What Others Think About Nebraska
10 comments so far
February 9, 2009 by
We all have our own opinions about the Nebraska recruiting class this year, but recruiting services and experts are mostly positive towards the group of young men the Huskers are offering scholarships. Overall, this is a solid class, full of athletes with the type of potential to lead a team to Big 12 Championships. Opinions of the recruiting services aren't the be-all and end-all, but they are a pretty good indicator of who has got what it takes to make an impact. Let's see what they have to say.
Starting with Rivals.com, we see that they rank the Huskers as the fourth best team in the Big 12 and 28th nationally.
Scout.com ranks Nebraska as fifth best in the Big 12 and 33rd nationally.
ESPN uses data syndicated from Scout.com, but their data ends up being different somehow because of the opinions of the individual writers who put in articles for ESPN. When they gave everyone grades, Nebraska somehow ends up with a C and in eighth place. They only have the top 25 classes listed on their home page, and Nebraska falls outside of this range.
Now the hard part is trying to figure out in anyone else in the country ranks teams like this. Scout and Rivals have a pretty good lock on the “recruiting game�. MaxEmfingerRecruiting.com was about the only other place I could find that would go out on a limb and rank teams, but he only had the top 25 or so, and I couldn't find an explanation of his points system. He puts Nebraska at fourth in the Big 12 and 23rd overall.
Before compiling this data, I went and reviewed some of the top recruits of each Big 12 schools. I tend to agree that Nebraska has somewhere between the fourth and fifth best recruiting class this year in our conference. ESPN described it as a “blue-collar� feel to the Huskers. It's an apt description with what appears to be some very hard working guys who produced some great numbers in high school. Later this week, I'll compare what others are saying about the best of the Husker players and look at some of those great stats.
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zE bOp Feb 09 09
Biggest problem with all this is they forgot to rate the coaching staffs!
I suppose you could use these various ratings as a general indicator of talent, good for 'water cooler chat', Nothing more, nothing less.
There's not that big of a gap between 3 and 5 star talent when it comes right down to it, and there are alotta guys that fly under the radar of the services. I forgot where I read it, but when asked if he uses the recruiting services to evaluate players BO came back with a resounding, "NO"!
Our class looks very good, IMO.
But, I guess if you look at where KU is rated by Rivals and Scout, it shows you about how accurate they are: KU #31(Rivals), #50(Scout).
_________________________
As an aside, the LJS got an interesting quote from BO regarding NE's image out there among national recruits:
** I thought it was his assessment of the response Nebraska gets these days when it calls recruits.
"It's good, not great yet -- it's getting better," Pelini said. "I think people are waiting to see. I think it got better as we had momentum this season. Obviously, the 'N' carries a lot of weight. But at the end of the day, kids want to win championships. The more we win, the better it's going to be.
"That's on us."
zE bOp Feb 09 09
Here it is, from Jason Peter's 'Double Nickel' blog:
"...Coach Pelini talked about the stock that he and his staff put into the star system, for those of you who didn't hear the press conference, his response was "none"!..."
USC_husker Feb 09 09
We are at the top of the B12 North. Restore the order!!!.
darren Feb 09 09
I agree with USC_husker - being on top of the division matters the most.
Also, on class ratings, this NU class is affected by two things - its size and the lack of a "top end" guy or two.
Compare this class to NU 2005 class or A&M this year, and it's obvious. Those classes had 25+ players and a couple with 5-star classifications. Both drive the rating higher. (They also have more than a handful of less dependible prospects at the bottom.)
This current NU class only has 20 players an no 5-stars. That keeps NU out of the top 20. But, it has a solid group of total players, who (hopefully) are less likely to be busts. It's not sexy, but it's solid.
J Mo Feb 09 09
Tom,
It seems like a lot of people get confused by this, but ESPN uses Scouts, Inc., which from what I can tell is unaffiliated with Scouts.com. I have ESPN insider and the Scouts, Inc. evaluations are pretty nice, they give actual evaluations of players rather than just a star rating.
HuskerDeck Feb 09 09
All I can say is give me 22 players on offense and defense with the same desire, heart and ability as Joe Ganz and I will play any college team and be competitive regardless of the stars before their name. I know I am old school but I would like to relate a story. I played high school ball against Monte Kiffen and Mick Tinglehoff from that great Lexington team. Kiffen got all the publicity and accolades, with even the great Bud Wilkinson of Oklahoma flying up to talk to him. Tinglehoff didn’t even get a scholarship from Nebraska, he walked on. At that time freshmen were not eligible for varsity, but Tinglehoff made the freshman team and a scholarship and as you know the rest is history. The point I am trying to make is, Kiffen would have been a 5 star and Tinglehoff probably a 2 star, so it just shows the fallacy of the rating system even back then. All they had to do was ask me and I could have told them who the best football player was.
The ole Swede and Husker in South Arkansas
cvldfg Feb 09 09
I have always been a big proponent of, you get the best guys that fit your system. Compared to other schools, I wonder how many kids pan out or stay their full term for NU, other than those leaving early for the NFL.
TO seemed like he always had us in the 20's, but never a top 10. I realize we ran the option and most of those type of recruits weren't highly touted, but they worked for our system.
As long as this staff continues to get character guys and guys that want to be at NU, especially for 4 years, I think this coaching staff will coach them up the right way. We may not get the 5 star guys like others, but I think we will get a lot of guys that make it to the NFL.
zE bOp Feb 09 09
50 RS frosh, it's like 3 classes for the price of one.
I think we are going to be ok.
tom Feb 09 09
ze,
You know most of our feelings here at BRN on recruiting services. We just don't put that much stock in them, but they are the first thing to check unless you recruit for a living.
J Mo,
Thanks for the clarification. Sometimes the obvious stares me in the face and I just don't see it.
HuskerDeck,
Heart is fine, but I'll take consistency over heart any day of the week. If you know what you've got in a player, weaknesses or strengths, you can coach around that. Some of the best players are cold, emotionless, even uncaring. Give me a field of heartless killing machines any day of the week. Sorry, I was just watching the Terminator Salvation trailer and got carried away.
zE bOp Feb 09 09
Tom,
I think the services have a place, the guys they rate pan out at least 1/2 the time. Overall team rankings for recruiting give ya an idea--they're great for the fans.
I think the coaches have a far better eye for what they're going after though.