Nebraska recruiting/roster maps, by coach

Mierin

Mierin

Donor
Where we should be recruiting our players from, and how our past coaches were doing it wrong/right, is argued about a lot, so I decided to make these.

These are not really of recruits, they're of the rosters. The way I assigned players was by the first time they showed up on the roster. If a player was on the roster in 2007 and 2008 (like Suh) he was assigned to Callahan. If a player is on Osborne's roster from 1992-1996, they're only included once.

One small issue with this is I think someone on the scout team (like when they were huge in the 90s) who moves onto the roster might be assigned to the wrong coach, but I think this would be rare, and they're probably almost always from Nebraska. One other small thing is we've had about 8 players from different countries and some from Hawaii that obviously don't show up on here, so the percentages don't quite add up to 100. (Solich had 3 Hawaiian players, Osborne 1, Callahan 1, and Callahan had 1 Alaskan).

I only included the players from 1990 on. If I have more time in the future and people like these I can go back further and see how Osborne's recruiting changed over the years. Another thing I might do is make a Nebraska map showing player recruiting by county.

The numbers are the percentages in decimal form. So for the Osborne map, 53.08% of the players are from Nebraska, 5.62% are from California, and so on.

Lastly, the color scales are exactly the same for each coach. So if 3% of Solich's roster was from Idaho and 3% of Pelini's roster was from Idaho, they'd be the same shade of red. (except with Nebraska which is always bright red).

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Wow, nice work! Lots of inferences can be made from these. A picture is worth a thousand data points, so to speak.

Hard to read on my phone, so I'll have to look more at this later. Really striking how many Nebraska kids were on those 90's teams, though. I had forgotten how many California players Callahan had (if I am reading it right), and how hard Pelini hit Texas.

 
Used to like the kids we would get from NJ in the 90s. Crazy to think how many good players were from NE and how that isn't the case anymore.

 
BIG ERN said:
Used to like the kids we would get from NJ in the 90s. Crazy to think how many good players were from NE and how that isn't the case anymore.
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C'mon Nebraska parents! You have to start filling the gene pool with better stuff!

I always get irate when people complain about when a HS coach doesn't win enough. They can't recruit (sort of) so they are limited to what genetics has given them. Well most coaches anyways.

 
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One thing I just noticed is the fact that TO had guys on the roster from almost every state. He was less concentrated in regions, and truly cast a wide net (while having the highest # of NE kids).

I also like the fact that this sample puts TO in a similar number of years to Solich and Bo. I hope that after a few more years we see Riley's map expand in state # represented, and less "ignored" areas (like OK for Bo)

 
IA State Husker said:
One thing I just noticed is the fact that TO had guys on the roster from almost every state. He was less concentrated in regions, and truly cast a wide net (while having the highest # of NE kids).

I also like the fact that this sample puts TO in a similar number of years to Solich and Bo. I hope that after a few more years we see Riley's map expand in state # represented, and less "ignored" areas (like OK for Bo)
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Most of that was because during his time only select few teams were on TV. Back then players wouldn't mind waiting two years to play at a school like Nebraska because they would have a good chance of getting noticed by NFL scouts and get invited to the NFL Combine. Since the late 90's every team is on TV and now those same kids can to go the Iowa State's of the world and play right away, get on TV and make it to the NFL. That is why it is harder to recruit in today's era than it was during Tom's.

 
Moraine - this is fantastic! Visual learner here so I love this stuff. Interesting to see so much more broad coverage already from Riley with only two years impact. Thanks for this.

 
krc1995 said:
Don't know why but I thought Osborne would have had more from Florida.
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I was surprised too but I think we just feel that way because Frazier was so important.
But, 2.36% if his recruits were from Florida. If you delete Nebraska that's about 5% from Florida and there are 48 other states. It was still in his top 10 states.

 
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What I'm seeing is that we need a kid from Montana, South Carolina, and Mississippi if we can expect to win a championship under HCMR...

 
huKSer said:
BIG ERN said:
Used to like the kids we would get from NJ in the 90s. Crazy to think how many good players were from NE and how that isn't the case anymore.
Click to expand...
C'mon Nebraska parents! You have to start filling the gene pool with better stuff!
I always get irate when people complain about when a HS coach doesn't win enough. They can't recruit (sort of) so they are limited to what genetics has given them. Well most coaches anyways.
Click to expand...
They're also limited to the amount of funding their high school gym gets. And I believe I read somewhere that some of the top high schools even have nutritionists.

 
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