Ed Cunningham's Comments

[EZ-E]

Saturday on offense was a great example of why I've been excited about the players we have brought into this program since 2010. When we beat tOSU and Michigan on the big stages kids will take notice.

 

[TonyStalloni]

Saturday on offense was a great example of why I've been excited about the players we have brought into this program since 2010. When we beat tOSU and Michigan on the big stages kids will take notice.

What I saw of Whisky in their game makes me thankful we get them early and in Lincoln. A new Qb and lots of new coaches may have taken its toll. I'm not sure they will be as strong as last year. If (when) we see them in the CCG we will have matured as well. It's hard to tell what OSU has but it will be a test playing them in Columbus. I like our chances this year. Mich (offense) and Mich St (defense) will be strong tests for us. We may have to outscore both of them to win.

 

[DTrain2020]

I go to school in Laramie (U of Wyo) and I hear this all the time from the uneducated fan base here. Why don't we recruit more Wyoming kids and not these "Texas thugs". I also hear that kids from a school of 120 could have played at the OSU and 230 pound O-lineman got Nebraska scholarships.

The fact of the matter is, Nebraska isn't as far off athletically as many people think, we just don't have the sheer population numbers to compete with the southern schools. If you divide California's number of D-1 scholarships by 25 (to even out the population) I bet we wouldn't be statistically too far behind. The stars may be lower in Nebraska but coaching and not being able to hit camps and play year around could be the problem.

I think BO and Co know that we wouldn't be able to compete if we added 3 or 4 more Nebraska kids a year. If these kids are so athletically gifted, why aren't other top 25 teams going for them. As I always ask people, would you rather take the 3 star from Texas or the three star from Wyoming or Nebraska in this case, and bet your money on which one will pan out.

 

[BigRedBuster]

One thing really hurting Nebraska right now is the lack of division one talent in Nebraska. Where'd it go? We used to pull talented running backs out of Omaha in the 90's like apples from a tree.

Couple things here.

1. Our HS farm system under Osborne was producing talent specifically tailored to the Nebraska system. We've changed systems so many times over the past decade the HS's have become very diversified.

2. Scholarship limits mean getting some of those kids that we'd give scholarships to in the 80's and even early 90's aren't able to get one. Walk ons were always important but now for instate talent they are even more so...

3. Which leads to this, while we still get a bunch of good in state walkons, The athletes aren't there right now.. but the linemen still are - a significant number of linemen on both sides of the ball, from Steinkuhler on D to Choi, Cotton, Jackson, Long, Reeves, Pensick, Rodriguez, and even Nickens on O. That's a LOT of Nebraska bred linemen. And that doesn't count guys who are gone now like Crick and Caputo.

The biggest issue is that the skill guys, the guys that get noticed on gameday at the highschool level - they get scholarships to lower tier schools and aren't walking on to Nebraska right now. They used to, but it's simply too hard financially anymore to walk on to Nebraska as much as you want to play for the Huskers when it means turning down a free ride to school elsewhere.

You beat me to this comment. before the season started, I would hear/read fans complaining that our O line must stink because look at all the walkons we have playing. I think that is a ridiculous way of looking at it. These walkons like Long, Choi and Jackson are kids that would have received scholarships 20-30 years ago and then were built into good linemen in our system.

There wasn't all of a sudden a genetic shift of athletes from the northern states to the south. What has happened is that the south is developing that talent in HS better than we are up here. That doesn't mean there aren't great players up here, we just have to be good at finding them, bring them into the system and let them develop into great players as Juniors and Seniors.

I think the coaching staff is starting to pick up on that and do a good job. This last walkon class is filled with really good local football players that have the talent to be what we want to see on Saturday.

 

[HUSKER FREAK]

I had a conversation about this with a parent of a walk-on recently about how far behind Nebraska highschool athletics compared to other states. As far as conditioning and spring ball and many other examples. I do think that we missed on a couple of instate kids that the staff definately should have or should take a chance on. One being Drew Ott and the other is this years Nate Bazata. These kids are pretty darn good and definately could be coached up.