2016 Recruiting Final Grade

[HuskerExpat]

With respect to the DL, I understand why people are feeling concerned at the absence of a big push to get a DT this year. With that said, my hope is that the coaches are very encouraged by what they see with the young guys (i.e. the Davis twins) and are ok with waiting until next year to take another DT recruit. That is the best case scenario explanation for the lack of DT recruiting this year, and I think it is reasonable to conclude that is the thinking as opposed to the coaches just having forgot to seriously push for DTs, which they did not do.

 

[theknife]

I get wanting to take a DT, but too often in the past years it seems at both DE and DT we took a guy just to fill a spot. It seems like we can get through this year and even go JUCO in 2017 if need be. That said, the defensive line as a whole should be a central focus on 2017.

 

[GSG]

not too Frickin' shabby

 

[Redux]

not too Frickin' shabby

Well, guess we should fire GSG as our head coach...

 

[GSG]

not too Frickin' shabby

Well, guess we should fire GSG as our head coach...

 

[Redux]

Well unless we win a National Championship year 1 we really don't have a choice, this is Nebraska!

 

[Kernal]

I realize we still have another 36 hours before NSD is over, but I wanted to see how you would grade this year's recruiting class. I will give my assessment.

• QBs-A We landed what appears to be the best QB that NU has recruited in a long time in POB, and have a JUCO transfer that can hopefully push all the other QBs in 2017
• RBs-B+ Very excited about Tre Bryant, and this grade will move up if we land the Stanford decommit
• WRs-A- While I know it's unfortunate we lost out on Simmons and Fitz late, the truth is that WR was not a huge area of need. On top of that, the two WRs we have coming in are studs in Grim and Spielman.
• TEs-B+ I think Stoll is going to be a good one, and like with the WR, we have Snyder and some other good young TE's, so I think the staff did enough to meet this need
• O-line- A I think we have a wonderful O-line class with Brokop, Raridon, Farniok, and Wilson. I am very happy with how it turned out
• D-line- D+ I hope I am wrong in this assessment, but to me the D-line recruiting is the most glaring weakness, especially with the loss of Collins and Valentine.
• LBs B Simmons and Alexander will be good (assuming Alexander stays), but I feel we could have used a bit more depth here
• Safety A- Domann and Butler are pretty good pickups at safety
• CBs A Landing Dismuke and Jackson is quite an accomplishment and I'm glad to see the staff went for big time names

Overall Grade: B- I think there is a lot to be excited about, and had we landed some better D-lineman, this could easily have been a B+ or A- class.

I would agree with your assessment of the individual groups. If you treat it like school grades, yours would come up with a 3.5 GPA or a B+. I think the D line is important enough to weight it down to a B.
Still a very good class that we can use to build on into the future.

we are really good at building for the future.......its who we are! it's what we do!

Ummmm....that's what a football recruiting class does.

Were you expecting this class to win a championship next year for us?

Last year!

 

[Bball1091]

I think it was a solid "B" class. I was definitely impressed by how well the coaches did in 1 year. It takes multiple years to build relationships with not only the prospects but also coaches in other areas. I think you will see a significant improvement with the small class we have for year 2. Those saying we should have expected to be in Top 15 this year are not very practical.

 

[Mavric]

The Huskers get a “B” for this class. Surely, they’d planned on an “A.” It’s easiest to get an “A” recruiting class in the first full year, when there’s playing time and new visions to sell.


But NU lost two recruits to Clemson (Isaiah Simmons and Tremayne Anchrum) and one recruit to Louisville (Desmond Fitzpatrick) when it firmly expected to land all three. The staff mishandled the recruitment of Noah Fant. It went many dry months during the season without a commitment.

It wasn’t perfect. And in Riley’s signing day comments, you sensed urgency. They were echoed in an interview by his director of player personnel, Ryan Gunderson.

“We need to make more of a focused effort to get those kids here for camps and seeing them in person,” Gunderson said of local prospects. “In the end, you’re going to trust your eyes a lot more than you will the opinion of another person.”

OWH

 

[Mavric]

My take:

QB - A - Really like POB. Almost want to go A+ but I'll stick with A

RB - A - Seems to be a well rounded back with a lot of potential

WR - B- - Really like the two guys we got. But we needed at least one more and two would have been good. We're going to be pretty short - literally - in the WR room after this year.

TE - B - Reserving judgement on Engelhaupt. Missed on a couple higher guys.

OT - B- - Really like Farniok. But we really needed 2-3. And if Farniok doesn't end up being an OT ....

OG/C - A - Excellent set of guys.

DT - F - A mistake not to recruit any. Especially when you have a 4* guy visit.

DE - C- - Not sure if Stille is a DE or DT. Miller might end up OK but I think we have a couple projects at what was a position of high need.

LB - B+ - If Jefferson pans out it would be an A. Hopefully.

CB - A+ - Two great athletes plus a burner in Bootle.

S - A - Though I'd rather have Domann at LB.

Spec - A - Assuming he's as good as advertised it's good to grab talent when you can get it, especially when it fits well in the rotation.

OVERALL - B- - This class by itself would be a high B but when looking at the whole picture, we came up pretty short at our two positions of biggest need (DE and OT) and messed up not even recruiting a DT. Great recruiting at QB, RB and DB saved it from a C.

 

[W A R R I O R]

I'd give us a C. OK, but still not good enough. 5th in the B1G and barely cracking the Top 25 isn't gonna cut it. I'm also not a big fan of POB, so hopefully we can land Gebbia. 2017 will be our best chance in a long time to have a Top 10-15 class so we need to make the most of it.

 

[Ed Helms]

I'd give us a C. OK, but still not good enough. 5th in the B1G and barely cracking the Top 25 isn't gonna cut it. I'm also not a big fan of POB, so hopefully we can land Gebbia. 2017 will be our best chance in a long time to have a Top 10-15 class so we need to make the most of it.

 

[W A R R I O R]

LOL hopefully he proves me wrong

 

[DrunkOffPunch]

LOL sorry, he just hasn't impressed me all that much

In what ways?

 

[84HuskerLaw]

I would have liked to see about three more 4 star type guys in the class to give it a B+ grade wise. I give it a strong C+ and that grade may end up being low provided, as I believe, we find out that there are very few 'busts' in the bunch. I believe strongly that we need to recruit much more talented players, particulary in the trenches. I feel our receivers have been adequate to win a Big Ten title. I am hopeful that POB is finally a good enough QB to compete for the Big Ten title. I am hopeful the Tre Bryant is good enough at RB alone with those we have on hand. We need a quality fullback - usually they can be found somewhere in Nebraska. The key area will be to improve dramatically in the O line. We did good things in a few games and ran well vs. UCLA's weak D front. We need to control that line of scrimmage as we did in the Farmers' bowl through the course of the season next fall. Our young guys should be making progress and Boyd Eppley will build em up plenty by next fall.

D line is shaky with loss of two of our best to the NFL draft early. I believe both of them will regret leaving early.

The back 7 on defense should should considerable improvement with another spring and fall camp of development following a season of practice. Special teams showed signs of getting more organized by the end of the year. By next fall, we should be darn good as returns game will gain talent in return capable guys back there. Coverage should also improve. Hopefully kickers become more consistant in booming the KOs out of the end zone and punts high and deep and out of bounds more often.