Red Five

Dawkins is intriguing, but wasn't one of the complaints about Pelini that he brought on too many "beginner coaches" and Nebraska shouldn't be a training ground?

SI.com's Andy Staples on the proposed OL down field rule. Explains it well. And the link contains videos and screen-shots. http://www.si.com/college-football/2015/02/16/recruiting-social-media-punt-pass-pork?page=2&devicetype=default There are teams that almost always ask their offensive lines to block the run, no matter the play. This isn’t lazy coaching, either. It’s a recognition of the officials’ unwillingness to enforce the rule, and it allows offenses to take advantage by fooling defenses that are trained to expect the offense to follow the rules. 9. Why have officials ignored the breaking of this rule? Because with huge people moving around at high speed, it’s awfully difficult to tell if a player is three or four yards from the line of scrimmage while also looking for various other infractions. And what if the official is wrong and the lineman is only three yards away? Then a touchdown might be taken off the board unfairly. The rule change seems like a lowering of the speed limit. If you want to ticket people driving 60 mph, you would probably lower the limit from 55 to 45. Cops will rarely ticket someone driving 5 mph over the limit; they’ll frequently ticket someone driving 15 mph over the limit. Where this could become a problem is if officials decide that now they actually want to call this to the letter of the law. At one yard with officials calling the rule strictly, it would be difficult to run a legal play-action pass. 10. The best solution to keep the game flowing and help the defense is to leave the rule at three yards and station an extra official on the sideline three yards from the line of scrimmage. His only job would be to watch for linemen too far downfield on passes. Given the proliferation of packaged plays, this would be a full-time job on a lot of Saturdays. Unfortunately, this round of changes just added an eighth official. The center judge stands in the offensive backfield opposite the referee. This solution would require a ninth official, which would be fine in the Power Five conferences but probably not in the less wealthy ones. Another option is to leave the rule at three yards and tell officials to make it a point of emphasis. As defensive coordinators have been screaming about this during games for years, that probably isn’t going to work. If the one-yard rule passes the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, defensive coaches across the country will rejoice. But offensive coaches who rely on packaged plays will have to hope the committee reduced the number to one yard so that officials would actually call the three-yard rule they should have been calling in the first place. Because if the rule is called strictly, a few offensive linemen will finally learn how to pass set.

I remember it from when it happened but really can't remember the specifics of why he hired the firm. Wasn't the consulting firm brought in to help teach them ask the recruits specific questions so they could better gauge their behavioral characteristics? Maybe I am thinking of something else...

But back on topic... As was brought up in the Warren replacement thread, Sam would probably agree that it might be better to find a guy who has contacts in the 500-mile radius instead of a guy who maybe can pull 1 or 2 guys/year out of the South.

Isn't that kinda the definition of bad recruiting? Recruits brought in by anticipated position (rivals) DE 2011 - Carter 2012 - McMullen, Moss 2013 - Gregory, Mixon, Natter, Suttles 2014 - Keels, King, Newell, Wills LB 2011 - Pirman, Santos 2012 - Afalava, Anderson, Brown, Rose 2013 - Bandaras, Love, Newby 2014 - Walton Add that up, and we have 4.5 DEs (depending if you count Newell) still in school over the last 4 classes. And there are 4.5 LBs still in school (depending if you count Pirman) over the last 4 classes. Is some of it bad luck? Probably. But bringing in 1 DE in 2011 (and a Juco to boot) and 1 LB last year (when you knew that Pirman, Afalava, and Brown weren't panning out) isn't a sound strategy. Also, for every late year find (Abdullah), there is a Mixon or a Suttles or a Wills. These are kids that you were only on for a handful of weeks, so there is not as much relationship building going on where you may be able to foresee problems in the future.

Isn't he a WR guy? Can he or would he want to coach DBs?

The most worrisome positions to me are DE and LB. We need 1 or 2 guys at each spot to step up in a huge way.

Foster had strong reviews in the "season-end" articles. Pretty sure he was the lowest rated between Farmer and Gates out of HS. Hopefully the other 2 can live up to their potential. As for Knevel, I'm not sure anyone anointed him as an all-american. He does have the prototypical OT size, but he was rally raw coming from Canada. A good sign was that Saban was after him late in the recruiting process.

Kudos to Dirk for digging up this great story!

Just for clarification, this is a post from his blog on the OWH - Mad Chatter. Its not something that gets published in the newspaper. As mentioned by others, he's been posting historical recruiting nuggets all week. Titles: How Tom Osborne lauched Steve Peterson's career in athletics When Nebraska's recruiting misses angered a future congressman The worst Husker recruiting class ever - and what people said about it Osborne, Switzer, and a recruiting bouquet worth fighting for Switzer's downfall gave Osborne access to a Hall of Famer Some of y'all are filled with so much hate.

IIRC Freeman was an early enrollee. He decommitted via text right after the dead period began in December so Callahan couldn't contact him. And then enrolled at K St a few weeks later.

1a) C Davis 1b) K Davis 3) Lee 4) Gaylord 5) Young 6) Morgan Davis twins have to be #1 for me since IMO the 2nd most important position is DT.

Good god, Beck. Your 2015 QB recruit was a guy who had hardly played HS football. And was not going to be eligible for his senior year. And ended up projecting as a TE.

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/sports/preps/11518184-123/curtis-hunter-dale-still-undecided

Accroding to 24/7 he only took 1 official visit, to Indiana of all places. And he has no consensus as to the crystal ball, although he did get 1 prediction for UNC last week.

Best fans in college football...

This thread needs the shirtless bielema picture...

This was just last night

Has he even visited there? Also this is his 3rd commitment in 2 weeks.

When I think of what college football players like to eat, Whole Foods is the first thing that crosses my mind...

The demographics deal is why visits earlier in the year are needed. Recruits in the south can load up the car and hit 4 or 5 schools over the course of a week in the summer. Then they commit to where they visited before ever seeing Nebraska in person. Allowing official visits (Nebraska covers flights/hotel) over the summer after their junior year (or even in the 2nd semester of their jr year) instead of waiting for school to start in the fall of their senior years would be huge for Nebraska.

We should always sign to the 88 (85+3) that the B1G allows. Every spring/summer there are going to be 3-5 guys leave the program or go on medical. And there are probably going to be ~2 each year who don't qualify or don't show up. Not signing full classes puts you on a self imposed probation. I should also add when we seem to be higher than the 88, I trust that the coaches know that guys are already gone, but it just hasn't hit the media yet.

Long snapper really don't block too much as they can't have someone line up head-on anymore. Maybe its an advantage to have a smaller, quicker long snapper for punt coverage. Almost like another gunner.

I posted this in the 2015 recruiting thread: I know nothing, but guys going to be seniors that I could see leaving (either "retiring" or looking the grad transfer route): T Allen (injuries derailed him) M Bondi (lost his job multiple times) M Finnin (lashed out about Bo leaving) J Keels (hasn't seen the field) D Sutton (hasn't seen the field) And juniors S Cotton (Dad) K Maurice (playing time went way down last year) C Whitaker (injuries and hasn't seen the field)

This isn't the right place for this argument, but why should Cross have gotten more goal line carries? Who would you trust more to get 1 or 2 yards? Ameer or Cross? Who would've you liked to get their knee destroyed on the goaline against Purdue? Didn't Imani have about 8 GTG TD's Burkhead's Senior year? LOL at your 1st question. By that logic, why should we have given the ball to Ameer at all? I mean he could have gotten hurt on every single play. As to your 2nd question, I fully disagreed with it then. If you need 1 or 2 yards, put the ball in the hands of your best player(s). Not your biggest player(s).