Wasn’t That the Guy?

1 comment so far May 8, 2006 by Steve Hanway

Husker fans glued to the tube for the first day of the 2006 NFL draft probably had a déjà vu moment. Two spots after NU safety Daniel Bullocks was selected in the second round, a cornerback out of Abilene Christian was picked by Chicago by the name of Danieal Manning. No Manning was never a Husker, but he could have been.

Signed as part of Frank Solich’s Spring 2001 class out of Texas, Manning was rated as the 16th overall cornerback prospect. But Manning would never make it to Lincoln and instead finished his career at the Division II program in Abilene, Texas.

He reportedly missed the 820 qualifying score on his SAT by a single point. He even moved to Lincoln and took a job at the Lincoln Journal Star hoping to retake the SAT to get a qualifying score. But then he decided to head home and play for Abilene.

Let your mind wander and you can imagine him playing in Scarlet and Cream. Rewind to 2001, and Nebraska had a nice two-deep of cornerbacks including Keyou Craver, DeJuan Groce, Erwin Swiney, and Lornell McPherson. It’s very possible that Manning would have redshirted. A season later, the Huskers may not have been forced into starting a true freshman in Fabian Washington. And in both 2002 and 2003, they might have avoided starting walk-on Pat Ricketts at all. In 2004, Cortney Grixby might not have had to start as a true freshman and in 2005 Tierre Green and Zack Bowman could have eased their way into the position instead of starting before they were ready.

That’s the difference that one great player could make. Sadly for Husker fans, that’s not how things went down and Manning became another “could have been” for Nebraska. Too bad. He would have been a lot of fun to watch.

Photo: acu.edu

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