dylan

This is not the 5th or 6th best class in the league, so I couldn't care less what they say. We did a good job of filling needs and got kids with great potential.

I know they are good salesmen and all but geez I don't get the leap of faith all these kids are making in Kentucky. It's close to home, it's in the SEC and these guys are good salesmen.

The difference is that's Bo's gang and they're doing things the way he wants. Bo's already shown that he's willing to make changes when he thinks it's called for. Also, while Beck has the occasional head scratcher, I think he's a good OC. Papuchis runs Bo's defense, so any talk calling for his head may as well be aimed at Bo.

I still don't think we're dedicating the resources we need to be to help the coaches out. This is all straight hustle.

The only point I disagree with you on is the TO part. 8-0 head to head. I understand the talent disparity, but you have to beat someone one out of eight times to be even close to being better than that person. There's no doubt Snyder can coach. But maybe he's better at getting unheralded guys to play in his system too. Look at Brady Hoke. Great coach at smaller programs but is struggling with big-time talent. Some guys are system guys and I think Snyder is one of them. Albeit, running a great system. And my point also is that had TO stuck around, do we know for sure that we win the games in '98, '00, '02, and so on? I'm really not sure. Solich road on Osborne's talent, with predominantly Osborne's entire staff for his first 4 years or so. I know Tom's presence is probably that difference maker, yet, he is still just one man. So I'm not really sure. But the fact is that Snyder has done something TWICE that Osborne never had to deal with. A garbage program from scratch that due to numerous intangibles (location, budget, tradition, etc) has absolutely no business being even respectable, much less elite as they have been in each of his two stints. One thing TO was good at was knowing when to make changes. He changed the offense multiple times in his career. He changed the defense. He'd even occasionally change his assistants if someone wasn't working out. One of Solich's biggest mistakes was trying to keep the old gang together. Some of Tom's old assistants seemed to get lazy about recruiting and seemingly had an attitude of "we're NU, the recruits will come to us" (reminds me of some of our fans). TO knew the importance of recruiting and would have kept things on track and/or made changes when necessary. Obviously his genius as an offensive coordinator and gravitas on the recruiting trail would have helped as well. I can pretty well guarantee that things would have gone better had TO stayed. You can thank Perlman's good buddy Graham Spanier for TO leaving when he did or who knows how many more wins we'd have racked up.

I haven't made a list and ranked them, but I would say at least top 10-15. There are a lot of places that make it easy for a coach to win, mostly because of location and the school itself, but also because of things like infrastructure, history, fan support, etc. KSU had nothing when he took over. No facilities, pathetic stadium and fanbase and the worst record in college football. Throw their terrible location in and there's a reason it's called the Miracle in Manhattan. Sure, he scheduled easy, but he still won a ton of games and made KSU a national program instead of a national laughingstock. The man can coach.

I think he's one of the few that can even be in the conversation with TO. I think TO's sustained excellence and titles put him on top, but Snyder is definitely one of the best ever.

Snyder? He turned the single worst program in D1 into a pretty damn good program and did it mostly with jucos, duct tape and effort. The guy is a hall of fame coach.

Can't argue with either of those, but I'd add that he also has a better chance in the SEC of getting his scholarship taken away if the coaches find someone they like better during his career and of playing for a team that gets probation. At NU he has a better chance of getting a real education, both in the classroom and out, as Bo and his staff help him develop into a responsible young man.

What change are you guys talking about?

Wow. If he can land these two and the tackle from kansas we will be off to an amazing start. Hopefully we can add decker to that list, too.

I have no problem with taking someone that didn't have us first on their list. As long as he knows the spot may not still be open if he waits for a few more days....

It at least evens out, those are absolute nobody programs, that have zero business being remotely relevant to the recruiting conversation. They are SEC programs located near tons of talented players. I am not denigrating the impressive effort their coaching staffs have put in, but it is not comparable to getting kids to move across the country to a small city on the northern plains. (They also haven't out-recruited us on a consistent basis nor won anything, so I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.) Quite simply, there is no comparison to our recruiting situation. The only thing close is kansas state, and they rely largely on juco transfers and one of the best coaches of all time.

Creepy

Evens out? Those schools are located close to a ton of talent, aren't located on the northern plains in the middle of nowhere, don't have harsh winters that scare off recruits, haven't consistently brought in top talent of the sort NU seems to be expected to and haven't won squat with the talent they have brought in. They have nothing to do with the conversation at hand. Yes, it is possible to use recruiting hustle to overcome disadvantages, but that doesn't change the fact that NU is uniquely disadvantaged by its location and climate.

I think we'll find a way to take five if it's the right guys.

It's open to donors that shell out $50 or more over the year. Not exactly an exclusive club to get into if someone wants to attend.

Way better prospect than Coop...I want this kid here STAT Good to hear, but cooper is turning into one of the better safeties in the league. That's pretty high praise.

Pretty sure with bloom it was sponsorship money versus getting paid for a different sport. Many Olympic athletes live and/or train on corporate sponsorships. Start allowing sponsorship money to college athletes and anyone can funnel money to these kids.

Ricky Williams and others played minor league baseball during their college football careers prior to the bloom case.

Gotta wonder if it's the same reason everyone else passed on Parks. It's a head scratcher, as he seems good enough. Usually I'd think grades or behavioral issues, but that seems unlikely for a kid that supposedly had interest from the Ivy League. Parks made the decision not Nebraska. A.J. is great athlete that could also play WR. I wasn't aware that we ever offered Parks a scholarship.

I agree. I'm also not so sure we're limited to three more, but it is getting down to it.

Gotta wonder if it's the same reason everyone else passed on Parks. It's a head scratcher, as he seems good enough. Usually I'd think grades or behavioral issues, but that seems unlikely for a kid that supposedly had interest from the Ivy League.

Like many people, you greatly overestimate how good recruiting was under Callahan, not to mention that his star recruiter is/was a known cheater. We are still beating out top teams for kids, same as we always did, but we have a greater disadvantage in distance from talented kids than any other major program. Michigan? Do some research on how many talented kids come from Michigan and its immediate vicinity (Ohio, etc.). As far as trying more earlier, we offer and recruit kids years ahead of time as it is, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. Our coaches already have to out hustle every other major program because we have to sift through the whole country to find talented kids that don't mind traveling to go to school. On top of that, we have the additional burden of only selecting the kids with character. I can assure you that there are schools that have it easier by taking any thug they can get. As far as Saban, the guy can coach, but he got a whole lot better when he went to SEC schools that cheat at will to get the top players, many of whom live in driving distance. We all wish Nebraska could take whomever they want in recruiting and leave everyone in the dust. But as long as our location, climate and desire for solid citizens don't change, we're just going to have to accept that not everyone wants to move to Nebraska for college.

It would definitely suck to lose another to baseball. I think even moreso than bubba, the one that burned us the most was Carl Crawford. Obviously he made the right choice in the long run, but I'd have loved to see what he could have done in the old offense.