Xmas32 said:
cm husker said:
Guy Chamberlin said:
Morgan has tremendous ability to track the football.
He has some great skills as well, but his intelligence on the field is what i am most excited about.
This WR crew excites me. DPE/Westy/Reilly/Moore/Morgan--- not to mention guys who redshirted/ guys coming in.
I am hoping to see them use Morgan/Reilly on the outsides and use Westerkamp in the slot.
No matter what they do, they have 5 legit WR's and that isnt even talking about Lane Hovey who gave legit minutes at times.
When people complained about throwing the ball so much I think people forgot what our strongest position on offense was
Which is great evidence of why recruiting heavily at WR isn't really that important.
Can't believe I missed this CM Husker gem. Gonna have to paste that one in the archives.
Anyway, I love Stanley Morgan, Jr., and not just because his potentially hot mom might be reading this. You could see his superstar tendencies immediately, and how he made the most of his limited opportunities. Can't say who I'd bench in his favor at the moment, not a bad problem to have, but to my eye he's better rounded at WR than DPE, and stands to have two years to himself as veteran leader of the WR corps.
In other matters, I suppose Tom Osborne's run-first offenses were not as reliant on receivers, and could have made excuses for not recruiting heavily at the position. Yet over the years Tom delivered some pretty good WRs into the NFL, including Tim Smith and Irving Fryar, and ball-catching tight ends like Junior Miller and Johnny Mitchell. More recently, guys like Niles Paul and Quincy Enunwa have been getting their touches in the pros. Good receivers have always helped Nebraska win games, and the position is not a dead end at Nebraska, regardless of the offense in vogue.
You need good receivers in any offense. But having an offense that needs 3+ "elite receiver threats" is going to be hard to support over time. It is interesting that you bring up a local kid in Niles Paul. I remember him being often maligned as a receiver at NU, which I thought was completely unwarranted.
NU has been lucky to have such a high success rate with receivers as of late. But it would be interesting to track the running average number of kids signed to scholarships at each position going back to the 90s.
My opinion: it's good to run a system that can rely on walkon receivers to provide the types of plays in the #2 and #3 WR spots that you need to be made in your offense. By doing so, you can reallocate those resources to other positions (that's not just the scholarship itself, but also the time and effort required to recruit).
Then, it's bonus production when you get "lucky" with a recruit, whether because you can convince him to come to a system that doesn't, on paper, highlight receivers or if you have a local elite athlete who wants to play for Nebraska.
If I have any time in my schedule, I may go through and track scholarships by position going back to the 1980s... I'm not even sure if we are signing that many more receivers than we have historically. But it feels like we are.
Can you cite such a system that exists with the exception of the triple option offense? Your theory is a good one, as you can load up on other positions, the issue is when you run up against teams that have equal or more talent in the secondary they can absolutely lock down those guys in single coverage and then stack the box against your presumably tough running game (I'm guessing that is where the extra schollies are going). I can't see how you can consistently beat tOSU and UM (because that is the goal right? Win the BIG?) with walk-ons in the #2 and #3 WR spot. You just need more talent.
I was exaggerating a bit with "walk on" talent being at #2 and #3, but I don't think NU should run a system that needs 3 or 4 4* or better WRs. We happen to have that talent (or close to it) on the roster now, but (a) apparently that wasn't enough this year, and (b) I don't think we can expect to consistently recruit to that system. But yes, I would go back to a ground based attack at Nebraska, which I would hope would have a lot of option incorporated. Between 1990 and 1996 (the main classes comprising the run), recruited roughly 13 receivers (WR, SE or WB). A number of those guys were Nebraska kids, who I doubt were rated highly or would be today, despite their productivity at Nebraska (e.g., Lance Brown).
Compare that to the 12 that were signed in Callahan's 3 full classes (2005-2007), which is what he thought was necessary to run his version of the WCO.
As far as needing more talent than OSU and Michigan to win, that doesn't bode well for Nebraska.
Rather, I think NU should try to stay within 10% to 15% of those teams' talent levels and out scheme/execute them, but that requires superior coaching. Not sure we have that, or will obtain it any easier than we recruit depth.
Employing a system that requires NU to "out talent" our opponents will never result in the consistency we'd like to see (and have enjoyed). It needs to be about scheme more than pure matchups.
