Signing Day Thread

Lost out on Andrus Peat... that means this class has turned into a failure IMO... Our biggest needs were CB, LB and OL... we got enough LBs but got one CB and two OL... 33% success not gonna get it done on the recruiting trail

How the H*LL did Stanford lock up Peat when they already have 5 OL commits... that's 6 OL commits now and we could outrecruit them?  Pathetic.  Way too many losses in this class to call it anything but a C+

Hate to say it but I saw this coming.  In my opinion this class didn't start out all that great and never seemed to really gain any momentum along the way.  In addition to the class not being ranked very high, I personally am not even that high on the 4 stars and 3 stars that we DO have.  Now...I'm by no means a professional talent evaluator but for whatever reason a lot of these guys don't seem that great to me from the mild research I have done.  I truly hope I'm wrong.

The one guy that could have made this whole thing feel positive was Peat and this staff yet again failed to close.  And people can say all they want that 5 stars don't equate to certain on field greatness but take a look at our only 5 stars in the past 10 years...

Baker Steinkuhler- bust for a 5 star?...maybe.  Still resulted in 4 solid years of on-field production
Marlon Lucky- again some consider him a 5 star bust- Result...again 4 very solid years of production and broke several Husker records
Zackary Bowman- STUD- played from the moment he stepped on campus and is enjoying a solid NFL career
Andre Jones- Again played from the moment he stepped on campus...solid contributor
Demorrio Williams- STUD, STUD, STUD!!

So in summary a 5 star does not guarantee All-American status but you can pretty much bank on a solid career.  That's what hurts the most with Peat.  You pretty much knew the guy was gonna give us a SOLID 3-4 years of production.

After 5 years of this staff recruiting it's clear that they are not Elite recruiters.  Problem is and has been pointed out...can anyone be an "Elite Recruiter" to Nebraska in today's day and age?  I have no clue what the answer to that question is.  Callahan seemed to pull better talent but couldn't do anything with it and ended up losing half of them during the year anyways so who knows.

Frustrating day to say the least.

While I agree with you in principle with all you have said.  There are playes I am extremely excited about to get on campus:

Mo Seisy
Zaire Anderson
Jordan Westerkamp
Michael Rose
Paul Thurston
Imani Cross

 I think that all of these guys will be solid contributers at Nebraska at some point in their careers... there are also guys that can go either way Jared Afalava, Greg McMullen, Vincent Valentine, Thomas Brown and Aaron Curry...

Then there are the guys we hope could be diamonds in the rough like LeRoy Alexander, Corey Whitaker and Avery Moss. 

Almost forgot... Tommy Armstrong and Alonzo Moore are two guys that look like they could be great, but that could also get lost in the shuffle.  Peat would have given us a sure-fire bet on the O-Line.

I don't see why anyone is so fired up about Tommy Armstrong.  He had several other offers but the best of them being Oregon and Missouri.  Other than that it was a lot of mid-tier programs that wanted him.

I certainly don't think he will be able to "immediately" challenge Martinez for the job and more than what Carnes has been able to do.

I also am just flabergasted that Ohio St. and Urban Meyer can go right in and get the 4th ranked class in the midst of being in trouble with the NCAA.  What the freak are they selling these kids on?

"any" not "and"

Jeeesh...I'm so flustered that I'm skipping proofreading!

Ohio St had an unfair advantage in recuiting this year.  Fickle stayed as interim HC while Meyer came in and started work for next season.  So whil most coaches were working on bowl prep Meyer was out stealing commits from other classes.  Thats why he was pissed when he found out about the reduction in scholarships.  And the NCAA will look the other way because its OSU and Meyer.

GBR
JJ 

As a Buckeyes fan, I'll ignore the OSU/Meyer bashing (we're kind of used to it by now).  Anyway...growing up, I always viewed the end-of-season Oklahoma/Nebraska rivalry on par with the OSU/Michigan game.  Loved it.  Even in down years, the exposure did a lot for the schools' perceptions.  Kids come to OSU/Michigan to play in that game, as I'm sure they did to Oklahoma/Nebraska.  Too bad that's gone as a recruiting tool.  It's going to take years to build a rivalry like that in the B1G.  I don't have any answers, but wish you folks the best of luck.  A strong Nebraska is good for the B1G, and we're glad you came aboard.  I look forward to seeing your legendary fans in Columbus for the first time this October.  

Have you watched Armstrongs film?  Kid is better than his offers indicate.  He won't push for a starting job right away but I've heard multiple recruiting gurus on both Rivals and 247Sports say that he should be rated higher than he is.  Honestly though, I think Carnes is better, if Carnes can figure out some pre-snap reads (which is the area I think he was deficiant on) then he could turn into a good one.  We got eyes on big QB targets for next year as well, which will be more important because we need depth after Martinez is gone.

As for Urban Meyer... as mentioned above he had an unfair advantage that the NCAA just gave to him and they only lose 6 scholarships (3 next year then 3 on top of that the next year [so from 25 to 22 then from 22 to 19]) He's also selling them on the fact that he is Urban Meyer... Bo doesn't have 2 National Championships and a Heisman Trophy winner on his Resume yet.

I warned everybody it would be bad news for Meyer coming to the bigten. Then to make it worse NCAA granted that bs two coaches clause and essential let osu have two head coaches.... Combine this with average class and the fact no matter how good Armstrong is tmart here to stay. I agree with a lot of y'all post were gonna need to either get serious coaches or get a recruiter I don't care if we have to bring Callahan back as oline coach n recruiter(honestly hes better at ol coach that cotton)it's worth it. Osu n mich top6 in recruiting class not to mention rich rod left a lot of talent at Michigan. This is why I'm not looking forward for the next three years because Michigan is back osu will be back michst wont slip far and wisky is out there still. We can't keep getting average talent and praying that they all turn to suh Gomes fonzo asante and princes we need guys that can play withing two years at the latest. Instead of waiting till year three, and hoping they take off and carry us.also one thing that is hurting us we have no known identity outside of Nebraska for our offense..... We all know who we are but others don't know much about the O. Wr are iffy , oline has been below average(thanks cotton), so rbs have to be the second coming of sanders or tough like Rex. Qb wise everybody knows tmart is qb till hes gone...fuller prove that Alford didn't care for it ether. Sorry for sounding pessimistic but were at 2-3rd gear while other teams are at 5-6th bout to hit the nos button.... We gotta kick it up several gears or we will get left behind

Losing out on Andrus Peat did not hurt the actual football team persay. The only thing that hurt on losing Peat was the fact that it did not make this class as flashy and that it felt like we had a very good shot at getting him because of his brother and cousin. If you actually look at the offensive line we have now there are four stars everywhere (if you actually care that much about stars). If we coach those boys up to their potential, the only Peat anyone will care about is Todd. Not to mention Paul Thurston is ANOTHER four star and Whitaker looks like he has a lot of potential to me. I believe the offensive line has plenty of potential.

I could be wrong here and I'm sure Nut can verify but didn't we have room for 20 recruits this year after the departure of Collins and Ward?  We end up signing 17.  So let me get this right...the SEC OVERSIGNS, yet we proceed to UNDERSIGN!!  Geeez....

Also looks like Josh Williams is out so that should leave us with 4 open schollies.  Anyone have a clue how these will be used?  Will they be used for guys currently on the team that are walk-ons or will they be reserved so we can sign an additional 4 next year?  I sure hope we reserve them for next year.  As heartwarming of a story it may be we don't need to be wasting scholarships on walk-on scrubs who are already in the program and may not ever see the field.

With Ward, Okafor and Williams leaving that left room for 20 scholarship players in this class... the staff was always going to hold one back for Charles Jackson... so yes we undersigned by 2.  One scholarship will probably go to Maher and another to one of the other senior walk-ons so those schollies will open back up next season.  

Idealy we would have saved one for Jackson and one for a Walk-On (Maher) and signed Peat but we lost out on Peat so we have that one extra. It is pretty pathetic though, not many teams struggle filling a class... Wisconsin did

Lol at Schlly comment haha yeah it's hard to compete with the SEC when they oversign and we can't hit20..... Like I said were in like 2-3 gear and the elites are in 5/6 about to hit NOS....

One scholarship will probably go to Maher and another to one of the other senior walk-ons so those schollies will open back up next season

I see.  Didn't think about the scenario of it going to a senior so we end up getting it back for next recruiting season.  That makes me feel a little bit better at least.

I also am just flabergasted that Ohio St. and Urban Meyer can go right in and get the 4th ranked class in the midst of being in trouble with the NCAA.  What the freak are they selling these kids on?     

If this had been 16 years ago and Osborne had been in Meyers shoes--even with the schollie restrictions--I honestly feel he would have done as well as Meyer.  This wasn't so much an approval of the Ohio State program as it was the approval (by recruits) of the new head coach.  Aside from a couple of NC at Florida, the man has won everywhere he went.   

Back to the issue at hand.  I've never been that enamored of ranked recruuiting classes.  While Nebraska has had some past success at getting 5 star recruits, we have always had better success of "coaching up" the recruits we did get.  Between the last couple of years, I feel we have recruited enough talent to be successful in any league we play in.  My question is whether or not some of these assistant coaches truly know what they are doing.   

Now that I've cooled off after signing day i've decided to rate the prospects from 1-17... Also 1-100 scale as far as I see their talent and ability to contribute down the road:

1. Mo Seisay (98)
2. Jordan Westerkamp (95)
3. Zaire Anderson  (94)
4. Paul Thurston (93)
5. Greg McMullen (92)
6. Tommy Armstrong (91)
7. Michael Rose (90)
8. Jared Afalava (90)
9. Alonzo Moore (90)
10. Imani Cross (89)
11. Aaron Curry (88)
12. Vincent Valentine (88)
13. Avery Moss (85)
14. Thomas Brown (84)
15. LeRoy Alexander (80)
16. Corey Whitaker (79)
17. Sam Cotton (75)

Obviously love the top five players we got after that it's a log jam.

I'm going to disagree with BigRed472. I think the world of TO and I know people have said he had great recruiting classes, but that was back in the day. I think in today's environment, I don't see TO having any more luck than Bo. Meyer has a lot going for him, but one of those things that TO nor Bo have is a good recruiting base. Meyer is at tOSU, which has easy access to Ohio,Mich,Penn which are much more populated/better recruiting territories than Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas which is Bo's prime area. For Meyer, some of those guys he flipped were already Ohio State fans having grown up right there. All he had to do was walk through the door and say come play for me at tOSU, I've won NCs lately. If TO walked through that door and said those words for NU, those recruits might have paused and thought about it, but I don't think he flips 8, 1 maybe 2 but not being a fan of NU since birth and the distance from their home would have been a big challenge.

As far as the 2012 recruits, some decent looking guys that hopefully will pan out. Hopefuly Westerkamp gets in right away and gives Martinez a sure handed guy that can make the grabs that a lot of the WRs missed. Also, hopefully Seisay and Anderson can take over for Dennard and David. Based on that article mentioned in the other thread, I think Bo has some ideas of what need fixed and hopefully we see some improvement on the defensive side of the ball.

I think 2013s class will be the most important. Bo's going to bring in a lot of recruits, the last time he had the # of scholarships he has for the 2013 class was his 1st year at NU. That year he filled up the list with a lot of guys that didn't make a huge contribution to NU, probably one of the reasons NU was only a 9-4 team in 2011. Hopefully he gets on recruiting some major talent early and can have a top 10 class with that many scholarships available.

Nut...I'm a lot higher on Valentine than you are.  I think he has the potential to be that big bodied space hog in the middle.  Obviously doesn't have the athleticism that Big Suh did (who does?) but I think he can be a really good one.

I think he can be really good too... but he has a lot of bad weight that will need to be converted to good weight for him to be that space eater.  I have my doubts, but with ammount of offers from defensive minded coaches (Florida, Nebraska, Illinois and Alabama) I have to think they think he will turn into something special.  He has to grow though,,, (mentally and the weight conversion) which makes me think he probably redshirts.