Fifth Star for Gabbert Has a Short Shelf Life
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August 10, 2007 by
Husker fans had to be encouraged to see quarterback recruit (and 2008 NU commit) Blaine Gabbert earn a fifth star from recruiting web-site Rivals.com. The “promotion” suggests that those who are paying close attention like Gabbert even more now than they did a few months ago. That has to be good news. Since Gabbert is also helping Nebraska to recruit, it also makes him an even more powerful attraction for players to come to Lincoln.
But the value of that fifth star has an expiration date, namely national letter of intent signing day 2008. No, that doesn’t mean Gabbert will regress or otherwise lose value. But whether he had four stars or five stars only really mattered to the degree that it brought other players to Lincoln.
Sure, the excitement he’s created could spill over to the 2009 recruiting class, but chances are his real recruiting mojo will be all but over once the class of 2008 has made their school selections. Star high school athletes aren’t exactly defined by their ability to remember those who came before them.
Chances are that outside his high school and the Husker Nation, Gabbert will be fairly anonymous nationally until he begins making noise on the field. While that’s as it should be, Husker fans who want to pop the champagne over the fifth star may need a reality check. Yes, Vince Young was a five-star quarterback but so was Rhett Bomar.
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Tyler Aug 10 07
I have no doubt Blaine is probably the finest QB talent NU has seen this decade. Fit for the WCO, it will be great to get his signature on that letter.
He's get interviewed regularly and sounds mature. When asked what he's working on, he always replies, "my accuracy."
While I'm glad he has an answer, I hope his goals are high and that he fights the urge to coast this year. Because no matter how good your are, the HS game is different than college. We hope he's as prepared as possible. No matter how talented he is though, I can't imagine him not redshirting next year with Ganz and Lee having been in the system and much more mature physically.
Does anyone else have any worries about his interviews?
doombob Aug 10 07
On July 1-4, Rivals.com allowed everyone registered with their site a free subscription to view all the premium content. I knew I couldn't read all of the articles on Gabbert in that time period so I printed them out to read later.
I started with the interviews on the top of the pile and read all the way through. The further through the pile I got, the more worried I became! It sounded like he was getting more hesitant about coming to Nebraska after each article. Not only that, he seemed to get less and less adept at answering questions with straightforward, accurate answers. I kept thinking, why on earth do we want this guy?! Not only that, but the interviewers seemed less and less impressed with his on and off field abilities and poise.
Then it hit me. I'm an idiot. I was reading the articles in reverse order. I started with the most recent articles and was reading backwards in time! When I got through all of them it made me realize that he's got great "upside" (as they say in baseball all the time), and very little downside. He's got confidence like I don't see in the kids I know that are his age. He seems to know himself and what he can do. And to top it all off, the interviewers realized that too. He blows other QBs away at this level.
Note: I mention these "intangibles" like confidence and upside because so many kids have the right athletic ability. The way to separate the cream of the crop is to compare the mental attributes of players like conidence, decision making, responsibility, etc.
Tyler Aug 10 07
DoomBob:
If you read this post from the bottom, it might make the most sense to you :)
Tyler
.research your by encouraged I'm .right your hope sure I
AZCornhusker Aug 13 07
Anyone forgotten that Callahan had a superstar QB from Missouri recruited before? That guy ended up signing at the last minute with Kansas State! Until they actually sign, we don't have them. I also support idea to move up signing day from Feb. 7 to early December to cut down somewhat on all the nonstop recruiting/pandering to these high school kids.
doombob Aug 14 07
I can tell you that Callahan & Co. made some mistakes with Freeman. Nothing's written in stone in the game of recruiting, but I don't think they'll make the same mistakes this time around. Reading his interviews, Gabbert seems to be genuinely excited about Nebraska. He said he wants to be a Husker to win a national championship. That's different from wanting to go somewhere so that you look better to the NFL in 4 years.