Why is recruiting so difficult?

[Army Husker]

Good question, but this. Does recruiting change now that we are in the B1G? Better...worse?

[skersfan]

Well right now we are behind every single school from the Big 10 ranked in the top 50, and we are not even close to any of them. Vanderbilt is ranked ahead of us.

 

We are not recruiting, we have 8 commits. A total of 8, we shold be near 15 at least.

 

Purdue is ahead of us in recruiting.

 

I do not think we will recruit in the Big 10 if we keep losing, we will lose the Texas connection as well.

 

Changes have to be made, do not know what needs to be done, but this program is in trouble on the recruiting front.

[gbr93]

Well right now we are behind every single school from the Big 10 ranked in the top 50, and we are not even close to any of them. Vanderbilt is ranked ahead of us.

 

We are not recruiting, we have 8 commits. A total of 8, we shold be near 15 at least.

 

Purdue is ahead of us in recruiting.

 

I do not think we will recruit in the Big 10 if we keep losing, we will lose the Texas connection as well.

 

Changes have to be made, do not know what needs to be done, but this program is in trouble on the recruiting front.

People say this every year and we always end up having a good class. Give them time because we have seen so far that the Pelini's recruit the kids that want to come here. They tell them straight up to not commit until you know for sure and that their heart is with the program. That takes time to develop and there is still a lot of time left despite what some people think. All I'm sayin' is lets wait and see instead of jumping the gun here

[Mavric]

Well right now we are behind every single school from the Big 10 ranked in the top 50, and we are not even close to any of them. Vanderbilt is ranked ahead of us.

 

We are not recruiting, we have 8 commits. A total of 8, we shold be near 15 at least.

 

Purdue is ahead of us in recruiting.

 

I do not think we will recruit in the Big 10 if we keep losing, we will lose the Texas connection as well.

 

Changes have to be made, do not know what needs to be done, but this program is in trouble on the recruiting front.

 

We only have 8 commits right now because we only have about 12-13 slots open for next year and are waiting to see if we get a couple of very highly-recurited players who are considering us. We're going to be well down the rankings no matter what happens because of the small numbers (most schools will be around 20) but if we can land a couple of the big targets we're after, it will be a nice class.

[clyde_40]

Look at it this way you are an 18 year old male on a recruiting trip you go to "scenic" Nebraska you see it has great things to offer a storied football program blah blah blah you go somewhere in Florida or Cal. and get the same stuff plus see beaches full of girls in bikinis... HMMMMMMM.....

[zoogs]

Do we really stil just have 12-13 slots open? It seems like I hear that every year now, "this year is a very small class, we'll be picky"...

 

Well right now we are behind every single school from the Big 10 ranked in the top 50, and we are not even close to any of them. Vanderbilt is ranked ahead of us.

 

We are not recruiting, we have 8 commits. A total of 8, we shold be near 15 at least.

 

Purdue is ahead of us in recruiting.

 

I do not think we will recruit in the Big 10 if we keep losing, we will lose the Texas connection as well.

 

Changes have to be made, do not know what needs to be done, but this program is in trouble on the recruiting front.

People say this every year and we always end up having a good class. Give them time because we have seen so far that the Pelini's recruit the kids that want to come here. They tell them straight up to not commit until you know for sure and that their heart is with the program. That takes time to develop and there is still a lot of time left despite what some people think. All I'm sayin' is lets wait and see instead of jumping the gun here

 

That isn't *quite* the case. We end up with a class every year, whether it is as good as it could have been is up for debate. No matter who we end up with though, they can be spun as promising, overlooked, talented players - which in many cases is true. The staff always seems to do a lot of catch-up work late, which is a bit risky IMO.

[COMPTON]

I gotta admit, with each passing season I am becoming more and more frustrated with NU's recruiting. Yeah, I know there are people out there who say that stars don't mean anything, but I beg to differ. After watching LSU and Alabama play this past weekend, it's evident that without multiple 4- and 5-star recruits, NU's chances of winning a national championship in the forseeable future are slim and none. My question is, why is it so hard to land top recruits? And please don't play the geography card, because I've been to Tuscaloosa, and Lincoln is light years ahead. This staff needs to hire some proven recruiters, otherwise this team is destined for mediocrity year-in and year-out.

There are so many reasons why at this point we don't recruit like those schools.

[Hooked on Huskers]

1. Location

2. Population Base

3. Lack of great high school football

4. Climate

 

Look, schools like LSU and Bama don't have to go more then 200 miles from their campus to get all the kids they want (for the most part).

 

Mississippi has more players in the NFL per capita then any state (I think that is still true)

 

Then you have ties, think about it, if you grow up in Bama or Texas or Florida, you usually like that team.

 

and maybe racial makeup?

[Hooked on Huskers]

delete

[skersfan]

I thought we had something like 23 this year. Still we have very little quality in what we do have, kids not even rated seems a stretch to me. I am not saying we need 5 star kids.

 

I can not imagine that Wisconsin is that much better to recruit to. But if you are down on numbers, have to recruit out of state, if it takes more time, then I think it is questionable to wait for the last moment to recruit.

 

We call what we get great, maybe they are. But they have yet to show it. If the young ones are so good, why aren't they playing. Does this team have the talent to let top notch freshman redshirt in anyones eyes? I don't see it. I see kids that look good, get very few touches, very little time after burning a red shirt. Priorities need to be established.

 

Losing to NW was bad, but if we lose out, you can forget the prize two or three we are looking for. The three most important games of Bo's career are in front of him. He better have the team ready to play and keep a muzzle on their mouths.

[MT949597]

I think we'll end up with about 15-18 guys this year.

[FLU]

People say this every year and we always end up having a good class. Give them time because we have seen so far that the Pelini's recruit the kids that want to come here. They tell them straight up to not commit until you know for sure and that their heart is with the program. That takes time to develop and there is still a lot of time left despite what some people think. All I'm sayin' is lets wait and see instead of jumping the gun here

 

What exactly do you consider to be a 'good' class? What have any of these so-called 'good' classes accomplished? Nothing.

[huskered17]

Jumping from the Big-12 to the B1G must be a lot harder then we believed. You recruit players to fit the system of the schools in your conference, you have to go up against. This staff was recruiting for an, air it out , more than run it , type opponent. Granted we don't seem to be able to stop either this year, but that may be because having to play some of these kids out of position, or rushing them in because we don't have the recruits, needed for B1G play. I am just guessing of course, but I can't figure out any other reason, for the trouble they are having on defense. Offense seems to be getting better, and that took awhile to get some of the players, that seem to be making a difference. Bo's reputation for defense's, would have one believe, that will also be fixed quite soon.

 

GBR!!!

[Mavric]

I thought we had something like 23 this year. Still we have very little quality in what we do have, kids not even rated seems a stretch to me. I am not saying we need 5 star kids.

 

I don't think there are as may highly-rated players as most people would think. According to Rivals, there are 21 five-star recruits. For the entire country. Only seven of them have committed so far. Florida St. has three (one from Florida, one from Alabama and one from Texas) and Texas has two (both from Texas). No one else has more than one.

 

There are a lot more four-star players but there aren't very many avaliable at each position.

 

Pos - # of 5* - # of 4* - NU Notes

Dual-QB - 1 - 6 - NU commit #16 (Armstrong, three-star); also got #7 (Turner, four-star) last year along with commit #6 ATH (Starling, four-star)

RB - 1 - 19 - Probably not much chance with a returning starter and three freshman playing: 2011 #8 (Green, four-star), 2011 #17 ATH (Abdullah, three-star), 2010 #5 (Heard, four-star)

WR - 3 - 44 - NU commit #60 (Westercamp, three-star)

OT - 3 - 32 - NU commit #16 (Thurston, four-star), Andrus Peat a strong possibility at #3 (five-star); also got #5 (T. Moore, four-star) and #26 (Sterup, four-star) last year

OG - 0 - 12 - We got #12 (Klachko, four-star) last year

C - 0 - 2 - We got #4 (Reeves, four-star) last year

 

DT - 3 - 20 - We got #16 (Peat, four-star) and #36 (K. Williams, three-star) last year

DE - 5 - 37 - NU commit #9 Strong Side (McMullen, four-star); JUCO Carter last year

ILB - 0 - 12 - NU commit #13 (Rose, three-star)

OLB - 0 - 29 - NU commit Z. Anderson (JUCO) not rated (no JUCOs are) We got #15 (Santos, four-star) and #54 (Pirman, three-star) last year

CB - 1 - 23 - We got #6 (C. Jackson, four-star) last year, if he can qualify

S - 2 - 15 - JUCO Stafford last year

 

ATH - 1 - 18 - Starling and Abdullah last year

 

There are 66 BCS conference schools (this year). That means WR (which we don't exactly attract), OT (where we've done fairly well) and DE are the only three spots where there's enough for even HALF the BCS schools to get one five- or four-star player, and that's before Texas, Florida St., Florida, Alabama, LSU, and USC hand-pick the locals.

 

WR and Safety are the only two spots where we havn't had a top 16 rated player either last year or this year and I think Stafford would qualify at Safety. WR, ILB and Safety are the only spots we haven't had a four-star last year or this year.

 

And keep in mind, we're in the mix for several highly-rated players yet this year. It could get better.

 

I'd say we're doing quite well over the last two years. Time will tell.

[MinnwiscowaSker]

You have to remember we do have a really young team right now. here are the fresh/sophs listed on the two-deep. I know this is partially due to injuries, but it is what it is: http://huskermax.com/games/2011/files/depth_current.html

 

Offense: Bell, SIrles, Rodriquez, Pensick, Long, Qvale, Moore, Enunwa, Turner, Martinez, Carnes, Zimmerer, Green, Heard, Abdullah

 

Defense: Ankrah, Rome, Guy, Roach, Green, Jean-Baptiste, Osborne, Evans

 

Obviously we look pretty solid going forward on offense. That line has great young talent, including three Nebraska kids and a fourth (Moore) with strong ties.

Defense, not so good. The only young LB we have is walk-on roach, but that's where the staff is recruiting a bunch of talent at that position.

 

If we can get some good influx in defensive talent/have some guys really step up in two years, this could be a really solid squad. Look at that offense! Bo will fix the D.