Sam: Huskers' defensive line misadventures


Red Five

Red Five

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Sam on the DL recruiting "misadventures"

Of 25 defensive line prospects recruited to Lincoln from 2010 to 2014, 18 left the program before exhausting their playing eligibility. In fact, only five players remain on the Husker roster.

Left program before exhausting eligibility (7)

Jay Guy

Tobi Okuyemi

Donovan Vestal

Walker Ashburn

Todd Peat Jr.

Max Pirman

Greg McMullen

Declared early for NFL draft (3)

Vincent Valentine

Maliek Collins

Randy Gregory

Transferred to another Division I program (5)

Chase Rome

Kevin Williams

Aaron Curry

Avery Moss

Joe Keels

Never made it to first fall camp (3)

Ernest Suttles

Dimarya Mixon

DeAndre Wills

Exhausted eligibility at Nebraska (2)

Joseph Carter

Jake Cotton (moved to offense)

Still on the Husker roster (5)

Kevin Maurice

A.J. Natter

Sedrick King

Mick Stoltenberg

Peyton Newell
Click to expand...
A lot more at the link -> http://www.omaha.com/huskers/huskers-defensive-line-misadventures-stretch-back-a-half-decade/article_178c465a-476d-5dc2-b347-931f0a8f909e.html


 
OL and DL recruiting, and many of those recruits struggling to pan out, has been one of the biggest reasons Nebraska has been unable to get over the hump, imo. I've talked about it before, but obviously, it's really tough to put together great lines when you're either missing out on recruits or they just aren't panning out. Both lines had some big targets at times, too (Owa and Andrus Peat come to mind) but they never came here.

The reason we're in the positions we're in right now is due in large part to the coaching change, imo. We lost four pretty big pieces to the DL, and one was just because he is ready to pursue life after football.

At some point, Nebraska has to get beyond all of these bumps and put together better lines. I'm not saying any one particular thing is to blame, but recruits either failing to come here, not panning out or leaving the program early has been a consistent problem for years.

 
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Of 25 defensive line prospects recruited to Lincoln from 2010 to 2014, 18 left the program before exhausting their playing eligibility. In fact, only five players remain on the Husker roster.
Click to expand...

Wow. That's a shocking stat. We'll never be great without a great D-line. The last great D-line we had was six years ago.

 
Wow, that's pretty shocking, in sum.

VV/Maliek/RG were successes, though.

McMullen and Kevin Williams were solid, and they *almost* made it to the end of their careers. Definitely some serious misses here, though; the DL issues have been long in the coming. It's all on Parella now.

 
NUance said:
Of 25 defensive line prospects recruited to Lincoln from 2010 to 2014, 18 left the program before exhausting their playing eligibility. In fact, only five players remain on the Husker roster.
Click to expand...

Wow. That's a shocking stat. We'll never be great without a great D-line. The last great D-line we had was six years ago.
Click to expand...
To take it a step further, of the HS defensive line recruits between 2010 and 2012, none of them exhausted their eligibility at DL.

 
Parrella has a major job to do. Either side of the line should not be an area that a vast majority of your recruits don't complete their eligibility. It takes time to develop their bodies and game. Not having upper classmen hurts the team.

 
Well, to be fair, you can't tell which guys are going to whip their dong out in public when you're recruiting them. I just don't think that question gets asked often enough on the recruiting trail.

 
If memory serves me correct, none of the guys who transferred played any significant downs for the other school either. I think Aaron Curry might have been a back up at TCU but that's all I can think of.

Correct me if I'm wrong

 
This is interesting certainly and clearly identifies something that must be attacked head on and with all due dilligence and deliberate speed. The Coaches need to find the issues and correct for them. One place that might be examined carefully would be to take a long, hard, serious look at each and every one of these recruits and talk with them and identify what went right and wrong with their recruitment, time here and why they left early.

Perhaps the attrition rate is higher that many might expect across many team positions as well - I don't know. But these numbers are truly way to high it would seem.

Coaching changes, coaching styles, etc.

 
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