OWH: Hits, Misses and What Might Have Been from the Last 10 Recruiting Classes

[ColoradoHusk]

There was an interesting article a couple days ago about the surprising number of two star and NO star recruits who will playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday.

I don't think it's all that surprising. Just by the sheer volume of football players that are at that grade, there are going to be guys that end up doing well at college and/or NFL level.

 

[I am I]

I personally think articles like this are stupid.

Just another form of self delusion and misery in company.

Let's do an article next on the injury what-ifs over the last 10 years

Then let's do one on everyone who left early for NFL over last ten yrs.

Then let's do one coaches who left when we were trending up

Then let's do one about how many fans left early in the 3rd when we were losing.

I mean...they're stupid articles.

That's a pretty surface level analysis of why articles like these are written. I find them incredibly fascinating for a couple of reasons.
One, they can highlight a coaching staff's successes/failures. For example, one of my biggest critiques of Bo Pelini was that he was never able to capitalize on the accomplishments of one of the most dominant defensive tackles in college football history. That's a useful analysis if you're a fan or even an administrator - is your coach competently using all the tools available to him to win on the recruiting trail?

Second, these articles help draw a picture of why a team like Nebraska hasn't been able to get over the hump for several years, and a lot of it has to do with recruiting failures. You shouldn't look at this as 'they're just playing the coulda-woulda-shoulda game,' and instead look at it as 'this is one of the reasons Nebraska has been an average to above average team for 10 years.' I mean, you just can't recruit all those defensive line guys like we did in 2010 and not have a single one turn into a productive starter or an all-conference guy. You just can't.

It's not a linear progression though. Several, multiple times Carl P told the husker public that Suh was a once in a lifetime player. Doesnt mean that we get every player like Suh for the next 12 years.

I think articles like this stoke misery because we've been waiting 20 yrs for a meaningful trophy. If we had won 1-3 conference trophies would they write this? Nah, they wouldn't. So why bring in a bunch of ifs and buts? They're all candy and nuts.

Saying if X player signs or Y player pans out we woulda beat OU or Texas is hogwash. What if Sanders stayed as DB coach or valentine did 4 years? Hell, what if Osborne coached 5 more years?? Stupid cuz it didn't happen

 

[Making Chimichangas]

I personally think articles like this are stupid.

Just another form of self delusion and misery in company.

Let's do an article next on the injury what-ifs over the last 10 years

Then let's do one on everyone who left early for NFL over last ten yrs.

Then let's do one coaches who left when we were trending up

Then let's do one about how many fans left early in the 3rd when we were losing.

I mean...they're stupid articles.

Not really. They help with perspective of understanding why Nebraska is in the current position it is.

For example, how many times have you, or someone you know, asked:

"Why can't we run the ball?"

"Why do we have such terrible pass rushers?"

"Why don't we have a back-up QB capable of coming in for Armstrong?"

The answer is the recruiting misses and busts from the last decade. It is true every recruiting class will have busts, but when you recruit 4 DL (like in 2010) and every single one of them are a bust, that's beyond problematic.

So articles like this aren't dumb, they're useful because you can't figure out where you're going unless you remember where you've been - or some other similar cliché.

 

[Landlord]

I personally think articles like this are stupid.

Just another form of self delusion and misery in company.

Let's do an article next on the injury what-ifs over the last 10 years

Then let's do one on everyone who left early for NFL over last ten yrs.

Then let's do one coaches who left when we were trending up

Then let's do one about how many fans left early in the 3rd when we were losing.

I mean...they're stupid articles.

That's a pretty surface level analysis of why articles like these are written. I find them incredibly fascinating for a couple of reasons.

One, they can highlight a coaching staff's successes/failures. For example, one of my biggest critiques of Bo Pelini was that he was never able to capitalize on the accomplishments of one of the most dominant defensive tackles in college football history. That's a useful analysis if you're a fan or even an administrator - is your coach competently using all the tools available to him to win on the recruiting trail?

Second, these articles help draw a picture of why a team like Nebraska hasn't been able to get over the hump for several years, and a lot of it has to do with recruiting failures. You shouldn't look at this as 'they're just playing the coulda-woulda-shoulda game,' and instead look at it as 'this is one of the reasons Nebraska has been an average to above average team for 10 years.' I mean, you just can't recruit all those defensive line guys like we did in 2010 and not have a single one turn into a productive starter or an all-conference guy. You just can't.

I don't think they accomplish either of those things without comparison of other teams with the same type of analysis. All this stuff does right now is exist in a vaccuum, and we assume that other schools have had it better off than we do. We don't know that.

 

[Enhance]

I personally think articles like this are stupid.

Just another form of self delusion and misery in company.

Let's do an article next on the injury what-ifs over the last 10 years

Then let's do one on everyone who left early for NFL over last ten yrs.

Then let's do one coaches who left when we were trending up

Then let's do one about how many fans left early in the 3rd when we were losing.

I mean...they're stupid articles.

That's a pretty surface level analysis of why articles like these are written. I find them incredibly fascinating for a couple of reasons.
One, they can highlight a coaching staff's successes/failures. For example, one of my biggest critiques of Bo Pelini was that he was never able to capitalize on the accomplishments of one of the most dominant defensive tackles in college football history. That's a useful analysis if you're a fan or even an administrator - is your coach competently using all the tools available to him to win on the recruiting trail?

Second, these articles help draw a picture of why a team like Nebraska hasn't been able to get over the hump for several years, and a lot of it has to do with recruiting failures. You shouldn't look at this as 'they're just playing the coulda-woulda-shoulda game,' and instead look at it as 'this is one of the reasons Nebraska has been an average to above average team for 10 years.' I mean, you just can't recruit all those defensive line guys like we did in 2010 and not have a single one turn into a productive starter or an all-conference guy. You just can't.

It's not a linear progression though. Several, multiple times Carl P told the husker public that Suh was a once in a lifetime player. Doesnt mean that we get every player like Suh for the next 12 years.

I think articles like this stoke misery because we've been waiting 20 yrs for a meaningful trophy. If we had won 1-3 conference trophies would they write this? Nah, they wouldn't. So why bring in a bunch of ifs and buts? They're all candy and nuts.

Saying if X player signs or Y player pans out we woulda beat OU or Texas is hogwash. What if Sanders stayed as DB coach or valentine did 4 years? Hell, what if Osborne coached 5 more years?? Stupid cuz it didn't happen

Well, again, I would just recommend changing up your perspective on this a bit. This isn't really about 'oh shucks, I wished he would've worked out.' It's more about evaluating where some recruiting deficiencies might be. I can all but guarantee Riley and coaches all over the country evaluate their school's previous classes much in the same way this article does; so, as fans, are you arguing we can't find any value in this information but coaches can?

As far as Suh and recruiting are concerned, it may not be linear, but how do you (as a coach) help produce legitimately the most dominant tackle in defensive history and then proceed to 1) not recruit the position well and 2) not have a very effective unit? Carl P telling the public how cool Suh doesn't necessarily translate to how they tried to sell his success on the recruiting trail.

 

[Enhance]

I don't think they accomplish either of those things without comparison of other teams with the same type of analysis. All this stuff does right now is exist in a vaccuum, and we assume that other schools have had it better off than we do. We don't know that.

I'm sure other teams experience the exact same thing Nebraska does - that's a given.

We can still evaluate our own recruiting successes and failures though, no? Just look at BRB's post above. I don't need another school's recruiting analysis to tell me that one of the biggest reasons our defensive lines weren't very good near the end of BP's tenure were because every single one of his defensive line recruits in 2010 didn't really pan out.

I didn't get the vibe from this article that Nebraska is somehow exclusively alone in recruiting misses and player development. As I said in post #19, I can all but guarantee Riley and coaches across the country evaluate information just like what's in this article. So why isn't it valuable to us?

 

[Redux]

Looking like only (loud) commit we may miss on is Calvin. Fantastic job by this staff.

Now for the silent commits and surprises...

 

[NUinID]

To me it shows that NU has won a lot of game dispite missing on a lot of recruits. The D-line misses in 2010 the O line misses in that time frame along with misses at LB are very telling. No they have not won as many as anyone would like, but they have won quite a bit. I think MR is doing a better job at recruiting so far. This years D-line class looks first rate, but you never know, the 2010 class looked solid also. I thought Jay Guy, and Chase Rome were going to be a monsters.