offer from us. Yes, you have players like Drew Ott and maybe Bazata or Fisher that are currently at Iowa that we should have offered, but how many NE kids that have gone to KSU or Ohio in recent years have been players that have shown we should have given them a scholarship offer? Noah Keller at Ohio is the only one I can think of, and that's going back about 10 years.
I think he cut the number in order to keep the roster more manageable. But I'm not sure the number of walk-ons taken every year since then has really gone up that much. It just really amazes me that there are people out there that believe that he literally did away with the walk-on program completely. There are plenty of things you can criticize him for, and you can disagree with him cutting the number of walk-ons, but there's a big difference between that and doing away with all walk-ons.I don't recall him banning them, just cutting the number he would carry. Is that right?
I wonder sometimes if we overlook Nebraska kids - these guys are an example and you have 3 defensive starters at Iowa that also we missed out on
Maybe we should be offering more in-state kids