DE Owamagbe Odighizuwa

[Hunter94]

Pelini will do wonders with the kids he got. he is the type of coach who can take 3 star kids and make them into 4 or 5 star players all day long.

 

[zoogs]

Bo does sound almost inappropriately bitter there. I'm sure it was a quote that is slightly out of context, and it just looks worse than it probably sounded.

 

[CornfedCornhead]

I honestly believe that he staged the tv time for one thing and one thing only. To give thanks to his mom and everybody who helped him. Did you guys notice how he overdid himself trying to thank, and somewhat congratualate momma. Mammas Boy, kay maybe I am a wee bit bitter.

 

[chamrocck]

Bo's quote on Owa's decision:

Pelini said he moves on fast from the ones that get away, but you could also tell the Husker coach felt strongly that Odighizuwa, the five-star defensive end from Portland, missed out by picking UCLA and not the Huskers.
“It’s his mistake,” Pelini said. “Honestly, I don’t get all caught up in all that. I don’t get all stressed out about whether they’re going to come. If it’s right, they’re going to come. You can drive yourself crazy over the whole thing. In the end it’s a crapshoot if he’s going to be as good as anyone says he was anyway. I thought he was a pretty good player. But in my mind, the kids that don’t choose to come here I don’t believe do themselves a service because I believe we’ll develop them better than the other guy. That’s just the confidence I have.”

Bo never lets me down. You can't be much more straightforward than he was with that statement. No wonder we Nebraskans like the guy so much. Btw, he's going to work wonders with the guys we got this year 'cause they have talent & THEY WANT TO BE HERE. Could a coach ask for anything more?

And really, as fans can we ask for anything more than our coaches to go out and try to get the best recruits we can but once they are here be relentless and committed to developing them better than everyone else. Bo is awesome.

Surprised he chose UCLA...I thought it would really come down to us (football) or Oregon State (close to home)...not sure what sold him to UCLA as they are still second fiddle to USC in LA and second fiddle to the UCLA basketball tradition. I have learned watching recruiting and signing days year after year, that you can never fall in love with a recruit. That quote from Pelini is great. I believe like Pelini that Owa had the best chance to succeed in his football career by coming to Nebraska. Pelini's confidence in that matter is so overwhelming when you picture it vs. Neuheisel saying it. Not even close.

 

[gobugeaters]

Hi everyone, first time poster here...

I think it was his mom's idea. We should have had Bernadette Suh talk to her

 

[JTrain]

Whatever happens, we have a very solid class this year.

Solid, maybe. But if you want to compete for national titles, you have to do better than solid. Even TO had top 10 classes when he finally won his national titles. You need difference makers to win titles. Difference makers are the difference between 10-2 and 12-0. Think of our national title years and the amount of legitimate stars we had on that team. Tommie Frazier was not a 3-star Grand Island kid who TO coached to greatness. He was a huge prep star who everyone recognized as special coming out of high school. The best coach in the country cannot win a national title without those players. TO couldn't and neither can Bo. Owa is the type of difference maker we need. We will not win a national title with classes consistently ranked outside of the top 20. That's just how it is.

Not true at all.

I can't find the link anymore, but another forum had gone back and found national team rankings for pre-Rivals years. The idea that Osborne never had good recruiting classes is just a myth. The classes that contributed to our national titles were mostly highly ranked. But the main point is, difference makers are necessary. Top 100 type players are necessary to make the jump from a very good, 10-2 type team to a national title contender. Guys like Grant Wistrom (HS all-american by just about every publication) are needed, and Owa seems to be one of those guys.

I agree that TO recruited much better than many fans would have you believe, but he wasn't an elite recruiter by the standards that the recruitnics go by. Here is the link you are referring to I think: HuskerPedia - Historical Recruiting Rankings. They only found the SuperPrep rankings, which became Scout.Com in 2002, but if you look at the 5 year averages for the championship years I think you will be surprised. The 5 year recruiting ranking average for 1994 was 18, the 4 year average was 20. The 5 year average for 1995 was 17.6, the four year average was 15. The 5 year average for 1997 was 14.2, the four year average was 13.25. The highest ranking TO had from 1987 to 1997 was 6, that was in 1996.

Thanks for the link. I understand TO was not elite, but even the worst numbers you posted there are considerably higher than Bo's average thus far, which is around 26. More importantly though is that the real difference makers are the ones that win championships. We had great coaches in the 90s, but we still needed a handful of prep all-americans to make us elite. Bo could win the North 90% of the time and still not be quite to national title contender level if he isn't able to get 1-3 elite recruits every season.

What is your definition of an elite recruit? Top 250, 100, 10? Bo got a few in the Top 250 this year and a Top 100 RB.

Tough to put an exact definition on it, but I would say roughly top 100. Of course, rankings aren't always accurate, and anyone with 4 stars or higher could be a potential "difference maker", but if I had to put a number on it, I would say top 100 guys all have a really good potential to be special players. In three classes so far (granted, one class was mostly Callahan's), Bo has signed two Rivals100 players (Steinkuhler and Heard). I think you'll see that teams that play for national titles will get two per year at the very least (and I think our teams in the mid-90s reflected this standard as well). So far Bo is averaging 0.67 of them per year. I highly doubt that is going to be good enough to lead us to a national title. I hope, but I doubt. I'm happy with a Big 12 North title and hopefully a Big 12 title soon, but if we want to really be considered national title contenders, I think we should hope to start getting at least two difference makers every year.

 

[Husker Richard]

Pelini will do wonders with the kids he got. he is the type of coach who can take 3 star kids and make them into 4 or 5 star players all day long.

:yeah

 

[irieboy8]

i havent posted yet today but have been following all along at work...... to be honest i was pretty really bummed that owa selected UCLA... we didnt' really here anything that made UCLA REALLLY REALLY stand out to me that i thought would make UCLA a complete lock...... but ya know it is what it is

it was a wild ride and like any relationship this one has come to an end... but though we didn't get to go all the way with owa atleast we got to feel him up sooo too speak....

so with that being said i wish Owa well and i look forward to seeing him play nebraska in LA (game i plan on attending) i know he had a lot of crap to work through so thats fine....

but looking back on it we did pretty well and came out with a top 25 class (23) and that makes me stoked...

guys like Guy Yoshi, David, Bell, COOPER (BIG NEED FILLED) HEard ROme, Evans, Moudy vestal and Enunwa get me all pretty excited about next year.....

so with that being said yes i was pretty bummed out when i saw the news..... at 9:36 or so and scolled down quite slowly filled with excitement and suspense but i think we will be okay.....

great ride owa thanks for the memories these many many months!!!

(does this feel like some high school year book senior page farewell or something??)

 

[roadrat]

We should have saw it coming. Remember someone posted weeks ago that Owa's mom loved the UCLA campus and what was it the Nigerian community? Owa can live with his decision and so can Bo. Big Red has returned to relevance and UCLA will be a team with good athletes and no one to coach them.

 

[T_O_Bull]

I've been watching recruits come and go for over 40 years and the one constant has been that a lot of high school kids look like super stars in high school and their talent doesn't translate to the college game. its a funnel:

Pee-wee's tons of kids.

JR FB a few less.

Middle school a lot less.

Freshman FB a few less.

Sophmore FD a few less.

High school a few less.

College (Big Time) a lot less.

NFL a ton less.

Its a crap shoot.

Here's a good analogy: You date a beauty queen and finally get to score but she just lets you do all the work. You date a girl who is less pleasing to the eye but when you finally score you both work at it and its like fire works in Boston on the forth of July.

T_O_B

:cheers

 

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

While disappointed I wish Owa good luck with his future.

It did sicken me however when they mentioned on the radio that people were posting negative comments to Owa on his Facebook page for not picking Nebraska. Any one that did that is a TOTAL LOSER and should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[MCAT800]

Good luck OWA, and best of luck.

 

[Skull&Bones]

Going against the grain here but I don't wish or care about Owa's luck or future anymore then I would wish or care about Ronald Powell. Just because Owa considered Nebraska doesn't mean squat. He was N, he was out, he was N, he was ...???...He was N...??...he is GONE! He followed his heart and chose to put his future into Rick Neuheisel's hands. Granted these are young kids making tough decisions but signing day is over. Welcome to D-1 football and the only luck I wish Owa is that we don't break him in half with a pancake in 2012....Good Luck Owa!!

 

[Danimal]

Oregon State would've bugged me less than UCLA. That is the nearby school and I have more respect for Riley than Neuheisel. Still think he would've been a blackshirt if it was completely up to him. But we got two out of three from our signing-day uncommitteds, that aint bad, Meatloaf says so.

 

[Go Balls Deep]

Whatever happens, we have a very solid class this year.

Solid, maybe. But if you want to compete for national titles, you have to do better than solid. Even TO had top 10 classes when he finally won his national titles. You need difference makers to win titles. Difference makers are the difference between 10-2 and 12-0. Think of our national title years and the amount of legitimate stars we had on that team. Tommie Frazier was not a 3-star Grand Island kid who TO coached to greatness. He was a huge prep star who everyone recognized as special coming out of high school. The best coach in the country cannot win a national title without those players. TO couldn't and neither can Bo. Owa is the type of difference maker we need. We will not win a national title with classes consistently ranked outside of the top 20. That's just how it is.

Not true at all.

I can't find the link anymore, but another forum had gone back and found national team rankings for pre-Rivals years. The idea that Osborne never had good recruiting classes is just a myth. The classes that contributed to our national titles were mostly highly ranked. But the main point is, difference makers are necessary. Top 100 type players are necessary to make the jump from a very good, 10-2 type team to a national title contender. Guys like Grant Wistrom (HS all-american by just about every publication) are needed, and Owa seems to be one of those guys.

I agree that TO recruited much better than many fans would have you believe, but he wasn't an elite recruiter by the standards that the recruitnics go by. Here is the link you are referring to I think: HuskerPedia - Historical Recruiting Rankings. They only found the SuperPrep rankings, which became Scout.Com in 2002, but if you look at the 5 year averages for the championship years I think you will be surprised. The 5 year recruiting ranking average for 1994 was 18, the 4 year average was 20. The 5 year average for 1995 was 17.6, the four year average was 15. The 5 year average for 1997 was 14.2, the four year average was 13.25. The highest ranking TO had from 1987 to 1997 was 6, that was in 1996.

Thanks for the link. I understand TO was not elite, but even the worst numbers you posted there are considerably higher than Bo's average thus far, which is around 26. More importantly though is that the real difference makers are the ones that win championships. We had great coaches in the 90s, but we still needed a handful of prep all-americans to make us elite. Bo could win the North 90% of the time and still not be quite to national title contender level if he isn't able to get 1-3 elite recruits every season.

What is your definition of an elite recruit? Top 250, 100, 10? Bo got a few in the Top 250 this year and a Top 100 RB.

Tough to put an exact definition on it, but I would say roughly top 100. Of course, rankings aren't always accurate, and anyone with 4 stars or higher could be a potential "difference maker", but if I had to put a number on it, I would say top 100 guys all have a really good potential to be special players. In three classes so far (granted, one class was mostly Callahan's), Bo has signed two Rivals100 players (Steinkuhler and Heard). I think you'll see that teams that play for national titles will get two per year at the very least (and I think our teams in the mid-90s reflected this standard as well). So far Bo is averaging 0.67 of them per year. I highly doubt that is going to be good enough to lead us to a national title. I hope, but I doubt. I'm happy with a Big 12 North title and hopefully a Big 12 title soon, but if we want to really be considered national title contenders, I think we should hope to start getting at least two difference makers every year.

Bo will get the elite recruits to come to Lincoln. Come on he is about to start his 3rd year and considering what Nebraska was before he got there it may take a little bit to get the elites to come to Lincoln.