IF We Swing and Miss Badly...Why?

HuskermanMike said:
bnilhome said:
I think you hit many of the key points. I think first and foremost, performance on the field is a big reason why NU ends up as #2 on a recruits list rather than #1. When you play a team like OSU in a nationally televised game under the lights with a lot of visibility (it was a top-10 matchup at the time), and demonstrate complete incompetence in all aspects of the game in a 59-point loss, it does more than just add one loss to the W/L column. It sends shockwaves to any recruit looking at Nebraska and creates a gap of just how far behind NU is with the top teams in football. I would rather NU have finished the season 7-5 or 8-4 and kept all games close than end at 9-3 and have two games where the team was obliterated.

The other key point is that track record of the head coach. Riley is working his butt off to change the momentum and culture around recruiting, but his long career as a coach can also be a detriment when he has basically been mediocre any place he has gone. Recruits want to play for winners, and Saban, Meyer, and Harbaugh have proven they can win with multiple programs. A recruit like Tyjon Lindsey would rather play for a team whose head coach is a Jack*ss and whose position coach is inferior to NU's WR coach because the head coach has won every place he has gone.
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Keith is a better WR coach we could have and he is probably the best wr coach/recruiter in the B1G.

Not to make a snarky remark, but 247 has Zach Smith as the number 1 recruiter in the country overall. Mostly in part to Urb helping him and the offense scoring lots of points on teams like us and Rutgers.

I feel like we are due to get some big recruits in this cycle and I believe is will happen. Especially at the skill positions I think we get some good talent there.
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Yeah, I don't agree that Zach Smith is the #1 WR coach in the BIG, but if he is nabbing lots of talented guys, that would make sense why he is up there on the recruiting rankings. OSU is tearing it up this year with recruiting.

 
Making Chimichangas said:
Personally, I would rather see Nebraska's coaches actively going after and pursuing hard the elite talent and missing rather than taking to Bo Pelini approach and just going after the lower 3 star kids and walk-ons.

Because, I truly believe if we give Mike Riley 6-7 years, he'll ultimately be head and shoulders better than Pelini. I believe we'll see much better recruiting and I think if Mike Riley gets to three conference championship games, he won't go 0-3.
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Personally, I don't see us getting to those three conference championship but if we do ... sadly, the talent already in the pipeline for OSU and Michigan is so far and above what we have (then you have coaching) I just don't see us sniffing anything glorious.

I'll be hoping to just be respectable and around 9-3, be in all games and building momentum at the end of the year in hopes of securing that better talent.

 
The single biggest 'why' we may not end up with a highly ranked class is probably the way the season finished with the losses and of course the bowl upcoming. We really need somehow to pull off the upset in Tenn. This one will help take some of the bad taste and stink out of the ugly losses in Nov.

I suspect (that's all we can do is supposition as we don't really have the kind of true and real inside information needed to make better judgements on recruiting) that Riley and Company are recruiting very hard and making the kind of supreme effort we all hope for. I based this on the fact that Nebraska , as a brand nationally, is not what it used to be certainly. To get in the front doors of homes and be honestly considered by these top rated players, tells me the program is trying very hard.

It is hard to sell more than you have to offer but you have to make the best of the situation. I will feel good if we land more 4 stars and less two stars in getting an upgrade. There is no reason I can see for why anyone would reasonably expect us to go from perennial #30 in the year end poll rankings and similarly in recruiting rankings to suddenly top ten, absent some very unusual circumstances. To make the huge leap, most agree that would take a super upgrade in the coach. At this point, we need to implement a process and build up over time. Magic does happen in the real world.

The most important thing we as fans and outsiders can do is to fully support the coaches, players and the effort and be positive.

 
It was a big ol swing and a miss today! Wonder what the ending of the dead period will bring with new offers or back pedaling by the staff to get back in with guys we may have moved on from

 
It's time to get back to working our backyard more next year and not putting so much emphasis on trying to pull Cali kids in. I'm not saying don't recruit California at all, but we really need to get high caliber kids that are within that 500 mile radius of Lincoln. Especially the big nasties on the o and d lines.

 
NebraskaHarry said:
It's time to get back to working our backyard more next year and not putting so much emphasis on trying to pull Cali kids in. I'm not saying don't recruit California at all, but we really need to get high caliber kids that are within that 500 mile radius of Lincoln. Especially the big nasties on the o and d lines.
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There are a multitude of threads where this "500 mile radius" catch phrase is analyzed - you should check them out.

 
Not suprising to me we 'missed' as I have felt for quite some time that we lost our recruiting 'mojo' sometime back - Octoboer or something maybe - as the commitments stopped coming long before that. I know they get busy in the season, the kids are in school, etc etc. They need to push harder to get commits during the summer before school and then focus on hanging on to the ones they have. Now, we are back to scrambled eggs again although admittedly we don't really know the inside scoop on many or really any of these guys I suppose. The coaches probably have a much better feel for how things are really going or not going with each young man all along. Hopefully, they have been building good connections with many more that will fill their needs as well. As the saying goes, "there is more than one fish in the sea." It's just that the fishing contest is over in a few weeks so better bait that hook and get to reelin'.

Most important measurement about each and every recruit we do bring to Lincoln is that they want to be Huskers and not just to become a pro! They need to want to be great student athletes in that order and then we can build a winning team from there. The need the grades, speed, size and strength and most critically the 'heart' to be a Husker. If not, they wouldn't fit the way we all want them to. Go Huskers!

 
4 and 5-star guys are going to choose the school that gives them the best shot of making it to the NFL. Riley has the reputation of being a nice guy, but not necessarily a great coach. Only way we'll ever land top-tier recruits is if we hire a proven big name coach who kids will want to come to Lincoln to play for. Not sure why some people have such a tough time understanding or accepting that.

 
Maybe ... just maybe ... it is - in fact - kind of tough to recruit to Nebraska.

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