Shaun Prater on Nebraska
- Thread starter Eric the Red
- Start date
Carl Pelini said on multiple occassions that Hagg was the most valuable player on the defense, that if he was starting from scratch he would pick Hagg first. The defense was designed around him.
Nobody was going to beat out Hagg. If we could only have one guy on the field, it would have been Hagg.
If Prater would have beaten out any of the non-safeties, it would have been Gomes. But I have a hard time imagining that.
Nobody was going to beat out Hagg. If we could only have one guy on the field, it would have been Hagg.
If Prater would have beaten out any of the non-safeties, it would have been Gomes. But I have a hard time imagining that.
The Dude
Heisman Trophy Winner
Ehhh Hagg was light years ahead of Prater in terms of versatility. That position was specifically invented for Eric Hagg. Now that he's gone it no longer exists.
Got a point there. Like I said Prater was told by several teams he would go 5th round this year. Thats 2 better than Hagg went. I think Prater is trying to up his stock, but I also think it speaks alot about him to come back and graduate.
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
Kidding you with what? The fact that Pelini designed the Peso Defense specifically with getting Eric Hagg on the field? Do you not read interviews with Bo regarding the Peso? How is this not common knowledge?
And first round of what? I could care less if Hagg never got drafted as it pertains to this discussion. The kid was a PHENOMENAL college football player. Whether he has Hall of Fame success in the NFL is irrelevant to this discussion.
You know that Hagg was voted by the team as the 2010 MVP, right?
Not really... he didn't get beat any more than Prince Amukumara did. The vast majority of the time the only way a pass was completed was if it was thrown perfectly and then Hagg came right down on top of the receiver as the catch was made.
Furthermore, Hagg was asked to do things that no one else on the defense to do. He had to cover the crossing routes our defense was utterly vulnerable to because of the match-read zone defense and he was often placed against the opposing offense's best athlete. He got beat only once by Ryan Broyles in two games against him as far as I can remember. He should have been the MVP of the 2009 Oklahoma for what he did to Ryan Broyles in that game.
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knapplc
International Man of Mystery
Irrelevant to a discussion about college football. The needs in college are different than the needs in the NFL. Hagg going seventh round means nothing to his value to the Huskers the last few years.
Draft position is a terrible metric for gauging a player's worth. Kurt Warner was undrafted. Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round. There have been half a billion busts in the first round alone. The NFL draft is the most overrated way to rate a player ever.
Prater wouldn't have played cornerback though - we already had Alfonzo Dennard and Prince Amukumara. Hagg was our peso-back, the entire defense was designed for him to play that position. Prater wasn't going to beat out Hagg.
Well I think when you are in the billion dollar business of scouting and drafting talent, you have a pretty good idea who is who. Plus the "million" dollar drop from round to round places a pretty good metric on how much they value those rounds.
I do agree in some ways thou, say Prater has a bad year and drops to 10th round, does that in it's self mean that he was not as good as everyone else who has ever gone in rounds 1-9? I dont think so. All I was trying to say is he is very good, as far as who would have beaten who, we will never know, so that argument is nothing more than opinion.
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
If anybody was going to beat out Hagg it would have been Austin Cassidy. They were really high on him this time last year. If we throw the Peso at any Big Ten teams this year, Cassidy will be the Peso Back.
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
I'll agree that Prater is very good, but I'm not going to base my evaluation of him on where he's drafted by the idiots in the NFL. More often than not I think NFL talent scouts are ignored by their owners. How else do you explain Jake Locker going eighth overall when he got shut down by Nebraska not once but twice last year? He is not an NFL QB, but he's going to make millions next year because some fool drafted him in the top ten. If he thought the Nebraska defense was tough last year, how will he fare against NFL-caliber defenses?
The NFL draft is a waste. Ignore it completely when evaluating the worth of a player.
Cassidy wasn't going to "beat" Hagg though. They just thought about moving him to Peso so that Hagg could play safety. They went the other way around instead.
My guess is if Prater was going to see the field last year at Nebraska, it would have been in place of one of our safeties - that I could believe. There's no way he starts in place of Hagg, and I have a hard time believing he starts in place of Gomes, who played a similar role to Hagg when we went to a Dime. Gomes also stepped up and played linebacker at times when we only needed 5 defensive backs.
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knapplc
International Man of Mystery
I don't think Cassidy would have beaten Hagg, either, but Bo was hinting as much last August. Maybe that was motivational for both players. :dunno