Pelini's Finger
Three-Star Recruit
I do get concerned about our rankings from time to time. But these guys are right, look at the offer list. That tells you loads more. The big boys don't recruit lower ranked players for no reason.
Recruiting ranking - NU 5-6 in Big 10 ??
- Thread starter TGHusker
- Start date
strigori
All-American
Every year is a bit strong, as there was a brutal butt kicking by them once already.
Also bear in mind that they may well be changing coaches again soon. When blue chips dont add up to wins, a place changes coaches. Just ask Mack Brown and Lane Kiffin. And Hoke looks to be in the same mold.
If the bottom of the top 25 and no hardware is all we want, then this class is great. But to take home a trophy and get back to what we were for more than 30 years, we need to recruit better.
Things have not gotten easier with Meyer and now Franklin in the B1G, efforts need to be stepped up. Or get used to being the red Iowa, something I am not content with
Excuses? I'm not making excuses for recruiting rankings, I'm telling you straight up that I don't care about them. I like this class and think the coaches did a good job of filling needs and adding potential difference makers at lots of positions.
If you don't think these coaches can evaluate talent better than recruiting "experts", explain why they so regularly unearth kids that other schools end up jumping on after we do. And if you don't think they can coach, look at how many games they won after losing their star QB (and a bunch of other players) and having to rely on a freshman. That doesn't happen at most places.
You can complain all you want, but this staff has proven that they can evaluate talent and that they can win. Now that the defense is building depth and coming of age, and the same thing is happening on the OL, the future looks bright. Enjoy your complaining about things that don't matter.
That reminds me, you never answered which position it is you're so concerned about...
If you don't think these coaches can evaluate talent better than recruiting "experts", explain why they so regularly unearth kids that other schools end up jumping on after we do. And if you don't think they can coach, look at how many games they won after losing their star QB (and a bunch of other players) and having to rely on a freshman. That doesn't happen at most places.
You can complain all you want, but this staff has proven that they can evaluate talent and that they can win. Now that the defense is building depth and coming of age, and the same thing is happening on the OL, the future looks bright. Enjoy your complaining about things that don't matter.
That reminds me, you never answered which position it is you're so concerned about...
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On what basis can you claim that this is not the 5th or 6th best class in the league? Have you analyzed, in detail every commit of every team looking at who they will sign and what offers they had... and then from that make your assessment? The services come closet to doing that of anyone and taken in composite they give the best initial assessment of what the respective classes look like and how they compare.
This NU class looks OK. It is about #30-35 or so nationally. It is not one of Bo's better classes but not his worst. And yes, it is somewhere towards the middle of the conference. All of that is based upon the assessment of people who do these kind of evaluations for a living.
Might the class end up much better than predicted? Sure. But for now, just based upon educated guesses... it appears to be merely an OK class.
I didn't say we're better than them every year. I said they "out-recruit" us every year.
PattyG
Four-Star Recruit
I don't want to be Ohio State, as these guys have said we have done a great job of finishing up this class and starting up the next.
Nebraska is not Ohio State and never will be and that's fine with me, this staff is starting to make moves and i'm excited.
What moves are being made by the NU staff that are starting to be manifest. Most years here recently NU has recruited in the upper-middle of the conference pack and finished the season in the upper-middle of the conference pack. This recruiting class is again upper-middle of the conference --- and NU finished again upper-middle of the conference. How is anything changing? This seems to be the same ol' same ol' again. I see nothing to be excited about. It seems quite status qua. There is no reason to view this recruiting class as being very different from the typical Pelini NU class. In what way is this staff "starting to make moves"?
Landlord
Banned
The 'every year' qualifier was towards them out-recruiting us every year, not us beating them every year. Regardless, the year the kicked our a$$ was Hoke's first year (read - RR's recruits).
Hoke is 8-5 and 7-6 over the last two seasons, no bowl wins, no conference championships, or even championship game appearances. He's notably and demonstrably worse than Pelini, if you're trying to make the point that we should be doing the same thing as Michigan if they end up getting rid of their coach.
I'm curious how you equate one single recruiting class to an end-of-season accomplishment. Does this class equate to next season? Or four seasons from now?
Also, we need to recruit better. What is better to you? Would it be, perhaps, getting commitments from several top 300 recruits for the next season before March hits? Would that be better?
Landlord
Banned
The reason you are not seeing anything to be excited about, is because you are looking through a magnifying glass set at one specific focal length focused on the final ranking of the 2014 class only, unable to see big picture and smaller details.
Tell me - if the staff and administration has been making moves to improve in this area, say, over the last three months, how would that impact our results, especially for the 2014 class, which has been in progress since 350+ days ago?
My guess is that it would result in the class finishing strongly, which it seems it has.
I would also wager a guess that it would result in next year's class being off to a better start than any previous years'. It seems like that is the case also.
I see plenty of reason to be excited. So do plenty of other people. I'll kindly submit that the reason you can't is because of you - not because of the state of things. But, either way, to answer your question with two examples, we're hiring for new non-coach full-time recruiting administrative positions, and also have as many as four coaches flying across the country on private planes at one time. Neither have existed before.
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PattyG
Four-Star Recruit
The late recruiting push, the start to next years class, I really like the kids we are bringing in this year especially on the lines.
Just let me keep Pumping my Sunshine ha
No, robsker, the people that analyze these players best are professional football coaches, particularly the successful ones and even moreso the ones that have success without having their pick of the most heralded players.
Our staff has shown that they are good at scouting players, regardless of artificial rankings figured mostly by guys that never coached or recruited. Also, I see a class with talented kids at all of the right spots to fill the needs we have. Thus, I think this group of players will have more success on the field than sixth in the league and thirtieth in the country. And you know that's how you actually judge recruiting, right? Signing day rankings just give us something to talk about.
Our staff has shown that they are good at scouting players, regardless of artificial rankings figured mostly by guys that never coached or recruited. Also, I see a class with talented kids at all of the right spots to fill the needs we have. Thus, I think this group of players will have more success on the field than sixth in the league and thirtieth in the country. And you know that's how you actually judge recruiting, right? Signing day rankings just give us something to talk about.
SouthLincoln Husker
All-American
Check the commit list for Ohio St. Half there class are local kids. Nebraska does not have the same talent in this state. For this reason, we have to recruit wider area and have to find diamonds in the rough.
I did not merely look at the 2014 recruiting class rankings --- I looked at the past 6 years of classes and the last six years of season ending team rankings (both clearly involved in my previous post). My contention is that nothing in terms of those metrics has much changed.
The notion of having 4 coaches flying around being new is fairly encouraging. So too is the start of the next class. That said, NU has had encouraging starts and finishes to classes before. My point is there is little to nothing that sets this point in time at NU particularly apart from or distinct from the immediate past. We as fans tend to project --- because we want things to improve, in those periods of time where there is nothing to measure one way or another --- we project our desire onto (in this case) the incoming recruits and "rank" them high in our minds and assume them really good because we want them to be good. We really do not know how good they will be. We only know that "expert" rankings (not wildly accurate but, at least, the most comprehensive guesses out there) rank this class in the upper-middle of the conference. That does not line up with what we as fans "project" for these kids. About all that can be said is this class lines up at this point by the measures available to be fairly comparable to past classes.
The recruiting approach or methods seemingly have changed --- good. Lets hope, over time, it bears fruit. The beginning people in the next class are ranked quite high. So... that is encouraging.
Professional football coaches (if by this you mean NFL coaches) do not analyze players transitioning from High School to college at all. There is no metric established by these professional football coaches whatsoever.
If you mean the head coaches at the colleges being the best to measure the quality of players available --- that is true. however, the coaches do not rate players at all... not with a metric that is reported. Realize that the college coaches do not sign the best players that they evaluate (they would if they could, but they must compete for those players). Thus, the players in a specific recruiting class are not those the coaching staff rated the best --- it is instead that grouping of players willing to come numbered among those the coaches were willing to accept. I would guess that most coaches would rate players not wildly differently than the composite of the services (at least generally).
Do you think Bo rated any of the RB's NU will sign in this class above Leonard Fournette? Of course not... he offered Fournette and could not get him. He offered a bunch of RB's in hopes of getting the best he could... and like every other coach was forced to settle with what he could get. This class is not so much a function of those that the NU staff thought were best --- but rather it reflects the best they could get. This is true everywhere (not even Alabama has a class the coaches chose --- they too took the class they could get... which probably reflects more what they hoped for than other programs, but still...)