how much is too much

huskerfan500 said:
Barney Cotton said he wants 2/3 of the roster from NE, I know have it would be great to have that but with the football talent in the state I don't think it is the best thing, am I right or
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where did Barney say this and where is the link?

I would be curious to see what the context of the comment was made

 
For one to say that there is very little talent in Nebraska I would have to disagree. The reason why Texas and all of your larger states have more athletes is first of all because they are bigger, and secondly for example Texas, is known for its H.S. football. They have tremendous coaches and take their high school football very serious.

You take a somewhat small state like Nebraska, there is tremendous talent there, RAW talent. There could be a whole bunch of athletes to come out of Nebraska but their talent rarely gets developed due to the lack of coaching. If you take a chance on a large number of these "no-named" athletes you are guaranteed, with good coaching, quite a few stud athletes that will contribute to our team.

For example, a majority of UNO's athletes come from Nebraska. They have decent coaches that know how to develop their athlete's talent. Although they haven't produced in the playoffs, they are considered a dominant force in their conference and are always near the top, while doing this with a roster nearly filled with homegrown Nebraska kids.

 
husker rob said:
huskerfan500 said:
Barney Cotton said he wants 2/3 of the roster from NE, I know have it would be great to have that but with the football talent in the state I don't think it is the best thing, am I right or
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where did Barney say this and where is the link?

I would be curious to see what the context of the comment was made
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it was on 1620, and in the world herald I think

 
MadcatNU said:
For one a comment like that makes the assumption that you think there is not enough talent around here to field a high quality team

i said no such thing. i want kids that can play. if they come from NE great. if they don't, that should be great too. ND doesn't make it a point to win with Indiana kids, Michigan doesn't require their roster to be from MI. USC doesn't require their starting QBs to come from CA. i don't see why we should limit ourselves when the top programs don't.
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I think the difference is that most programs recruit within 200 miles of their home and up to 500 miles - about the distance a player's parents can drive to see the game. All of the schools you list have rosters that recruit enormous recruiting bases in their own backyard. Virtually all of USC's roster is within driving distance. Michigan has their homestate kids and the big Ohio base nearby.

We aren't limiting ourselves so much as understanding that we can't build relationships with coaches all over the country. So we start nearby and then extend outward. Outside of that region we have to pick 1 or 2 key areas (Texas and maybe Ohio) to concentrate on, otherwise we are spread way too thin and will have inconsistent results.

 
huskerfan500 said:
Barney Cotton said he wants 2/3 of the roster from NE, I know have it would be great to have that but with the football talent in the state I don't think it is the best thing, am I right or
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I did some quick numbers on this and it isn't entirely off the wall:

If we assume 21 scholarships a year, and 25 walk-ons per year.

Add in attrittion of 4 scholarhips players per year and 12 walk ons. That equation gives us a 150 person roster over a 5 year period.

If we assume that 23 out of 25 walk-ons are from Nebraska and

assume that 6 our of 21 scholarships are from Nebraska we end up with 63% of each incoming class being from Nebraska. That is IF we assume that none of the walk-ons move to scholarship to take roster spaces for non-NE players who leave the program.

If we assume the scholarhip ratio is 8 NE players per year, we see get 67%. The actual number of kids from NE who deserve scholarships is probably between 5-7 (about what Osborne used to offer). .

But we get those percentages w/o calculating the effect of attrition: If we assume an attrition of 4 scholarship players per year (could be higher, but some walk-ons might move to scholarship), assume an attrition of 12 walk-ons per year). Because the walk-ons will leave at a higher rate than scholarship players, and because they are made up of more NE kids, that will push the percentages lower.

- If we assume 6 scholarship kids per year from NE that puts us near 57% of the roster being NE. If we assume 8 scholarship kids per year from NE that puts us at 63%.

So with those assumptions we are below 2/3, but if we assume 2-3 kids a year move from walk-on to scholarship and that they are likely NE kids, we get pretty close to 2/3 number. It's probably a little high, but tt's actually not bad for an off-hand comment about the roster.

 
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lol @ everyone that thinks they know enough about football to criticize a coaches want for a team.. honestly, there is a reason he is on the staff... and a reason he wants this to happen.. like its been said.. we can take MANY walk ons from the state, and a lot of scholarship players from out.. but as we've seen lately, talent alone isnt positively correlated with winning.....

 
huskerswrkhavoc said:
lol @ everyone that thinks they know enough about football to criticize a coaches want for a team.. honestly, there is a reason he is on the staff... and a reason he wants this to happen.. like its been said.. we can take MANY walk ons from the state, and a lot of scholarship players from out.. but as we've seen lately, talent alone isnt positively correlated with winning.....
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LOL @ you (yes, I can be cool too) for thinking this is Pelini's philosophy. Barney is being Barney. Over the course of many years he has shown his ability in coaching and it isn't necessarily all that high to say the least. Anyone who has met Barney will tell you he is just a weird guy.

I mean, look at his recruiting territories. He's been pretty much relegated to the state of Nebraska, where he would have to royally screw up to make us miss on alot of these kids.

And yes, there is a reason he is on the coaching staff. It isn't for his knowledge though.

 
Then what reason is it?

I trust Bo because his track record of success speaks for itself. I'm guessing he had a good reason to hire Barney. But I'm sure your reason is better. What do you do again? Are you a D1 football coach with a National Championship behind your name? Let's leave to decision making to the man that has earned it.

 
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he is good at teaching kids how to block, thats why he is the o-line coach. I have heard from many experts that Barney didn't do that good with the recuirts. I will not pretend I personally know him but what I have personally heard from him and what others have said about him is he doesn't sound like the smartest guy ever (personable but not the smartest)

 
bbhusker said:
Then what reason is it?

I trust Bo because his track record of success speaks for itself. I'm guessing he had a good reason to hire Barney. But I'm sure your reason is better. What do you do again? Are you a D1 football coach with a National Championship behind your name? Let's leave to decision making to the man that has earned it.
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Same reason Ron Brown, Doak Ostergard and others were hired back. It's the good ole boy attitude and trying to be the 'old Nebraska' again. Sometimes, it pays more to have friends than actually have talent. You should know that.

And Bo does not hire coaches. He recommends, but he cannot pull the trigger on any coach. Remember who is in charge.

But lets be clear on something here -- I have posted for quite a while and have developed some sort of credibility in what I speak about. I don't talk just to hear myself talk in most instances. Can you say the same?

If you don't believe what I say or even buy into it, then why do you even feel the need to respond so commonly? I mean, would it not be more wise just to overlook what a blowhard like myself says?

And again bb, lets not go down this line of talking down to someone. If you want to further communicate with me, do it as a man and not a chump behind a keyboard who thinks he is better than someone else. It makes you look entirely too lame.

 
Willie, Im not talking down to you. You're about as defensive as they come. I am talking to you like a man. I'll be in Lincoln saturday at Haymarket park tailgaiting between 9 and 10am and then after the game. I'm not one to hide. What do you do? Still in school? Im just curious how you get your info. It seems like you base your opinions off of personal experience with the team or someone that is on the team. I'm honestly just curious why you act like your opionions are more credible than others on here. In turn, it looks to me like you are being hypocritical and are the one talking down to people. Just wanting to get whatever it is between you and I resolved with equal respect.

 
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It would be fun but I can't, I'm not on a personal computer. I'm at work, haha. I think we can handle this like adults. Just curious why Willie and I butt heads so much.

 
BeachBuffs said:
If those kids can be competitive at the Div 1 level then there is nothing wrong with it. I would almost rather have a bunch of 2-3 stars that grew up rooting for my school then have a 5 star from half way across the country, it just gives you more heart and passion for your team overall.
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This is and will probably be the only time that I will agree with BeachBuffs. I would much rather have a bunch of 2-3 star players that grew up rooting for Nebraska than a 5 star from another state. This is what Nebraska has been missing for the past four years. We've had a lot of walk-ons in the past that have out performed scholarship athletes. There will be nothing wrong with adding more Nebraska boys to the roster to push the scholars more and it'll also point out which walk-ons are willing to work their way to a starting stop over scholarship players and it'll improve the whole team as well.

I honestly don't think that Cotton is an idiot....He played for Nebraska back in the 1975-78 days and he knows what it takes to make Nebraska great....walk-ons. Players who've grown up watching the Huskers and rooting for the Huskers and one day to play as a Husker.

Barney Cotton has a excellent resume to back his accomplishments too...back when he was the Offensive Coordinator and O-Line coach for New Mexico State. Their Offense was quite impressive in three out of six seasons and ranked in the top 25.

Bo brought Cotton back for a reason and I'm sure TO had some reasoning behind it too. I don't get all of this hate on Cotton.....we are all HUSKER fans so now's the time to support our players and coaches so we can rise back up top again. GBR!!!!!!!

 
I think Cotton will do a fine job now that he only has the line to worry about. I don't care what he says, being OC and O-line coach is too much. Both are big jobs by themselves, together you can't put enough attention into one capacity without shorting the other. OC/qb-coach is a natural since you gotta spend a lot of time with the qb anyway.

I'd expect things to cool-off a bit on the walk-on front but if we can keep getting a fair amount of guys that had schollie offers for elsewhere it wll be a real boon to the program. You know those guys will battle for us.

Having a first-rate walk-on program again will make recruiting a little easier. A few guys per year proving themselves and earning schollies means you don't need quite as big a recruit-class and may make fewer stretches to fill the class. I certainly hope that Marlowe is a player for us(I'm guessing he'll mainly be a returns/ST's guy), but whether he will be or not he was definitely a stretch when we signed him.

 
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