KC - Sterup showed that he was good enough to start this year as a sophomore. He just happened to have three seniors ahead of him (which is a good thing). Jake Cotton would have started as a sophomore if not for injury. A-Rod played well enough as a junior at RT. Sam Cotton struggled with injury, but played significant minutes, and did pretty well, as a freshman. Banderas played as a freshman. Davie was looking good by all accounts and should be able to recover from the knee.
Even among the walk-ons, the long brothers, burtch, and janovich all made an impact as under-classmen.
There are obviously some nebraska kids that get scholarships that don't pan out, and there's some that take a while to develop, particularly at a position like OL that naturally favors upper classmen. However, I don't see any reason to think it's endemic to nebraska kids or at a greater rate than out of state kids.
It's a hard decision to make on offering local kids, and I think our staff has done pretty well in this area. You're never going to be perfect in predicting which will pan out.
And, yes, I find it amusing that after all the belly-aching about the cottons they turned out to be good players worth every bit of their scholarships.
