Big Ten recruiting in Texas, Florida and California

[Nexus]

Since Texas, Florida and California are considered the largest hotbeds for football talent and Nebraska's traditional recruiting grounds, I thought it'd be interesting to see what other Big Ten schools have pulled in from those respective states up to this point for the 2011 class. The number after the equal sign is the number of recruits pulled from that particular state. Between the parentheses I used Rivals as a reference for ratings. The "NR" means Rivals hasn't rated the player(s) yet. JUCO players are not included.

 

Texas

Illinois = 1 (NR)

Iowa = 2 (5.6 - 3* ... NR)

Minnesota = 1 (NR)

Nebraska = 2 (5.8 - 4* ... 5.8 - 4*)

Purdue = 1 (5.5 - 3*)

 

Florida

Illinois = 1 (NR)

Iowa = 1 (5.6 - 3*)

Michigan = 1 (5.6 - 3*)

Minnesota = 1 (NR)

Nebraska = 1 (5.9 - 4*)

Northwestern = 1 (NR)

Ohio St. = 2 (5.7 - 3* ... 5.8 - 4*)

 

California

Minnesota = 1 (5.6 - 3*)

Nebraska = 1 (5.4 - 2*)

[T-Husker]

Nice post Nexus.

I have a question, and this might be showing off some of just how naive I am, but since I didn't follow recruiting until midway through the Callahan era, what did Solich do? Did he recruit Texas? Nationally? Big 12 regionally like Colorado, Mizzou, Kansas? I don't mean to derail the beginnings of a good thread, btw. Just super curious.

[dylan]

Nice post Nexus.

I have a question, and this might be showing off some of just how naive I am, but since I didn't follow recruiting until midway through the Callahan era, what did Solich do? Did he recruit Texas? Nationally? Big 12 regionally like Colorado, Mizzou, Kansas? I don't mean to derail the beginnings of a good thread, btw. Just super curious.

 

yes, NU has always recruited nationally and solich was no different. the major difference, as far as geography, during the callahan years was an increased emphasis on california. with pelini, we've seen an increased emphasis on texas.

 

it's worth noting though that we regularly brought in CA kids before billy c, just as we have always brought in texas kids, even before the big 12 existed and we rarely played games down there.

[T-Husker]

Thanks for the answer Dylan.

[JOEY]

I think solich was a horrible recruiter I dont think that we would of went down the tube as fast if he was a better recruiter

[dylan]

I think solich was a horrible recruiter I dont think that we would of went down the tube as fast if he was a better recruiter

 

i don't know if i would say horrible, but i do think recruiting was a big factor in his downfall. of course, it's always easy to say you'd win more with better players. he had some bad luck with offensive line injuries and flame outs that i'd say played nearly as big a role as recruiting failures.

 

as far as class rankings, his classes were generally comparable to callahan's (with the exception of the 2005 class, which didn't turn out to be as great as its headlines). solich had a few on the edge of the top 10 and a few around 20th.

 

of course, the only true measure of recruiting is how many kids you get to make plays for you on the field, and i agree he did fall short in that. he had particularly bad luck (or bad scouting) with the QB position and that alone probably took him down. i think stuntz and the kid from millard north were reaches in one class. we didn't get anyone in 2000 (i think that was the year we just missed on carlyle holiday). the loss of crawford to MLB stung quite a bit and the great white hope dukes was an epic fail. for that matter, i don't think dailey would have been very good in the old system either.

 

all that said, he left a LOT of talent on the defensive side of the ball and enough on offense that there was no excuse for the losing season that followed his departure.

 

one thing i wonder about is if newcombe hadn't blown his knee out. he was a superior passer to crouch and we seemed intent on opening the offense some with bobby at the helm in '98. had we shown a bit of balance on offense during those years, solich may have had an easier time recruiting the QB position and we might have been spared the callahan years. (note that i'm obviously not unhappy with crouch's play when he took over or even solich's over-reliance on his best/only offensive weapon, just disappointed at the unintended consequences.)