Husker in WI

Craig and Rathman are good bets for a lot of it - I feel like there are some guys like Brandon Jackson who chipped in some small amounts. I'm also curious about Oklahoma State - is it literally all Thurman Thomas? And when has Texas Tech ever had a running back? Bam Morris I guess, but it can't all be him.

It was a weird source of pride among the old voters that no one was unanimous. The logic was something along the lines of player X (Babe, Willie Mays, Cy Young, etc) wasn't unanimous, so it would be insulting for a "lesser" player to be. No idea why initial guys weren't unanimous in the first place, but it's pretty stupid logic - guys would exclude players they knew were getting in just be make sure it wasn't 100% though. They cut back the number of voters and that has a lot to do with the things like PED users and specialists like DH and relief pitchers gaining ground.

Illinois is bringing some guys in too though, I don't know what's going on at Penn State.

Is his senior tape available anywhere? Didn't see it on Hudl and I'm intrigued.

Well he's not playing DE at 250 either. He might grow into DE, but I think Graham is athletic enough to play OLB. It feels like the staff wants a smaller OLB (Gifford) and a bigger one as a pass rusher. Obviously the smaller one still needs to be able to set the edge and rush the passer and the bigger guy needs to be able to drop in coverage some, but I don't get the sense that ~230 is their ideal weight for both OLBs. Agreed he's not quite the athlete Jordan is, but not a lot of people are. Jordan would give more flexibility because you could try and have him in man coverage at times, but I don't think they're requiring that out of the OLBs. You're not going to find many guys who are equally good at rushing the passer, setting the edge, and covering backs/slot receivers.

What has he rated his other visits? Maybe he's just realistic about rating his visits, some of these guys won't give anything lower than a 9.

Kinda surprised to see Gaylord mentioned as the potential starter, but hopefully he's the next guy who puts it all together at the end of his career. Finally some depth developing at least, but I'd feel a lot better if someone like Raridon or Bando starting making some noise. Tackle is still a little scary too, but Gaylord and Sichterman have at least seen the field and Benhart has a lot of talent, so I feel a little better than last year there.

I know they could technically afford it, but the Cubs have the 2nd highest payroll in the league currently. They also had a team good enough to compete for championship last year, and while obviously Harper/Machado/any other $20+ million a year player make you better, I don't know how much they increase you World Series odds on an already stacked team. They'll be fine. They're also going to have to start paying Bryant and Rizzo more than 13 and 11 million soon, and I don't think you want them to pay Harper if it means they can't pay those 2.

He did sign, he's just replying to the folks who are still worried about him actually making it to campus after signing. I agree, I don't think the coaches let him sign if they weren't sure he would make it on campus. Could be wrong, there was that DB that either never showed up or left after a week or two last summer.

Calling my shots now! Morgan - 3rd round Ozigbo - 5th round - might be the better prospect than Stan, but RBs are undervalued unless they're Zeke/Gurley type talents. Foster - 6th round Farmer - 7th round - both these lineman are better than they're being given credit for IMO. Young, Neal, Freedom, Reed, Aaron Williams, and Gifford are UDFAs, and I think Young/Reed at least stick on practice squads.

I definitely do! Comparing guys who are currently healthy: Nebraska 1) Martinez - scholarship, 3 years remaining, stud 2) Vedral - scholarship, 3 years remaining 3)* Bunch - walk-on w/experience, 2 years remaining 4) McCaffrey - scholarship, 4 years remaining (5 w/redshirt) * Bunch could leave before the year UCF 1) Mack Jr. - scholarship, 3 years remaining, showed some flashes 2) Gabriel? - scholarship, 4 years remaining (5 w/redshirt) 3) Kingston- walk-on 1 game experience (no stats), 2 years remaining 4) Jones - walk-on no experience, 4 years remaining Also worth pointing out the #2-4 guys for UCF would all slot behind McCaffrey, and you could argue Mack would slot around Bunch. We're better at the top (Martinez > Mack) and have more experience and talent in our depth. If you replaced Vedral and Bunch with less experienced walk-ons, we're in a roughly similar situation but I would still like McCaffrey more than Gabriel. Wimbush is only there for a year, so the chances of somebody transferring out are pretty low - he'll be gone by the time they could play for their new school.

I don't see it that way at all - it's about making sure there's always competition. You can't count on Milton coming back quickly, and it looks the only other QBs are a true freshman and a couple walk-ons. Assuming Milton isn't a full go for a while, you at least want some competition for Mack through spring and fall camp. They got real thin a QB in a hurry, so as long as Mack doesn't take it personally I'm fully onboard and believe any coach would be looking for a transfer or juco in the same situation.

I think we know the answer for Iowa, we just haven't had the horses on the d-line and at LB. If you can stop them from averaging 5+ yards every time they run outside zone, they can't use their changeups as much or as well. I guess we won't know that for sure until we see it, but I'm a lot more confident we do that this year. Their o-line is always good, but that's not enough without some playmakers and I just don't see any without Fant and Hockenson.

Yeah, they had something going last year with the 2 stud tight ends but now what? I don't see them replicating their success from this year, especially if our d-line continues to develop.

Hockenson, Amani Hooker, and Anthony Nelson are all leaving early as well. I thought Iowa was probably the favorite in the West next year before the departures. I was picking Nebraska anyway, but I thought they had a chance to be pretty good. Losing their top 2 offensive weapons, 2 really good D-linemen and 2 starters in the secondary is a lot though. Seems like they'll be a pretty standard Iowa offense next year, which isn't great if teams can match them in the trenches like I expect us to next year. A couple solid but not elite running backs, a good O-line, and some inconsistent athletes at WR. Having the TEs they did took them up a level, but it's basically Wisky Lite.

Potential is great, but we'll see. Bart Houston was rated about the same coming out of high school, and he's not making anyone's list of great Wisconsin QBs. Injuries may have been a factor there, I don't really remember - but not every 4 star QB becomes a stud. He's also rated pretty close to what Martinez was (although I think it's easier for dual-threat QBs to make an immediate college impact), so maybe he will be phenomenal. I'm intrigued, and clearly the Wisconsin coaches love him because they were willing to burn Coan's redshirt for a low-mid tier bowl game. He shouldn't be asked to do too much with their run game, but not every freshman QB is ready right away.

Probably still OSU. Michigan loses some pieces on defense, and I think at this point they really don't believe they can beat OSU. The Buckeyes lose some too but they're in a better position to reload, so unless Day is a horrible coach they're the easy favorite. Penn State just isn't scary, and Michigan State hasn't had an offense since Le'veon Bell and Kirk Cousins.

I would expect the biggest Vikings/Cowboys memory to be Staubach's Hail Mary, but I guess that was a long time ago.

I feel like Cowboys fans aren't a lot better than New Orleans, but I'm more or less in the same boat. What makes the Cowboys tolerable for me is it's fun to watch Collins and Gregory, they're both playing well right now. I don't really care in the AFC as long as someone beats the Patriots for once.

How are high school state championships and sitting out bowl games even remotely related? We're assuming the guys in a position to sit out their last college bowl game didn't win state championships as high schoolers? I like guys who have won too, but it's not like every great player was on a great high school team. Adam Carriker won like 3 games in his entire high school career, and I'm sure there are other examples. I don't disagree with the second bold pieces individually, but it seems like you're tying them together. Not all 5 stars are entitled, and while they don't guarantee anything higher rated signees are correlated with championship-level success much more than walk-ons. Walk-ons are important, and both Clemson and Bama have had walk-ons contribute. But they didn't get to where they are without a lot of really talented kids, and that's been a much bigger part of their success. The main argument for the importance of walk-ons is the effort they give, and you can also get a lot of that with competition. Five star kids can't stay complacent if another five star comes in every year to take their place.

Better in the trenches would help for sure. Right now I think we have to run the full offense to be a good offense, and against Michigan and MSU (and to some degree Troy and Iowa) we couldn't throw like we wanted. I'm still not sure how much of the struggles against MSU should be attributed to their defense or the weather, but if our line play improves enough I think we can adjust and be successful pounding the ball. Those probably won't be games where we put up 50 points, but we won't have to gamble on passes as much.

For me it's because the season is over, especially since a lot of the players aren't in great bowls. I can get excited about a New Year's bowl, or even like the Holiday or Outback bowls. But if we're in the Cheez-it bowl, the extra weeks of practice are much more important than the game. It's a post-season game where you can't advance, win or lose - I'm fine with guys skipping it if they're getting ready for the draft. The last game of the season is still part of the season, so to me that's different - I'm sure not everyone sees it that way. I'd rather see younger guys play and gimmick plays in a low tier bowl game than watch a senior blow out his knee and crater his draft chances. I'm aware those aren't the only two possible outcomes, but it's just not worth the risk long term and I think most teammates respect the decision even if they don't agree with it. Now if a guy has been a horrible teammate the whole time and sits out, maybe they don't respect the decision to sit, but that's really because they don't respect the player.

That's JUCO Larry, he doesn't even have an entry on 247 out of high school and was unrated (but has a profile) on rivals. Seems like he blossomed at the JUCO, but was even more under the radar than Eugene out of high school. https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2005/larry-asante-127085

Agreed - I feel pretty good about this year, we can rotate the Daniels bros for the most part and then slide a Davis down in passing situations. But counting on Piper/Vaha/some true freshman behind Damion the year after that is a little scary.

I think he's just a laid back guy - I don't know that we can judge whether he's embracing Nebraska or not based on his liveliness in interviews. Not everyone speaks with Dewitt's energy, and that's fine. IMO Fisher took our weakest position group from last year and really turned them around. A lot of that could just be switching from Diaco's "just them them catch it" style, but I hope Fisher is sticking around.