Husker Recruiting

Bo Pelini's first recruiting class of 28 has signed, complete list at the above link from Huskerpedia. Nine recruits out of the Lone Star state, a pair out of Bama, three from Cali, a pair from Cajun country, six in-staters, and single recruits out of FL, GA, IA, KS, MO and OH (from Cardinal Mooney High). One service rated it 21st, the other 30th. Pretty good for a staff thrown together on pretty short notice.

Pretty well rounded class on paper, but as the coach says, we won't really know until two to three years down the road. Defensively, we add a couple of corners, two or three safeties (depending on which side of the ball in-stater John Levorson of Crete lands), four or five backers, and at least three defensive linemen, although super recruit Baker Steinkuhler out of Lincoln SW may also play defense.

On offense, we signed a QB, three RBs (including Omaha Westside's Collins Okafor), three or four wideouts, a couple of TEs (including Coach Cotton's son Ben) and four offensive linemen. We also have two "athletes" on the list. Of course, these are just the 28 scholarship athletes, Coach Bo also has 30(!) in state walk-ons committed to the program - out of the 31 in-state players targetted by the staff, they closed on all but one. As the coach himself puts it, the significance of the walk-on program cannot be overstated - via an article at HuskerExtra:

"“Most of the walk-ons are coming from the state of Nebraska,” he said. “They come from towns, from areas that have a love for the state, the university and our football program. And the more people you bring into a culture that have strong beliefs about something and have a strong commitment and want-to, it’s going to make you stronger in the future.”

Yep, I do believe the man "gets it". And on a related note, I bought tickets to the Spring Game for the first time in my life - five days after seeing my first NU hoops game at Devaney on Saturday. While the gridiron will always be #1, I do believe it's time for me to step up and support the program better now that the four year nightmare is over. It could be time to catch a game the Hyamarket Park as well this year.