1995 Nebraska and the myth of championship recruiting

[brophog]

I think you have to have both to win a national championship. You cannot win without great talent and you cannot win without great coaching. In most cases anyway. 

There is alot of teams who recruit great every year and have average coaching and never approach the playoff. Also teams who have great coaching but for whatever reason they are not a great recruiter so never make it past 10 or 11 wins.

Alabama probably has more talent right now than any program in history. They lost the title game because even they can’t survive so much coaching turnover. As a staff, Clemson was simply better prepared and that mattered in the big plays. 

One of the real problems I have with recruiting rankings, as they’re currently done, is they lack context. Some positions are way more important than others. QB is number 1, but after that defensive players are far more important than offensive players. Offenses can fit schemes to players, defenses always have to react in some sense. Numerous offenses, both run heavy and pass heavy, have been developed and very succesfully used to overcome talent deficiencies. No one has a scheme that replaces a defensive tackle if the opponent wants to run inside. Defensive football is so often about creating numerical advantages through talent. 

As someone pointed out, those Nebraska teams could be mostly homegrown on offense, but those defenses were the product of scouring the country for talent.

 

[Undone]

Alabama probably has more talent right now than any program in history. They lost the title game because even they can’t survive so much coaching turnover. As a staff, Clemson was simply better prepared and that mattered in the big plays. 

More or less. I'd say Alabama lost because they for some reason went away from the run game in the second quarter for absolutely no reason.

As far as how the OP does or doesn't apply to our current situation with Frost, what I see from our fan base is the assumption that we will never get Top 10-15 classes. That may not be the case, and we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out. 

Frost is currently showing that his first three classes will most likely beat Bo's averages. That's a start. Getting classes in the #15-#20 range with a QB like Martinez will have us dominating the West and competing for conference titles. That puts you back on the national stage. At that point, recruiting could potentially go up from there when we are perceived as being "back" from the national college football panorama standpoint.

 

[Mierin]

More or less. I'd say Alabama lost because they for some reason went away from the run game in the second quarter for absolutely no reason.

As far as how the OP does or doesn't apply to our current situation with Frost, what I see from our fan base is the assumption that we will never get Top 10-15 classes. That may not be the case, and we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out. 

Frost is currently showing that his first three classes will most likely beat Bo's averages. That's a start. Getting classes in the #15-#20 range with a QB like Martinez will have us dominating the West and competing for conference titles. That puts you back on the national stage. At that point, recruiting could potentially go up from there when we are perceived as being "back" from the national college football panorama standpoint.

I think we will never average top 10. If Frost is as successful as I think he’ll be, we might have a top 10 class here and there. It’s possible we could average top 10-15 if we win a conference championship or 2 and make a playoff appearance.

I think and hope Frost will be better than Dantonio or Franklin. Dantonio’s been to a playoff and Franklin’s won the conference. MSU doesn’t get top classes (they are always below us) and PSU always has higher classes than Nebraska but (without looking) I don’t think they’re top 10 every year. And PSU is in a better location as far as distance to and # of recruits.