Building the Right Foundation

6 comments so far February 18, 2009 by Steve Hanway

While there’s a lot of excitement surrounding Nebraska football coming off a Gator Bowl victory, there’s certainly some recognition that the team still has a lot of rebuilding to do. That’s why it would have been tempting for the Husker coaching staff to load heavily with junior college players in order to address some short term needs. But Bo Pelini’s staff avoided the quick fix and that should pay off for the team down the road.

Compare the 2005 recruiting class of Nebraska with that of Oklahoma and how it paid off in 2008. The Huskers found a number of players that contributed to the team in 2005 and 2006, only to be long gone by 2008. Frantz Hardy, Ola Dagunduro, Zac Taylor, and Barry Cryer all contributed to Nebraska’s 2006 Big 12 North Championship. Zack Bowman and Steve Octavien also seemed like worthwhile recruits in hindsight (though injuries took them out of the mix in 2006). Still, a number of junior college scholarships were ultimately wasted (Justin Tomerlin, Tyrell Spain, Brock Pasteur, and Jordan Picou are names that spring to mind). But even when those scholarships pay off, it puts you at a disadvantage in terms of the “system experience� you can put on the field four years later.

The remnants of the 2005 class for Nebraska that had meaningful contributions in 2008 were Chris Brooks, Ndamukong Suh, Cody Glenn, Marlon Lucky, Jacob Hickman, and Phillip Dillard (Barry Turner likely would have been too, had he not been injured). The Sooners by contrast were able to field a team that included four two-deep offensive linemen (Duke Robinson, Brian Simmons, Jon Cooper, and Brandon Braxton), tight end Brody Eldridge, receivers Juan Iglesias and Manuel Johnson, fullback Matt Clapp, nose guard Cordero Moore, linebackers Keenan Clayton, and Lamont Robinson, safety Nic Harris, and cornerback Brian Jackson. That’s an advantage of about thirteen to six, and that experience sure showed when the two teams faced off in Norman. And it was due to the fact that 89% of OU’s 2005 class came from the high school ranks.

Now compare the 2005 NU class to its 2009 version. The 2009 class has only two junior college players out of 21 (including Antonio Bell). By contrast, the 2005 class had a total of 12 junior college recruits in a large class of 31 players. So the Huskers now built a class that consisted of over 90% high school players versus just over 61% with full eligibility four years ago. That means more of these guys will be around four years from now. That said, another critical detail will be retention. Those six players from the class of 2005 of Nebraska came from a pool of nineteen players – the same number they found in this class. That means less than 31% of them became contributors this past year. OU by contrast got meaningful contributions four years later from 54% of their 2005 high school class (thirteen out of twenty-four). So getting ninety percent of your kids from the high school ranks is only half the battle. The other big factor is making sure those scholarships go to worthy candidates.

We won’t know whether Pelini and company spent those scholarships well or not for quite a while. What we do know is that over 90% of the class of 2009 will not have exhausted their eligibility in 2012, and that seems like the right way to start when building your program for the long term.

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