About JUCOs

[Husker_x]

There was an interesting article today on Rivals about Pelini's attitude toward JUCO transfers. Essentially he only recruits them if they're expected to majorly contribute. Contrast that with Callahan, where very few of them saw meaningful playing time, much less stardom. Here's a running list of Pelini's JUCO players and their fortunes so far. Feel free to add more if I missed any.

Ricky Henry: Starter

Dejon Gomes: Projected starter, already seen significant playing time.

Brandon Kinnie: Projected Starter, already seen PT.

Yoshi Hardrick: Projected two deep, possible starter.

Lavonte David: Projected two deep.

Stanley Jean-Baptiste: Possible two deep. May not see significant time this season, but he has 4 for 4.

Chase Harper: With the TE situation and our flexible sets, likely will see significant PT.

Daimion Stafford: Lone JUCO for the 2011 class so far. Hard to project until the class is finished.

So it seems that by this list Pelini's JUCO recruiting is near-inspired. Virtually everyone we sign plays and plays a lot. We also don't seem to be overloaded, which is a separate but equally dangerous issue. It's a long road to the title when you're seeing at most 2-3 years from your players, some of whom are going to be academic liabilities.

Thoughts? Additions?

 

[ADS]

Good read, thanks!

Coach Pelini has really struck gold in the JUCO ranks. Might see one more this year with Dexter Moody from FSCC visiting soon and being more open to playing here instead of waiting on an SEC offer.

 

[AndyDufresne]

Technically you could add Tyson Hetzer to the list, though he did verbal under Callahan and Pelini honored the commitment. Otherwise, nice breakdown.

I've looked at a few teams from the Big 10, and Juco recruiting is pretty rare among them, although prep school players don't seem that uncommon.

 

[NUance]

Nice article. Great find!

Zac Taylor, Matt Slauson, Steve Octavien, Barry Cryer, Zack Bowman, Mo Purify, Carl Nicks, Zack Lee, Kevin Dixon, and Larry Asante were all recruited BP (before Pelini). All jucos. All contributed.

Say what you will about He Who Shall Not Be Named, but the guy brought in some pretty good jucos. But he did have quite a few wiffs mixed in with the homeruns. On the other hand, Bo seems to be batting about .800 right now on jucos.

Personally, I think our balance of recruiting of jucos is just about right.

 

[zoogs]

Nice article. Great find!

Zac Taylor, Matt Slauson, Steve Octavien, Barry Cryer, Zack Bowman, Mo Purify, Carl Nicks, Zack Lee, Kevin Dixon, and Larry Asante were all recruited BP (before Pelini). All jucos. All contributed.

Say what you will about He Who Shall Not Be Named, but the guy brought in some pretty good jucos. But he did have quite a few wiffs mixed in with the homeruns. On the other hand, Bo seems to be batting about .800 right now on jucos.

Personally, I think our balance of recruiting of jucos is just about right.

This. Really don't think there were different philosophies.

Bo walked into a well-rounded roster that had depth. Callahan walked into a roster that had more holes than Swiss Cheese. That's why at the beginning, he relied a LOT on JUCOs, and as the years went on (remember that he only even had 4), that reliance grew smaller.

Ricky Henry: Starter

Dejon Gomes: Projected starter, already seen significant playing time.

Brandon Kinnie: Projected Starter, already seen PT.

Yoshi Hardrick: Projected two deep, possible starter.

Lavonte David: Projected two deep.

Stanley Jean-Baptiste: Possible two deep. May not see significant time this season, but he has 4 for 4.

Chase Harper: With the TE situation and our flexible sets, likely will see significant PT.

Daimion Stafford: Lone JUCO for the 2011 class so far. Hard to project until the class is finished.

In bold: 'counting your eggs before they hatch.' that one DT named 'The Beast'; Frantz Hardy; Andre Jones...all these guys were pretty exciting as recruits and supposed to have done a lot for us. They ultimately didn't. There's a need for JUCOs who are talented on any roster, and remember that Callahan and Pelini had different situations to deal with. We still have a strong JUCO pipeline - with Fort Scott, for example.

 

[Husker_x]

The knock against Callahan was that he brought in way too many. He had an argument, though, which was that Nebraska fans aren't patient about their winning. The counter-argument was that he didn't need to take such a radical approach. But he did. Misfiring with too many JUCOs is not a good problem to have. It can totally screw up your recruiting for years.

As for the counting your eggs, valid point, but Hardrick is going to contribute. That's as certain as night following day. Harper and David are more questionable, but in my opinion it's a question of when, not if. The point of the article was that we have a high success rate with JUCOs who contribute, and since we have a small number of them, that makes it an effective use of scholarships.

 

[dylan]

The knock against Callahan was that he brought in way too many. He had an argument, though, which was that Nebraska fans aren't patient about their winning. The counter-argument was that he didn't need to take such a radical approach. But he did. Misfiring with too many JUCOs is not a good problem to have. It can totally screw up your recruiting for years.

As for the counting your eggs, valid point, but Hardrick is going to contribute. That's as certain as night following day. Harper and David are more questionable, but in my opinion it's a question of when, not if. The point of the article was that we have a high success rate with JUCOs who contribute, and since we have a small number of them, that makes it an effective use of scholarships.

lot of good points in this thread. as a fan that despises billy c, i do have to agree that he had a lot of holes to fill offensively and attempted to do so as quickly as possible. of course, cally left some holes of his own by relying so heavily on jucos, so it's a double edge sword.

i like pelini's approach. take only potentially high impact kids at positions of need.

 

[zoogs]

The knock against Callahan was that he brought in way too many. He had an argument, though, which was that Nebraska fans aren't patient about their winning. The counter-argument was that he didn't need to take such a radical approach. But he did. Misfiring with too many JUCOs is not a good problem to have. It can totally screw up your recruiting for years.

As for the counting your eggs, valid point, but Hardrick is going to contribute. That's as certain as night following day. Harper and David are more questionable, but in my opinion it's a question of when, not if. The point of the article was that we have a high success rate with JUCOs who contribute, and since we have a small number of them, that makes it an effective use of scholarships.

But it's not really a fair comparison to make. You give Bo Pelini a roster with as little depth and holes in it as the one Callahan inherited, and you might've seen a heavy influx of JUCOs as well. It's not as if Callahan's JUCO reliance continued at such a high level (was it?) Without such a radical approach, we wouldn't have had absolute studs like Zac Taylor, Mo Purify, or Carl Nicks, wouldn't have had starters such as Zack Bowman, Andre Jones (he was bad, but he did start), Barry Cryer, Ola Dagunduro. In recruiting - whether it's JUCO or not - it comes with the understanding that some guys pan out, some guys don't. But we obviously had a case where we needed all those guys to be there, and as we got to the end of Callahan's regime, we saw JUCOs being recruited to supplement the roster, not plug in all the front lines. Which is pretty much the same thing Bo is doing.

Basically, the number differential is not that great when the rosters were equally deep. But this is just from memory. I could be wrong.

I do agree on Hardrick. But whether his career success at NU is more like Zac Taylor's or Andre Jones', both of whom started a ton of games for us over their years, remains to be seen.

 

[AndyDufresne]

The knock against Callahan was that he brought in way too many. He had an argument, though, which was that Nebraska fans aren't patient about their winning. The counter-argument was that he didn't need to take such a radical approach. But he did. Misfiring with too many JUCOs is not a good problem to have. It can totally screw up your recruiting for years.

As for the counting your eggs, valid point, but Hardrick is going to contribute. That's as certain as night following day. Harper and David are more questionable, but in my opinion it's a question of when, not if. The point of the article was that we have a high success rate with JUCOs who contribute, and since we have a small number of them, that makes it an effective use of scholarships.

But it's not really a fair comparison to make. You give Bo Pelini a roster with as little depth and holes in it as the one Callahan inherited, and you might've seen a heavy influx of JUCOs as well. It's not as if Callahan's JUCO reliance continued at such a high level (was it?) Without such a radical approach, we wouldn't have had absolute studs like Zac Taylor, Mo Purify, or Carl Nicks, wouldn't have had starters such as Zack Bowman, Andre Jones (he was bad, but he did start), Barry Cryer, Ola Dagunduro. In recruiting - whether it's JUCO or not - it comes with the understanding that some guys pan out, some guys don't. But we obviously had a case where we needed all those guys to be there, and as we got to the end of Callahan's regime, we saw JUCOs being recruited to supplement the roster, not plug in all the front lines. Which is pretty much the same thing Bo is doing.

Basically, the number differential is not that great when the rosters were equally deep. But this is just from memory. I could be wrong.

I do agree on Hardrick. But whether his career success at NU is more like Zac Taylor's or Andre Jones', both of whom started a ton of games for us over their years, remains to be seen.

The numbers differential is fairly great. Callahan's 2005-2007 classes never dropped below 22% being from the junior college ranks and twice were above 30%. Pelini's had one class where it was over 10% which was 2010 at 18.1%, and it is only so high because we added a 4 for 4 juco very late (Baptiste).

Also, I think that you are mistaken that the roster Callahan inherited was lacking depth and full of holes. The defense he inherited was absolutely loaded, and provided 6 starters as late as 2006 when Callahan's juco talent had plenty of time to replace them. Obviously, the offense needed retooled but 4/5 of our offensive line (don't forget that Andy Christensen, Mike Huff, Nate Swift, and Ty Steinkuhler all committed under Solich before he was fired in 2004), the starting TE, and a starting WR were all inherited talent.

Also don't forget that Pelini used a converted RB at linebacker, and a whole host of walk-ons throughout the defense in 2008 (Holt, Thorell, Wortman, O'Hanlon, Koehler, etc.). Do you think that it is unfair to say that the inherited offensive talent in 2004 was comparable to the inherited defensive talent in 2008? I don't.

 

[Husker_x]

The knock against Callahan was that he brought in way too many. He had an argument, though, which was that Nebraska fans aren't patient about their winning. The counter-argument was that he didn't need to take such a radical approach. But he did. Misfiring with too many JUCOs is not a good problem to have. It can totally screw up your recruiting for years.

As for the counting your eggs, valid point, but Hardrick is going to contribute. That's as certain as night following day. Harper and David are more questionable, but in my opinion it's a question of when, not if. The point of the article was that we have a high success rate with JUCOs who contribute, and since we have a small number of them, that makes it an effective use of scholarships.

But it's not really a fair comparison to make. You give Bo Pelini a roster with as little depth and holes in it as the one Callahan inherited, and you might've seen a heavy influx of JUCOs as well. It's not as if Callahan's JUCO reliance continued at such a high level (was it?) Without such a radical approach, we wouldn't have had absolute studs like Zac Taylor, Mo Purify, or Carl Nicks, wouldn't have had starters such as Zack Bowman, Andre Jones (he was bad, but he did start), Barry Cryer, Ola Dagunduro. In recruiting - whether it's JUCO or not - it comes with the understanding that some guys pan out, some guys don't. But we obviously had a case where we needed all those guys to be there, and as we got to the end of Callahan's regime, we saw JUCOs being recruited to supplement the roster, not plug in all the front lines. Which is pretty much the same thing Bo is doing.

Basically, the number differential is not that great when the rosters were equally deep. But this is just from memory. I could be wrong.

I do agree on Hardrick. But whether his career success at NU is more like Zac Taylor's or Andre Jones', both of whom started a ton of games for us over their years, remains to be seen.

But the issue remains the same with JUCOs, and that is eventually if you persist in filling over a third of your class with 2 or 3-year players, you're perpetually plugging a leak and never fixing it. No matter what Callahan did we were going to take our lumps in an offensive transition, but we only know this in retrospect. Pelini came in and did almost the opposite, and he did have holes to plug, and a defense which needed a complete mental and physical makeover. Instead of getting a band of mercenaries from the JUCO ranks, he stayed the course, redshirted everyone but the towel boy, and laid a solid foundation for the future.

I want to be fair about Callahan. He was a bad choice put in a desperate situation and he failed. He's still an excellent coach with the job offers to prove it, but I think that we're witnessing a closer comparison than you realize.

 

[I AM FOOT FOOT]

wow rare props to BC,and its true,the guy is an excellent oline coach or maybe a oc in the nfl

 

[dylan]

wow rare props to BC,and its true,the guy is an excellent oline coach or maybe a oc in the nfl

considering he had neither excellent olines nor offenses at NU, i'm not ready to proclaim him either. he did have a good line with the jets this year thouh, even if it was with a line stacked with talent.

 

[Husker_x]

wow rare props to BC,and its true,the guy is an excellent oline coach or maybe a oc in the nfl

considering he had neither excellent olines nor offenses at NU, i'm not ready to proclaim him either. he did have a good line with the jets this year thouh, even if it was with a line stacked with talent.

Callahan has an established reputation in the NFL and was hugely successful with the Jets last season. Meaning he's a success at the highest level of football. As a college coach he was taken out of his element. Some men just aren't #1 material; they work better when they're task-oriented. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Bill get another coordinator position in the future, but he's not HC material.

 

[GMoose]

I think once Bo is a full 4 years in we won't be as reliant. In a few years we could see Green or Middleton doing what Gomes is doing. The O line depth has increased too. The linebacker situation will be interesting with how we like our LBs to look. I wouldn't say that Bo is still "scrambling" like we may have been in 2008 and a tiny bit into 2009, but he wants his Pelini recruits to play at 230 lbs with a year under their belt rather than a true frosh at 210, if he had to make the choice.

 

[74Hunter]

The knock against Callahan was that he brought in way too many. He had an argument, though, which was that Nebraska fans aren't patient about their winning. The counter-argument was that he didn't need to take such a radical approach. But he did. Misfiring with too many JUCOs is not a good problem to have. It can totally screw up your recruiting for years.

As for the counting your eggs, valid point, but Hardrick is going to contribute. That's as certain as night following day. Harper and David are more questionable, but in my opinion it's a question of when, not if. The point of the article was that we have a high success rate with JUCOs who contribute, and since we have a small number of them, that makes it an effective use of scholarships.

But it's not really a fair comparison to make. You give Bo Pelini a roster with as little depth and holes in it as the one Callahan inherited, and you might've seen a heavy influx of JUCOs as well. It's not as if Callahan's JUCO reliance continued at such a high level (was it?) Without such a radical approach, we wouldn't have had absolute studs like Zac Taylor, Mo Purify, or Carl Nicks, wouldn't have had starters such as Zack Bowman, Andre Jones (he was bad, but he did start), Barry Cryer, Ola Dagunduro. In recruiting - whether it's JUCO or not - it comes with the understanding that some guys pan out, some guys don't. But we obviously had a case where we needed all those guys to be there, and as we got to the end of Callahan's regime, we saw JUCOs being recruited to supplement the roster, not plug in all the front lines. Which is pretty much the same thing Bo is doing.

Basically, the number differential is not that great when the rosters were equally deep. But this is just from memory. I could be wrong.

I do agree on Hardrick. But whether his career success at NU is more like Zac Taylor's or Andre Jones', both of whom started a ton of games for us over their years, remains to be seen.

The numbers differential is fairly great. Callahan's 2005-2007 classes never dropped below 22% being from the junior college ranks and twice were above 30%. Pelini's had one class where it was over 10% which was 2010 at 18.1%, and it is only so high because we added a 4 for 4 juco very late (Baptiste).

Also, I think that you are mistaken that the roster Callahan inherited was lacking depth and full of holes. The defense he inherited was absolutely loaded, and provided 6 starters as late as 2006 when Callahan's juco talent had plenty of time to replace them. Obviously, the offense needed retooled but 4/5 of our offensive line (don't forget that Andy Christensen, Mike Huff, Nate Swift, and Ty Steinkuhler all committed under Solich before he was fired in 2004), the starting TE, and a starting WR were all inherited talent.

Also don't forget that Pelini used a converted RB at linebacker, and a whole host of walk-ons throughout the defense in 2008 (Holt, Thorell, Wortman, O'Hanlon, Koehler, etc.). Do you think that it is unfair to say that the inherited offensive talent in 2004 was comparable to the inherited defensive talent in 2008? I don't.

Couldn't agree more. I feel that Callahan had far more talent than he was made out to have, and Pelini had far less to work with than people think. Pelini had some swiss cheese to deal with of his own.