Well, if we can't be Alabama (or tOSU or even Michigan) then I guess we just lower our expectations and hope we win the lottery one in a lifetime.
Are you impressed by the offers most of our recruits have received?
- Thread starter suhnami_rivals
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Well, if we can't be Alabama (or tOSU or even Michigan) then I guess we just lower our expectations and hope we win the lottery one in a lifetime.
Alabama is in the most fertile recruiting territory in the country. We are in Lincoln, Nebraska we aren't going to get #1 rated recruiting classes, the state of Nebraska has produced 1 5 star in the history of Rivals, the state of Alabama has 3 5 stars this year, we will never be able to recruit at the same level as them. But we can get top 15 and if can get great qbs then we can win championships.
I understand what you're saying, but schools in our very own B1G are light years ahead of us in recruiting. If we aren't going to compete with them on the recruiting trail, we'll always be a 2nd tier program. That's not acceptable to me.
Alabama overall team recruiting ranking by year:
2002 --> 30th (Francione era)
2003 --> 49th (Shula era)
2004 --> 24th
2005 --> 18th
2006 --> 11th
2007 --> 10th (Saban era)
2008 --> 1st
Makes me wonder. Prior to 2005, were all the Alabama fans sitting around claiming that all the good recruits were going to Florida schools, California schools, and Texas schools.
2002 --> 30th (Francione era)
2003 --> 49th (Shula era)
2004 --> 24th
2005 --> 18th
2006 --> 11th
2007 --> 10th (Saban era)
2008 --> 1st
Makes me wonder. Prior to 2005, were all the Alabama fans sitting around claiming that all the good recruits were going to Florida schools, California schools, and Texas schools.
From 2003 through 2005 Alabama lost 21 Scholarships due to NCAA violations and they were still top 25 2 out of those 3 years. But we had Bo Pelini which is basically equivalent to those sanctions.
Wasn't the majority of our 1997 offense comprised of Nebraska kids? Frost, Green, Makovicka, Davison, Brown, Zatechka, Anderson, Pollack.
We could field a perennial Big Ten championship-caliber team by owning the 500-mile radius around Lincoln, and sprinkling in a few kids from Cali and Florida.
We could field a perennial Big Ten championship-caliber team by owning the 500-mile radius around Lincoln, and sprinkling in a few kids from Cali and Florida.
Exactly. Since when is Alabama the hotbed of recruiting? There are prized recruits to be had everywhere. You need prized recruiters to haul them in.
we used to be thee program in that 500 mile radius -- now we are just a program in that radius .
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True, but it's not like there are a ton of other great programs in that radius right now. Colorado and K-State used to be Top 10 teams during our glory days. Now they are awful. KU and Iowa State are awful. Mizzou and Minnesota aren't great, especially with their coaches retiring. Iowa had one good year with a joke of a schedule.
No reason we shouldn't be able to get most of the top players in NE, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Then complement them with a few studs from Chicago, Cali, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Arizona, etc. I'm curious why we don't recruit Phoenix much anymore after Amukamara, Hagg, and Marcel Jones. Seems like we could have started a nice pipeline there.
New staff so maybe with Young already here we will look into Phoenix more seriously.
Mizzou has some SEC success lately even though they will have a new Head Coach and Iowa program is established those 2 states will be the toughest states to get kids out of in the near future.
what is probably more relevant is the 500 mile radius of the recruit. Those recruits in eastern Iowa, in Illinois Wisconsin are also in the 500 mile radius of tOSU, MSU and Michigan. Minneapolis is about 700 miles from tOSU and within range of MSU and Michigan. As you move further south in the radius you run into OU, Texas Tcu Baylor. Arkansas The only direction we don't really have competition is north and west of Lincoln where the pickings are extremely thin
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Good point. Though most of those schools rarely recruit our 500 mile radius. OU and the Texas schools rarely recruit out of Texas, and OSU/UM/MSU rarely go west of their respective states.
We need to keep the in-state and Western Iowa talent from going to Iowa, then try to own the Kansas City, Denver, and Minneapolis areas, and then milk Riley's West Coast connections. If we can do that, we'll be in good shape.
I also like the recruits we have so far. But I like it when we keep back scholarships for walk-ons since we've had walk-ons that were the best football players on the team as well as walk-ons playing in the NFL and a couple current walk-ons who will play in the NFL.
To get decent walk-ons, you have to offer the incentive of a scholarship if a walk-on proves himself. As many stiffs as NU has brought in on scholarship lately, it's not good to have walk-ons who kicks scholarship guys' *** in the weight room and on the field and never get a scholarship themselves. That's what has made NU's walk-on program stand out.
Michigan has only 1 instate kid committed and 0 from Ohio this year. Michigan currently has the #3 class in the country with less than a month to go before signing day. I don't expect this to be the norm going forward (under Harbaugh) nor as it been in the past...but I think that is solid enough evidence that you can build a great class without getting much of it from your "backyard" (right now less than 5% is from our backyard).
And FWIW...not a huge point...just pointing it out...to include Michigan in a group of schools that "rarely" goes west of their respective states simply is not true. Michigan has always made quite an effort in both Cali and Texas (with mixed results depending on staff). It has also cherry picked in states like CO, AZ and even NM. Heck, one year we even pulled in the top 3 from MO. While a bit closer, states like Ill and IN are actually west of us. I think the point is more that we go East and West...and South and North (yes we have gotten kids from Canada). At times certain regions treat you better (they tend to change over short period of times for us) but you hope if one year you are cold in one area that you heat you in another. That is what you have to do when you share your own quite average recruiting state with another program and your closest hotbed is dominated by your rival.
You have to have both great coaching and recruiting to stay consistently on top. There are very few out there who can accomplish this. Someone like Ron Zook and John Cooper would have loaded teams every year on the talent front, but would under perform.
The other way way you can make up for recruiting in some areas is to have a great system in place.
Osborne did have some very talented classes, but look at the positions he was landing some great talent. He could get the top mobile qb at the time because most were running pro style. He would also get some very good defensive lineman, dbs, rbs, and lbs. He would develop a lot of o lineman no body wanted because they were too short and didn't fit the pro style systems. He essentially had guards playing tackle in his offense. I know he also recruited some very good o lineman but there were a lot milt and him developed others didn't want. He didn't need to go after the top receivers in the country on a consistent basis. He also did the same at certain positions on defense. We basically had one of the best coaches ever to get this done.
I don't see Riley's pro style system being able to consistently land top 10-15 classes here and working to the point many want it to. Riley looks like a max 9-10 game win coach at best. You can argue the Riley hire if it was to change the face of the program, but Eichorst made it pretty clear that day it was more about winning. I would very surprised if he has a higher winning percentage than Bo when he retires or is fired. The problem with Nebraska is we want to get back to the glory days, but we don't want to spend the money to get back there.
I never meant to imply that having good/great coaches, beyond their responsibilities in recreating, is essential. Moreover, when I talk coaches I mean entire staff's and not just HCs. In fact, I'd rather a good HC and great assistants than just a great HC and average assistants (if I had to choose between just those two options and couldn't have a great HC and great assistants)...of course great HCs tend to attract (and recognize) great assistants but a lot of times it comes down to a programs willingness to pay not just for a to HC but open the checkbook to get and retain assistants.
With that said it is a question of which is more important...coaches or jimmies and joes? They way I look at it is that if you were to give me (as the HC) and 9 of my friends (as assistants) Bama's team we probably go 0-12. But we might not get embarrassed every week...maybe even keep it close against some of the weakest teams. So never underestimate coaching (duh!). However, Given Saban and crew me and 84 friends and it wouldn't even be funny...it would be sad and horrific...maybe even illegal as it could be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Obviously that is an extreme situation to use to illustrate a POV but I still believe that recruiting is Key 1a, coaching (beyong reruiting) is more key 1b.
I also think coaching stability plays a huge role. It hurts having turnover every year. I don't think Nebraska had the best position coach at every position under Tom, but for the most part they were pretty solid teachers who were together for many years and had very strong continuity which is key.
I actually am no longer sold on that. Not that a lot of turnover is good but a consistent influx of new ideas I think is important...plus I think having the type of coaching talent that others covet is great. To be clear I think it is extremely important to pay to not lose coaching talent to "lateral positions"...but if you have position coaches hired as coordinators at other school and coordinators hired as HCs...then it allows you to bring in 1-2 new guys every couple years that can bring in some outside thinking that helps your staff grow and stay innovative. The game is so much more complex and fast changing then it was 20 years ago and staffs that close themselves off risk getting stale.
It helped in Nebraska's case in a major way. If everyone is on the same page you are likely to have better success. If you are changing a couple position coaches each year it's going to hurt. I get your point to a degree because the SEC will go out and just get another great assistant coach and pay the money. The same can be said for Ohio State and Michigan. That's why I made the point about Nebraska. We aren't willing to spend with the big boys. With some of our limitations, we should be spending more than Bama or Ohio State on every part of our program for example.
The state of Alabama has 3 5 star players this year. The state of Nebraska has 1 since Rivals began. No, there are not prized recruits to be had everywhere. the states of Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, and Missouri have 0 top 100 players this year. The states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have 13 top 100 players. I'm sorry you can't realize we will never have top 10 recruiting classes in today's college football, why? Location, Location, Location
There are many more than 3 5 star players out there. You limited your considerations to Nebraska and border states. I'm sorry you can't realize the need to recruit nationwide.