Kyler Reed Not Splashy, Just Solid

4 comments so far September 20, 2007 by Steve Hanway

High school standout Kyler Reed committed to the Huskers this week. The Huskers might use him as an H-back/tight end, linebacker or perhaps even receiver (all positions of need for the future). His three-star rating will keep him off the short list of recruits that generate big excitement from Husker fans on signing day. Nevertheless, when you land a kid that four other Big 12 North schools wanted, that’s good reason to be encouraged.

Two sentiments that I’ve heard from Husker fans in the wake of the USC disaster (where nothing positive is said about the coaches or the program) are that there are too many guys in the class of 2008 with only three stars and that we shouldn’t get excited about these guys since some past star prospects were on the field Saturday (or worse, not able to crack the starting lineup).

Let me address both of those ideas. First, star ratings do have some value. That is, five-stars as a group outperform the four-stars as a group who in turn outperform the three-stars as a group, etc, etc. But the other key piece of information is who else is offering these kids. In 2005, four-star Rodney Picou was not listed as having any other offers by Scout.com. Jordon Congdon, also a four-star prospect is listed as having a single offer from San Diego State. If we look at the two and three-star recruits from that year there were several more who didn’t exactly have a full dance card.

This year, with the exception of the in-state recruits (who many other teams might have thought it was not worth even trying to offer), only junior college transfer Tyson Hetzer (who has terrific measurables) and Texas cornerback David Whitmore are listed as having no other offer from a BCS conference team. That's an improvement.

But honing in on the idea that the highly touted classes of the past mean these current classes can be easily dismissed is also misleading. Again, look at how the class of 2005 got its high rating. It had 31 guys in it and 11 of those were junior college transfers. A transfer is really sort of a way to improve a past class. Zac Taylor really could be considered part of the class of 2002 as could a number of those other transfers. So far this class has four junior college players (if you count Ricky Henry who’s offer is contingent on getting academically qualified) out of 22. The other 18 look very strong. But in 2005 you had a number of players that you knew right away weren’t going to be all-conference type players. Jeff Souder was a two-star player whose only offer (per Scout) came from Nebraska. Ditto Robert Rands. There was little reason to think Brock Pasteur or Jordan Picou were going to be special and a guy like David Harvey appeared to be a major project. Add in three guys that failed to qualify academically and it’s no wonder that two and a half years later the Huskers aren’t on top of the college football world.

The point of all this rehashing is that Kyler Reed is not someone to dismiss. Yes, we’ve seen three-star athletes before. Some have been excellent (like Adam Carriker) others fizzled (like Pasteur). But in Reed’s case we’re talking about a kid that all of the better Big 12 North teams offered. And if you want to be the class of your division, those are the kids you have to get. And Nebraska has. And that’s good news, even this week.

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