Husker in WI

I think he's a bit of a system QB, could probably still play here - but has no reason to. The people talking about McCall coming here in the past were suggesting it if we hired his OC instead of Whipple, or HC instead of Rhule. As far as I know he has no ties here. And I guess neither did Thompson or Sims, but I just don't see it.

I'd guess it's the draft or following his coach to MSU.

I don't know how the voting works here. But it's weird to me that you have a unanimous first-team setter (Haworth), and non-unanimous first-team setter (Reilly) and the non-unanimous selection is the Setter of the Year. Seems like Reilly probably should have been unanimous as well - not that it makes a ton of difference, first team is first team.

Not to downplay any of the others, but yeah him and Q are the ones who will be tough to replace on the field. As long as Gifford comes back I still feel good about the secondary, but Brown and Q were undoubtedly our top Safety and Corner by pretty big margins.

Yeah, I would have been surprised if he tried to come back. Sounds like his last recovery was really difficult, and he's just been beat up his whole career. Grinding 9-10 months of rehab and then trying to get into playing shape to maybe play a game or two at the end of the year when you'll be 24 would be insane.

One thing to keep in mind if the commitments feel slow overall, only the players who've had a coaching change in the last month are actually in the portal right now. The others have announced their intention (and are undoubtedly being recruited), but won't announce a commitment until Monday at the earliest to make it clear that absolutely no tampering is going on. At all.

I do not have actual evidence to back this up, but I feel like most teams have gone away from screens under Center. It's hard to just let the DL by and attack second level guys when your QB has a one yard head start rather than five from the shotgun. And seems like Bonner was either out wide when we had 21 personnel and went empty, or in a regular FB position with the QB under Center. Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, but feels like it would need to be from a pistol set or with Bonner as more of an H-Back. Even just incorporating him into the regular passing game, we're usually going for a deep shot if we're passing with a FB in the game. I do think the Offensive staff had to revert to what can we execute given who is able to play, instead of being able to really maximize skillsets - hopefully that changes this next year.

We run a some mesh and it is so terrible every time.

This quote from his HS head coach the OWH article made me laugh: They only threw the ball 45 times all year. I've just never heard a coach say something like "can't speak to that at all" regarding something as basic as pass protection. But props for knowing what he knows, I feel like a lot of coaches would claim something like "his pass protection is incredible, we just don't need it" or some BS. I'd guess the lack of pass protection reps on film is a large part in some projecting him as an interior guy. I think he can be a tackle, but he's not going to be a day one starter there.

Gotta assume this is related:

Bowl games also don't count for redshirts though, so especially being a lower tier bowl if we went 6-6 it's still really helpful for development. Honestly more so if guys sit out - the game itself is kinda secondary, an extra 15 practices for guys like Jaidyn Doss would be great. Especially with the playoffs expanding, I think the rest of the bowl games will turn into more looks at the young guys on your roster. Even if your seniors want to play, why not use a free game to get game reps for your underclassmen?

I am not sure where that 40 number is coming from, there are 12 DL on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd teams. Half are edge players - so are there 6 better DTs in the Big Ten? Quite possibly. I'd put them over both of the OSU DTs on the 3rd team, but that was a top-3 defense in the country so they get the benefit of the doubt.

Even if the defense was good while he was there, I think ties to the previous regime are a negative in this case.

One of the problems is the top-4 scoring defenses are all in the Big Ten too, and 23 out of the 33 selections come from those schools. Then you've got some obvious guys like Newton from Illinois and Nubin from Minnesota, and there's just not a lot of spots left. I do think Nash and Ty deserve at least 3rd team though, and it is kinda dumb that your potential accolades depend on how other players perform. It's apples to oranges, but Reimer did not have as good a year as the DL or several members of the secondary. He did have a good year though, and LB was relatively weak in the Big Ten.

Michigan had 3 defensive tackles between the first and second teams, and honestly it's deserved. I do think Hutmacher/Robinson should have made 3rd team easily though, and there's an argument for Newsome and Gifford.

I mean, Cade McNamara had options and chose to play for Brian Ferentz. Anything is possible.

Yeah, I like Wright and Gbayor, and Bullock started slow but I thought was solid at the end of the year. But there is no depth, especially if Gbayor stays at Jack rather than true LB. Rhule had some nice things to say about Dylan Rogers and maybe Eric Fields grows into LB instead of Rover. But it's still scary thin, and I don't think the 2024 class will be much help. Prude is interesting but needs development time, and McGahee/Lee seem like Jacks and not LBs. We need at least a rotational guy from the portal.

We still lead the country in the as far as I know, but the number of Academic All-Americans has no bearing on APR. It's all about retention - even graduation is a different metric. So it favors schools with stability. The APR is calculated as follows: Each student-athlete receiving athletically related financial aid earns one point for staying in school and one point for being academically eligible. A team’s total points are divided by points possible and then multiplied by 1,000 to equal the team’s Academic Progress Rate. In addition to a team’s current-year APR, its rolling four-year APR is also used to determine accountability. Academic All-Americans also have no bearing on quality of the education. They're awesome, and a thing to be proud of, but it just means the student-athletes do really well in the classroom - not that the school itself is academically excellent. Nebraska is fine academically, Minnesota is better. Which doesn't matter at all for bowl game consideration. All that matters for APR is your scholarship athletes staying in school and staying eligible to play (which is a pretty low bar).

That was my recollection - a couple guys played less down the stretch, and I expect many were due to injuries. The ones that weren't will probably clarify some things by entering the portal.

I'll be that guy - related to Ryan?

I'm sure he does have an offer, it just may not be committable pending how he looks on campus. Everyone has an offer these days, just not everyone has the green light to take it.

People keep saying this, and I'm not sure I buy it. You trade one game against a truly elite team (Michigan) for 2 next year (OSU and USC), but USC also won't have Caleb Williams. They are still way better than us, but probably not actually comparable to Michigan/OSU. The hardest games on the schedule are harder next year, but the low end is easier and the way it breaks down is so much better. Non P5 opener, no road game until week 5. It is a schedule set up to build momentum. Here's my guess at most difficult to easiest, with the benefit of hindsight for 2023. Also trying to take into account how teams were performing at the time and when the game happened, which adds quite a bit of subjectivity and is impossible to project for 2024. For example, Minnesota was pretty bad but drawing an experienced Big Ten team on the road for week 1 was brutal. There is a huge step down from the toughest to 2nd toughest both years, but next year does have a couple better teams and then another drop. 2023 2024 Michigan at Ohio State Iowa at USC at Minnesota UCLA at Colorado at Iowa at Wisconsin Wisconsin Northwestern Colorado Maryland Rutgers at Illinois Illinois Purdue at Purdue at Michigan State at Indiana Northern Illinois Northern Iowa Lousiana Tech UTEP As has been the case for a long time now, 4-8 is possible. But 9-3 is completely attainable too, and we could be bowl eligible before we face any of the toughest teams on our schedule. Our first 7 games are the 7 easiest - so if we're sitting at 4-3, it's not going to end well. But if we're 5-2 or 6-1 we'll have some momentum. I actually like how the schedule sets up, it at least gives us a chance to get rolling and see what happens.

Doss was hurt for the beginning of the year and elected to use his redshirt - he's doing fine and I think will be the starter at Slot unless that's where we find a good portal fit. And Bell was apparently 157 lbs when he showed up in the Summer but is now up to 192, so I expect a significant leap - he just wasn't physically ready. Still going to be short on experience overall, but I don't think the WR group is far from being really good. I think they'll be decent/good in '24, and by '25 a strength of the team. Almost every good receiver we've had has redshirted*, and many of them (Spielman, Bell, Swift) put up big numbers as redshirt freshmen. The leap from having a full year in the program is big, so I'm not super worried about the room regardless of transfers. *Exceptions off the top of my head were Enunwa (1 catch as a true freshman) and Wan'Dale (very talented in a WR room that was not, and then played RB anyway)

I'd guess we'll go after one experienced WR this year - if we could find another Billy Kemp, that would be enough. You want Coleman/Lloyd/Doss to step up and become impact players, and I think they will with the experience they got plus spring ball which they haven't done before. But you need more than 3-4 guys, and someone with more than Alex Bullock's 15 career catches would be nice. So I guess I agree it will need to be a special player, but more in terms of experience than talent IMO. If you can get both great, but a Billy Kemp 2.0 would do the '24 team more good than the touted but inexperienced and often disappointing former top recruit.