Gomes Recruitment Telling
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March 5, 2009 by
Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini and his staff have shown a clear preference for high school talent over junior college players. In the abbreviated recruiting season of 2008 none of the 16 new players that Pelini’s staff recruited came from junior colleges. This signing day, only two players out of twenty-one total came from junior college.
Receiver Brandon Kinnie was one of them and with three years to play three years, he offers a bit more than most junior college players. With Nate Swift and Todd Peterson graduating and Menelik Holt about to, it was also clear that new wideout options would be needed. NU receivers coach Ted Gilmore compared Kinnie with Maurice Purify, which makes it somewhat obvious why he’d be worth recruiting even if you’d prefer to avoid recruiting juco players. Kinnie was also recruited by Kansas so if the Huskers didn’t recruit him, they’d be facing him.
But Dejon Gomes seemed less obvious. Unlike the other junior college recruits at cornerback in recent years, Gomes wasn’t a five-star recruit or recruited by teams like Oklahoma. Instead, he only rated three stars from recruiting sites like Rivals and Scout.com. Gomes has three and a half years to play two. Since he arrived mid-semester he presumably could be ready to play as early as this fall.
The Huskers only graduated a single cornerback in Armando Murillo this past season. In addition Anthony Blue returns, a leading candidate for playing time a year ago. Anthony West was a steady contributor at corner for most of the year as was Alfonzo Dennard. Eric Hagg was a critical playmaker in the waning moments of the Gator Bowl, as was walk-on Lance Thorell. Prince Amukamara appeared to be a great talent out of high school in 2007. Courtney Osborne will be coming off a redshirt year. There also are a pair of true freshmen in the current recruiting class that could contribute immediately. Despite these nine other cornerback options, the NU staff felt they needed to add someone who could contribute immediately.
That tells you a few things. First, the staff didn’t feel like they had enough short term answers in the secondary. If you look at the cornerbacks, Blue may need another year to truly get right and the freshmen may have some physical development to do. Thorell had his moments, but you don’t necessarily want to rely on walk-ons at speed positions. So perhaps the depth isn’t near as good as it might appear on paper.
Next, the coaches may feel cornerback is a position where you can look at juco players. Even in the best of times, the Huskers brought in guys like Michael Booker. You can’t really coach speed. Gomes was also recruited by Kansas State, so if the Huskers had not offered him a scholarship, they might have been facing him, which might not have been that appealing.
With the departure of quarterback Joe Ganz it seems likely the Husker defense will have to carry the team at times in 2009. And the coaches clearly aren’t waiting to improve the secondary. So look for Gomes to be in the mix next year. And if he’s not, it either means the depth was better than the coaches realized, or Gomes didn't pick things up as fast as they'd hoped.
If you consider the safety position, then bringing in Gomes makes even more sense. The Huskers are set to lose three seniors at safety after this season (Larry Asante, Matt O'Hanlon, and Rickey Thenarse). Major Culbert just departed, which further depletes the safety options. The likely replacements are all young and untested (P.J. Smith, Mason Wald, and Dijon Washington). The NU Athletic Department also assigned those three (and Gomes) the more cryptic "defensive back" designation which could mean cornerback or safety. Interestingly, Dennard has this designation after contributing at corner, suggesting some reshuffling may be in the works.
Whether it's corner or safety, Gomes offered something the coaches' didn't want to pass on. Hopefully, he'll demonstrate why in the next year or two.
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Greg Morrow Mar 06 09
Love personnel topics.
Steve uses the word "speed" twice. Once, referring to Thorell and his walkon status.
Granted, a "Pat Ricketts" and an "Andy Means" come along only about once in a uh, generation or so...
Speed does seem to be the issue, though. Most of the DBs look over 6 feet and at or around 200 lbs. Not getting that Florida recruit Byrd, was a disappointment.
But, the best ones are sure to be physical.
The last really fast secondary I can think of, was '01's with Groce, Pippens, Craver, Willie Amos and Swinney. Those DBs had "happy feet." Philip Bland might've had a shot at the NFL if not for his shoulder problems, starting in '01.
04's had speed too, with the Bullocks and Fabian, but that team had so many varied and multitudinous problems, there was only so much 3/4s of a future NFL secondary could do.