Has Riley recruited a future championship squad to Nebraska?

[Saunders]

New head coach Mike Riley is fresh off a losing first season but he's recruiting future Cornhuskers that may have a chance to bring the program back to where its fans used to expect to find them, on top of the league.

Nebraska has failed to match the expectations for the program established by the Tom Osborne era for 16 years now with their last conference championship coming in 1999. No one expected that to change in year one of the Mike Riley era and indeed it did not as the Huskers went 6-7 and only made it to a bowl game by virtue of the strong academic standing of the roster that put them at the top of the list for bowl eligible five win teams.

However, what did need to change for the program under Riley was the recruiting strategy for building rosters that could win Big 10 championships and the new regime did have a chance to get that important mission on track with this first full Mike Riley class.

Because they are not sitting in a talent hotbed, Nebraska's recruiting strategy has to be creative and wide reaching in order to bring in enough great players and Riley was known for that style of roster-building at Oregon State where he was at a much greater deficit in trying to compete with the other programs in his conference.

Here's how he's began to approach the challenge of leveraging Nebraska's huge fan base and major resources to overcome a total lack of a natural recruiting base that can supply blue-chip players to match.

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2016/2/5/10922438/national-signing-day-Nebraska-cornhuskers-recruiting-mike-riley-big-10

 

[TITANIC VS LUSITANIA]

not yet. need more strength on the DL

 

[Norhusker]

Nice first recruiting class. Ranked # 24 on 247. I think we have a very good shot at winning the West this year and at least being competitive in the BIG championship game. The first step is to win the West on a near consistent basis. Winning will help recruiting. Better recruiting will get us to the next level. I think/hope that this staff is decent on player development. That is the second half of the formula and probably the most important piece to the puzzle.

 

[suh_fan93]

No.

 

[kchusker_chris]

DL is concerning - though I feel better about the scheme and ability to stop the run even w/ the less than ideal talent on board. If Pelini/Pap was going into this next season with our current DL roster I'd be sweatin bullets.

LBers will hopefully compensate for this some.

 

[Husker Psycho]

No

 

[commando]

possibly B1G west championship. that is a start anyway

 

[Husker Psycho]

In the 3 year cycle... 2011, 2012 and 2013... the previous coaching staff signed 22 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players). In 2011 we signed 11 elite players.

Those players have made up this years (2015) and next years (2016) teams. Those players will be gone at the end of next year.

In the latest 3 year cycle... 2014, 2015 and 2016 (2015 and 2016 are Rileys classes) we have signed only 13 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players) for the combined 3 years.

That is around a 40% reduction in elite players recruited in the last 3 years.

No team can have a 40% reduction in elite players on their team and expect better results.

Sad to say... after next year (2016) we will have a distinct lowering of athletic talent on our team. Our problems are only going to intensify.

GBR

 

[cornographic]

Championships? Yeah, I suppose we have enough talent on the roster, now with the new class, to compete for the division and maybe the B1G CC, provided we get some breaks along the way. DT position back to being a bit of a ?

1st time I checked out the vid on Jack Stoll, looks like a real good TE for us.

 

[NUance]

In the 3 year cycle... 2011, 2012 and 2013... the previous coaching staff signed 22 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players). In 2011 we signed 11 elite players.

Those players have made up this years (2015) and next years (2016) teams. Those players will be gone at the end of next year.

In the latest 3 year cycle... 2014, 2015 and 2016 (2015 and 2016 are Rileys classes) we have signed only 13 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players) for the combined 3 years.

That is around a 40% reduction in elite players recruited in the last 3 years.

No team can have a 40% reduction in elite players on their team and expect better results.

Sad to say... after next year (2016) we will have a distinct lowering of athletic talent on our team. Our problems are only going to intensify.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers from in order to further your negative agenda. A lot of people use Rivals. According to Rivals the last guy signed fifteen 4* recruits and zero 5* recruits during the 2012-14 time frame. The most "elite" rated recruits we had in one class was six in 2012, and six again in 2015. But in the 2015 class two of them committed to Riley in January 2015.

2015 six 4* recruits (including two signed by Riley)

2014 four 4* recruits

2013 five 4* recruits

2012 six 4* recruits

2011 eleven 4* recruits

 

[GM_Tood]

Nope.

 

[GSG]

No

Edit:

I thought this was an "article" from that 8 faces guy

 

[QMany]

At the end of the day, I think we have kids in our program that are capable of winning championships.

 

[Husker Psycho]

In the 3 year cycle... 2011, 2012 and 2013... the previous coaching staff signed 22 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players). In 2011 we signed 11 elite players.

Those players have made up this years (2015) and next years (2016) teams. Those players will be gone at the end of next year.

In the latest 3 year cycle... 2014, 2015 and 2016 (2015 and 2016 are Rileys classes) we have signed only 13 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players) for the combined 3 years.

That is around a 40% reduction in elite players recruited in the last 3 years.

No team can have a 40% reduction in elite players on their team and expect better results.

Sad to say... after next year (2016) we will have a distinct lowering of athletic talent on our team. Our problems are only going to intensify.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers from in order to further your negative agenda. A lot of people use Rivals. According to Rivals the last guy signed fifteen 4* recruits and zero 5* recruits during the 2012-14 time frame. The most "elite" rated recruits we had in one class was six in 2012, and six again in 2015. But in the 2015 class two of them committed to Riley in January 2015.

2015 six 4* recruits (including two signed by Riley)

2014 four 4* recruits

2013 five 4* recruits

2012 six 4* recruits

Rivals has us with 5... 4 star recruits in 2015

You seem to have missed the 2011 and 2016 classes.

I don't have a negative agenda.. I have an honest, realistic agenda. I'm one of the few who actually think we can be great again. But it's going to take a lot of work and a willingness to deal with reality.

My (4 and 5 star) comments are an explanation of what is considered to be an elite athlete. That "elite" talent term is used for all teams when talking about their elite talent.That doesn't mean that we actually signed any 5 star players... and as you pointed out we didn't.

What part of my comment above do you disagree with ?

 

[Red Five]

In the 3 year cycle... 2011, 2012 and 2013... the previous coaching staff signed 22 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players). In 2011 we signed 11 elite players.

Those players have made up this years (2015) and next years (2016) teams. Those players will be gone at the end of next year.

In the latest 3 year cycle... 2014, 2015 and 2016 (2015 and 2016 are Rileys classes) we have signed only 13 elite athletes (4 and 5 star players) for the combined 3 years.

That is around a 40% reduction in elite players recruited in the last 3 years.

No team can have a 40% reduction in elite players on their team and expect better results.

Sad to say... after next year (2016) we will have a distinct lowering of athletic talent on our team. Our problems are only going to intensify.

GBR

I'm not sure its as big as a talent drop off as you think it is. From the 2011 class and their 11 "elite athletes", only 5 made a contribution, and 5 didn't make it past 2 years in Lincoln. Also notice that 2 of our best players from those classes (Abdullah, Collins) are not on the list.

2011 - 5 contributors (1 juco) - A Green, C Jackson, R Klatchko, T Moore, T Peat, R Reeves, D Santos, D Stafford, B Starling, Z Sterup, J Turner

2012 - 4 contributors (1 juco) - Z Anderson, G McMullen, A Moore, M Siesay, P Thurston, J Westercamp

2013 - 4 contributors (1 juco) - J Banderas, R Gregory, M Newby, T Newby, A Taylor

2011-13: 13 contributors (3 juco)

2014 - T Farmer, N Gates, M Harrison, M Wilbon

2015 - A Anderson, J Barnett, K Davis, E Lee, S Morgan, J Stevenson

2016 - M Dismuke, L Jackson, P O'Brien, J Raridon

2014-2016: 12 of the 14 "elite athletes" remain. It will be interesting to see how many of them turn into contributors.