AndyDufresne

Named the Palo Alto Nike camp DL MVP. From ESPN: "Wynn leads the linemen De La Salle (Concord, Calif.) defensive end Dylan Wynn showed incredible explosiveness off the ball. He has great strength and is extremely well coached"

Started GTAIV: The Lost and Damned last night. Only about an hour into it, but it's pretty great so far.

Josh Ritter - To the Dogs or Whoever

Bryan Munson said that Scout's recruiting analyst in California saw Bouzos as a top 50 kid in the state of California. If Rivals agrees, then Bouzos will likely start out as a 5.7-3* based off of past California state rankings.

I'm guessing we start the season with double digit (10) commits. I think Davie will be offered during the summer and accept shortly after. The same may be said about Fisher, but I don't know how much the coaches will know about his knee by then. During the regular season, I think we will pick up another 7-8 commits. I'm guessing we fill all but 3-5 spots prior to the bowl game, and we'll probably hold a spot or two for signing day announcements.

Just watching video and doing some research, I'm not going to say that I don't have concerns about this kid. That being said, I would guess that whatever division he plays in is more competitive than Nebraska class C-1. Crick didn't dominate each and every game and he is doing pretty well for himself in big-boy college football. From friends in the Sutton area, they say that Schoff is a bit soft and he will likely be the highest rated 2012 Nebraska kid. Andrew Rodriguez was called lazy and he was highly rated and heavily recruited (and held his own against the best players in the country in the Army all-American game). As for offers, sometimes kids just fly under the radar. Zach Domicone had no big offers much later in the recruiting season than this. Nebraska offered, then Oklahoma, and he ended up at Ohio State. I don't think Sam Acho had a major offer until the end of the summer. Nebraska offered, then USC, and he is making quite the name for himself as a Longhorn. As for Davie, I hope he gets an offer. I'm sure if Bouzos was from Nebraska, there would be a lot of gnashing of teeth by some of the local skeptics. Maybe it is just human nature to question the kids that you know best. I also think Aaryn is being recruited specifically to play the peso, and not a traditional safety position. His 4.5 was actually electronically timed (I think it was a 4.53 or 4.57). People get tired of hearing "trust the coaches", but they see things in kids that those of us with untrained eyes do not. Only time will tell.

i dont see how you think his weight is low, thats a pretty good weight for a kid coming out of his jr year of HS. on a side note, HOW IN THE WORLD DID WE PULL A KID OUT OF PAC10 COUNTRY?!?!?! WE DONT PLAY IN THE PAC 10!!! BANANAS!!! well considering the stature of the top programs safeties who are 200lbs already. and they pulled him out of pac10 country cause the pac10 doesnt want him, at least yet In the Bouzos topic on the freeboard over at HI, rrthusker seems to be hinting that this kid does have at least one PAC 10 offer that isn't listed on Rivals.

It's a little concerning that almost none of his film showed coverage skills. It is also a bit concerning that Brian Munson with BRR compares him to Mason Wald. Still, Munson did state on Unsportsmanlike Conduct that one of the Scout recruiting experts in California expects Aaryn to be a top 50 player in the state of California (3 star) and the expert thinks he is a better prospect than the other safety on his team who is committed to Washington State.

So what game(s) are you playing? What do you think about them? This is the topic to post your thoughts. I apologize if there is already a topic like this, but I didn't see it. I'm currently playing Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360, an old school JRPG. I'm on the 4th and final disc, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to finish. The game started out fairly entertaining, but I've just grown disinterested. I might give it another shot to push through to the end, or I might just say screw it and play something sitting in my backlog that looks more exciting. Lost Odyssey - Xbox 360

A top 10 (or I suppose top 11, as I couldn't decide between two games for the last spot): 10a. Fallout 3 - Xbox 360 10b. Doom II - PC 9. Prince of Persia - SNES 8. Resident Evil 4 - Gamecube 7. Bionic Commando - NES 6. Super Mario 64 - Nintendo 64 5. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction - PC 4. Grand Theft Auto III - PS2 3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Nintendo 64 2. Final Fantasy III (VI) - SNES 1. Betrayal at Krondor - PC

We don't need Texas badly. There are lots of other areas around the country with great football players. In the last couple of national championship games, teams with an emphasis on recruits from the Southeast have fared a lot better than teams with Texas recruits. In many polls, we are preseason top 10 for next year. I project 6 starters from Nebraska for next year (Paul, Henry, Caputo, Steinkuhler, Crick, Fisher); which by my math is more than 25% of the starting 22. I'm not saying we should have 25% of our class be instate players, but look at the rest of the projected starters and you will see that we are certainly capable of fielding a good team without a heavy emphasis on Texas.

Out of curiousity, I decided to take a closer look at how the teams in what may be our new conference have recruited during the Pelini era. For reference sake, I've included Nebraska in the rankings so that you can see how they compare. Just like the Big XII, it appears that on paper, Nebraska would be the 4th best recruiting team in the Big 10. Unlike the Big XII, the bottom of the Big 10 is much worse. Here are the numbers: Rivals Average Team Ranking: 2008-2010 1. Ohio State - 10.7 2. Michigan - 12.7 3. Penn State - 26.3 4. Nebraska - 26.7 5. Michigan State - 31.3 6. Minnesota - 35.7 7. Illinois - 42.7 8. Iowa - 52.7 9. Wisconsin - 57 10. Purdue - 63.7 11. Northwestern - 69.3 12. Indiana - 76.3 Rivals Average Stars: 2008-2010 1. Ohio State - 3.66 2. Michigan - 3.47 3. Penn State - 3.16 4. Nebraska - 3.13 5. Michigan State - 3.03 6. Minnesota - 3.00 7. Wisconsin - 2.90 8. Illinois - 2.82 9. Iowa - 2.67 10. Northwestern - 2.62 11. Purdue - 2.50 12. Indiana - 2.42 Number of Rivals Top 250 Players: 2008-2010 1. Ohio State - 31 2. Michigan - 28 3. Penn State - 16 4. Michigan State - 8 5. Illinois - 7 6. Nebraska - 6 7. Iowa - 4 7. Minnesota - 4 7. Wisconsin - 4 10. Northwestern - 1 11. Indiana - 0 11. Purdue - 0 Note: Looking at the Scout 300 for 2008-2011, Nebraska is firmly in 4th place Trends: Ohio State is definitely the 1,000 lb. gorilla in the Big 10 when it comes to recruiting. They have been consistently in the top 10, though Nebraska actually ranked higher in the team rankings for 2010 while only taking two more commits. Penn State is a lot like Oregon in that they can completely underwhelm with a class ranked in the 30's or 40's one year and follow it up with a top 10 class the next. Michigan is trending downward as the Rodriguez experiment may be coming to an end, while Michigan State has reaped the rewards of Michigan's downfall by signing some top notch instate talent that they probably wouldn't have picked up while Carr was still at Michigan. Minnesota had some recruiting momentum shortly after the Brewster hire, but they seem to be losing it. Illinois' terrible onfield performance has negated Zook's ability as a recruiter. Iowa and Wisconsin are usually solid, though far from impressive; and the rest of the Big 10 makes Iowa State look good. Location of Big 10 recruits: 2008 - 2011 I looked at where each recruit that signed with a Big 10 team from 2008-2011 were from. Here are the top 10 states: 1. Ohio - 143 - 18.43% 2. Florida - 96 - 12.37% 3. Michigan - 80 - 10.31% 4. Illinois - 77 - 9.92% 5. Pennsylvania - 52 - 6.70% 6. Texas - 42 - 5.41% 7. Indiana - 40 - 5.15% 8. Wisconsin - 33 - 4.25% 9. Minnesota - 21 - 2.71% 10. Iowa - 20 - 2.58% All in all, over 60% of the total commits were from the Big 10 states. The Big 10 doesn't recruit much in non-Big 10 states west of the Mississippi (besides Texas). Some states that have been good to Nebraska in recent years have gone relative untapped, like California (2.19%), Louisiana (1.16%), and Arizona (.52%). I think that Nebraska could still have success in these areas. As for Texas, it looks like the lack of Big 10 recruiting in Texas has been a bit overexaggerated. Teams like Minnesota and Purdue that have made an effort in Texas have been able to pull players out of Texas. Minnesota has been able to pull some good players from Texas as well, like: Keanon Cooper - 5.8-4* - Offered by Oklahoma Eric Lair - 5.6-3* - Offered by Nebraska and Oklahoma State Kerry Lewis - 5.7-3* - Offered by Oklahoma State Hasan Lipscomb - 5.8-4* - Offered by Nebraska and Texas A&M Summary: From a recruiting standpoint, the Big 10 is not as strong as the Big 12. Both Oklahoma and Texas pulled in a better average class from 2008-2010 than any team in the Big 10. Conversely, the worst team in the Big 12 was still better than the two worst teams in the Big 10. The Big 12's average 3 year team ranking was 34.97. The Big 10's was 43.48.

Recruiting was a different animal in the early years. Nebraska always took players from across the country, but the focus until the late 80's was definitely on in-state players. From 1972-1987, 40% of our classes were made up of Nebraska high school players. A good portion of the rest of the classes were from surrounding states. Comparing recruiting in the last couple of decades to those before isn't exactly comparing apples to apples.

Great song by a great band. Here's another alt-country ditty by Malkmus and company:

So you will give Crick a pass on his offensive stats, yet you won't do the same for Davies whom the coaches are looking at as a DB? Husker N KC brings some great facts to the discussion and yet you respond by dismissing them and calling him names. You cite Maxpreps for your stats, which someone else pointed out are often incomplete or just flatout erroneous and yet you continually reference them. Someone here has actually seen him play and came away impressed. I don't get why some are dismissing this kid because of 40 seconds of highlights from the first few games of his junior season and some stats that may or may not be accurate.

Ran a 10.4 100 at a track meet at Skutt yesterday. Also, looks like the Fighting Frankie's have offered.

UCLA offered.

I'm with those that prefer to stay in the the Big XII. BUT, change is coming whether we like it or not. I would rather see us move and solidy our position in the Big 10 than be left sorting out the mess left behind after the Big XII is raided. No offense to the TC, but I just can't see any kind of announcement coming this soon. I would guess late summer at the earliest.

He didn't commit to Notre Dame until Callahan was fired, but he did decommit from Nebraska in July before the 2007 season even started. His father really pushed him to go to Notre Dame.

Agree, very good topic for discussion. Might become VERY interesting over the next 6-12 months as conferences look to re-align. One thing to consider though, is that Texas is important to us because our coaching staff has made it important. That's where we've chosen to recruit. If they decided to recruit Ohio/Michigan/Illini more heavily and place less emphasis on Texas then the "importance" of Texas to NU football would be drastically reduced. If Beck leaves and ends up replaced by someone with excellent connections in Florida, I could see us being less active in Texas. No one here would complain about getting a few more FL recruits each year. Which means Texas might be important today, but only because we've made it that way. It's recruiting grounds can be replaced. So "Texas recruits" from NU's perspective today are important - but in broad, general terms and looking at it from ALL D1 schools, it's not that important. Good post and I've also had fun with this topic. I want to clarify my position that I think that we should focus our limited resources on the best players that we have the best chance to sign. Whether they are from Texas or Rhode Island doesn't matter to me. My posts have merely been the facts, and the facts support the TC's original post up to this point in time. As many have pointed out, we won't be able to evaluate our current staff's Texas recruiting (or recruiting in general) for a couple of years.

I will say you NEED to recruit there. You could also choose not to and only recruit Cali, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska.....but that makes about as much sense as combining your bed and toilet. Of course, you also stated: "Without the state of Texas, half the teams in D1 couldn't field a team." You also wrote: "Texas is probably the most important state to Nebraska football." Really? You are placing way too much importance on the state of Texas. DeMorrio Williams, Greg Austin, and Terrence Nunn are the only Huskers from Texas that have received all-conference recognition from players recruited since 2002. While you state that we didn't focus on Texas recruiting during this time period, we averaged more than 3 Texas recruits per year from 2002-2007. Look at the numbers from my post above. I really would like to hear your case for why Texas recruiting is more important than instate recruiting. Sure, we have had a recruiting victory or two in Texas over the past couple of recruiting cycles, but most of the time we are left to pick through the scraps left over by Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, and Texas A&M. In Nebraska and some of the surrounding areas, we are the 1st choice. Now I hope that players like Thad Randle, Andrew Green, and Harvey Jackson prove me wrong. But right now, everyone who is so high on Texas is basing this on hope for the future, not results. How many other All-Conference kids did we have since 2002? Not very many. Again, the question shouldn't be is Texas recruiting overrated...it should be why aren't we getting the right guys out of Texas? Of the three Texas recruits a year we averaged from 2002-2007, 1 if I'm mistaken was rated 4 stars...Q Castille. IMO, he was worth every star. The question in this thread is "Is recruiting Texas overrated?" With 1 - 4 star, how can that be overrated? I've got to go back and look at your "numbers" post....I'll comment on it. Just scholarship players from the state of Nebraska during the same time period with all-conference recognition: Jay Moore Matt Herian Kurt Mann Dane Todd Andrew Shanle Tierre Green Bo Ruud Cortney Grixby Ty Steinkuhler Zach Potter Ricky Henry Jared Crick Niles Paul I disagree with Castille. In two seasons, he rushed for 852 yards with 4.5 ypc. I didn't think David Horne from Omaha lived up to his 4 stars either, and in two seasons he rushed for 1,152 yards with 4.7 ypc. Perhaps over-rated is not the correct terminology. It is just that our recent recruits from Texas have yet to make much of an impact. Looking at the 2007 class, we have the following: Amukumara - AZ - 1st team all-conference Asante - VA - 1st team all-conference Crick - NE = 1st team all-conference Hagg - AZ - honorable mention all-conference Helu - CA - 2nd team all-conference Jones - AZ - starter Lee - CA - starter Murillo - NM - starter Paul - NE - honorable mention all-conference While 25% of our 2007 class was from the state of Texas, these are the players that have contributed: Blue - 2 career starts Castille - stats mentioned above Gilleylen - 2 career starts Kunalic - kick-off specialist Shouldn't we expect more production out of 25% of our class?

I will say you NEED to recruit there. You could also choose not to and only recruit Cali, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska.....but that makes about as much sense as combining your bed and toilet. Of course, you also stated: "Without the state of Texas, half the teams in D1 couldn't field a team." You also wrote: "Texas is probably the most important state to Nebraska football." Really? You are placing way too much importance on the state of Texas. DeMorrio Williams, Greg Austin, and Terrence Nunn are the only Huskers from Texas that have received all-conference recognition from players recruited since 2002. While you state that we didn't focus on Texas recruiting during this time period, we averaged more than 3 Texas recruits per year from 2002-2007. Look at the numbers from my post above. I really would like to hear your case for why Texas recruiting is more important than instate recruiting. Sure, we have had a recruiting victory or two in Texas over the past couple of recruiting cycles, but most of the time we are left to pick through the scraps left over by Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, and Texas A&M. In Nebraska and some of the surrounding areas, we are the 1st choice. Now I hope that players like Thad Randle, Andrew Green, and Harvey Jackson prove me wrong. But right now, everyone who is so high on Texas is basing this on hope for the future, not results.

It is certainly too early to pass judgement on any of Pelini's classes, so it is impossible to determine how our current staff's Texas commits will fare. However, looking at data from 2002-2007, the OP has a point. During this time period, we received more than 10 commits from California, Florida, Nebraska, and Texas. I tallied the number of players from each state who had significant playing time (only starters) and who received all-conference recognition (defined as at least one all-conference honorable mention by either the coaches or the AP). I did NOT include walk-ons. Here are the results: California - 25 commits - 44% had significant playing time and 24% received all-conference recognition Florida - 13 commits - 46% had significant playing time and 15% received all-conference recognition Nebraska - 29 commits - 59% had significant playing time and 45% received all-conference recognition Texas - 20 commits - 45% had significant playing time and 15% received all-conference recognition Now I'm not discounting the fact that Texas has very good football players, but neither Solich nor Callahan were effective in recruiting difference makers from the Lonestar state. Out of the 9 Texas commits from the 2008 class, I believe that Whaley and Williams have the best chance to contribute this year. Out of the 5 Nebraska commits from the 2008 class, Steinkuhler and Fisher have already contributed and look to possibly take over starting roles this year. While I'm not going to say that Texas recruiting is not important, I'm in agreement with those that think that we can succeed without as much focus on it.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see things slow down over the summer again. Obviously, Bo is listening to TO and both believe that family is important and our assistants need some time off during the summer to "recharge the batteries". Why do you think that Watson didn't join Saban in Tuscaloosa? At least part of the reason is that he didn't want to be subjected to the rigorous schedule that Saban keeps his assistants on. Bill Snyder was the same way. He obviously had some success with this in the late 90's, but his assistants left in droves partly because of other opportunities and partly because they were tired of working nonstop. The reason TO was able to keep his staff intact for so long was because he recognized this and took measures to keep his assistants happy and motivated. Now which philosphy works better depends on whether you can replace the assistants who leave with quality replacements. Obviously Snyder had problems doing this in the mid-2000's when KSU fell apart (also helped by the fact that he wasn't able to pick and choose players out of the Kansas Juco ranks anymore as he had competition for their services). Now things have obviously changed in recruiting since TO's day. Time off is certainly important, but hopefully last year the staff learned that they need to be more organized with scheduling vacations and do a better job of filling in for each other and keeping in contact with players that staff who are on vacation are recruiting. I think we will see a better effort during the coming summer months, but I also fully expect to see more "sky is falling" posts to accompany the slow down. As for recruiting philosophies, I think that Bo realized that Callahan had a pretty good strategy for recruiting to a low population state. Watch a ton of film and throw out a ton of offers and see what sticks. Concentrate most of your efforts on those that show some reciprocal interest and hit the targets at the top of your board hard. I don't have numbers, but I would guess that the number of players that we've offered so far this year dwarf the number offered in 2008 and 2009 at a comparable time.