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Isaac Zatechka gets PWO offer at NU

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I guess I have a hard time believing we offered a PWO spot to a kid that doesn't fit our offense. If that did happen we have massive issues.
I get what you’re saying. I could be wrong. I have no inside information in it. As you have pointed out, they have really upped their game in recruiting locally. We got most of the big targets, and I include Fidone as a local kid. We may still land Dickerson.

I personally think it’s possible that they were on the fence with IZ. But I think IZ told them he would not consider a walk on offer, only a scholarship. That was something I heard early in the process but I can’t confirm it’s accuracy. Then, once he realized he wasn’t going to get a scholarship to any P5 program he wavered. Then the walk on offer came. I think there are two sides to this story. I don’t think there’s anything outrageous on either side. And I don’t have any concerns about him choosing Misery. He does have family there. As someone else said (I think it was Lars) I think this is a big nothing burger. There are plenty of other things to be critical of, just not this.
 
So is the a Barret Ruud issue? It is my understanding he is the lead recruiter for the Omaha area? IMPO we will never ever be good again until the staff makes Nebraska kids a priority one and 500 mile radius kids priority two. We need build the program with player development from within. Once we are developing football players that want to be here and have a higher probablitly of sticking around 4 years the wins will come and you can recruit more at a national level to get the dynamic 4 star athletes and skill players that are ready made.
Well, we are doing well in the 500 mile radius. You wouldn’t think so based on the hand wringing here, but here’s the list from just the current class.

Fidone
Prochaska
Kpai
Lutovsky
Carnie
Rollins
Malcom
Haarberg
Bretz

Add the transfer from UNI, Kolarevic. And we may still add Dickerson.

Those are all true P5 prospects with multiple scholarship offers, not a walk on with zero P5 offers. A reasonable person might wonder what all the fuss is about.
 
Well, we are doing well in the 500 mile radius. You wouldn’t think so based on the hand wringing here, but here’s the list from just the current class.

Fidone
Prochaska
Kpai
Lutovsky
Carnie
Rollins
Malcom
Haarberg
Bretz

Add the transfer from UNI, Kolarevic. And we may still add Dickerson.

Those are all true P5 prospects with multiple scholarship offers, not a walk on with zero P5 offers. A reasonable person might wonder what all the fuss is about.
Because some folks have simply chosen to take a position, and they use every single building block they can to support it. Sadly, most who have seen through this have chosen to take their opinions and discussions elsewhere. Glad to see you are still being logical in your conversations, and your points are quite valid.
 



I get what you’re saying. I could be wrong. I have no inside information in it. As you have pointed out, they have really upped their game in recruiting locally. We got most of the big targets, and I include Fidone as a local kid. We may still land Dickerson.

I personally think it’s possible that they were on the fence with IZ. But I think IZ told them he would not consider a walk on offer, only a scholarship. That was something I heard early in the process but I can’t confirm it’s accuracy. Then, once he realized he wasn’t going to get a scholarship to any P5 program he wavered. Then the walk on offer came. I think there are two sides to this story. I don’t think there’s anything outrageous on either side. And I don’t have any concerns about him choosing Misery. He does have family there. As someone else said (I think it was Lars) I think this is a big nothing burger. There are plenty of other things to be critical of, just not this.

Dec. 6, 2020: Mizzou offers PWO
Jan. 14, 2021: NU offers PWO

This shouldn't happen with a local kid, especially a legacy. The sky isn't falling, but it's just not a good look for a program that is struggling to keep kids on the roster and has long touted its walk-on program as part of the secret sauce. Pick your poison - it's the result of laziness, negligence or hubris.

From ***'s comments, it sounds like the staff is stepping up their game in Omaha, so that's the good news.
 
I get what you’re saying. I could be wrong. I have no inside information in it. As you have pointed out, they have really upped their game in recruiting locally. We got most of the big targets, and I include Fidone as a local kid. We may still land Dickerson.

I personally think it’s possible that they were on the fence with IZ. But I think IZ told them he would not consider a walk on offer, only a scholarship. That was something I heard early in the process but I can’t confirm it’s accuracy. Then, once he realized he wasn’t going to get a scholarship to any P5 program he wavered. Then the walk on offer came. I think there are two sides to this story. I don’t think there’s anything outrageous on either side. And I don’t have any concerns about him choosing Misery. He does have family there. As someone else said (I think it was Lars) I think this is a big nothing burger. There are plenty of other things to be critical of, just not this.
Ya, I don't have concerns with the IZ situation as a whole. As you said, he did inform the staff back in September he was looking for his school to be paid for, but wanted it to be at the FBS level (had an FCS offer).

This would definitely be a "nothing burger" to me if it wasn't a constant that i'm hearing around the Omaha area about the staff. This just happens to be a legacy who has a dad that graduated same year as Frost, an uncle that is a legacy that spouted off all December about him being a true center and we need him, that essentially fell through the cracks and we let an SEC team beat us to the punch of an offer. We evaluated his teammate and offered him a PWO spot in December, you literally didn't have to put in a different tape to watch both of them and come to a conclusion. But we kept telling him and his dad "we are still evaluating." Stuff like that is happening with Woods. It happened with Dickerson. We gotta get that figured out, because this kid would be in Lincoln if we offered him a month earlier. Dickerson would already be on board if we recruited him like we have been the past 3 months the entire time.

To someone's point, if we are winning, it doesn't matter. You can just ask the kid if he wants to be a part of it and if not, good luck elsewhere. But since we aren't, to quote that Admiral on Top Gun "your name ain't the best right now, you need to be doing it better and cleaner than the other guys."
 
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Serious question, what is the difference between a walk on offer and a Preferred Walk-on offer?
When the staff first got here, the preferred walk-on spot guaranteed you a spot on the 105 man fall camp roster. I believe that is still the case now. Other "regular" walk-ons had to wait to show up until fall classes began. Basically it was a "step above" the normal walk-on and a way to show they wanted you they just didn't have the numbers. Of course what these kids forget is once that first year is over you are a regular walk-on and if you aren't on the three deep you are waiting until fall classes.

Expanding for no reason. I wonder how our walk-on classes will start looking in quantity with the Rona and Title IX still in play. I know some kids around the state that have D2 offers and then walk-on offers to Northern Illinois, Wyoming, or Ohio. But the coaches there say "we have to wait and make sure a female thrower doesn't quit the track team so we can take you." With sports getting cut i'll be curious how that effects our numbers. Smart ADs let the track and xc womens team balloon up and take walk-ons so their mens teams that can bring in money can grab more walk-ons.
 
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But it appears that we have improved with in state recruiting, especially the Omaha area. We might get a commit out of Dickerson, which would mean they've gotten commits from almost every highly rated state kid except Johnson and Watts. That's not bad, obviously things can always improve.
I think a lot of this criticism is a direct result of the lack of winning. If NU went 6-2 instead of 3-5 this past year, this thread might not make it past 1 page.

You're making a lot of the posters' point. We are not winning and appear to have high player turnover (before being here a year or two). Yes, we are doing better, but I've heard from one coach that the Nebraska coaches are unorganized in their recruiting. Back when you could visit a high school, they would call the coach right before they were leaving Lincoln, call the coach and say, we will be there at 10, we want to talk to .... *** is right in that we should have the relationships with the coaches that they call us and say, hey you need to look at this kid as I'm getting calls from other P5 coaches.

I think it's safe to say that kids in Nebraska are less likely to transfer immediately if they aren't playing right away and are less likely to get homesick. So we really need to be on point on the local kids. Yes, so far we only missed out on Johnson and Watts. I really believe that the Johnson's had a bad taste in their mouth about the two younger brothers. THIS WAS NOT FROST'S FAULT, but it does show we have to be better at home. You're absolutely right in that if we were winning, this wouldn't be much of a conversation, be we are losing. Our best teams, had several great local players and right now the talent in Omaha and Nebraska in general is as good as I can remember in a while. I know several local HS well and they are all for their kids and "if" they feel they didn't get a fair look from Nebraska it does not help local recruiting. This even happened to the great Haden Fry, he slowed played Trev Alberts (a big hawkeye fan at the time and not a "Street and Smith's HS all American) and by the time he got around to him, Osborne already had him in the bag. Alberts has confirmed this several times.

Having said all this, I think they are changing, so let's hope for the best and if someone goes somewhere else, if we recruited them hard in an organized fashion, then okay. I realize Zatechka was only a WO recruit, but he would have been likely to give it his best shot. Maybe he just went to mizzou because of his sister? The point is that Nebraska is not good enough right now to slow play good local players as it has in the past.
 
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You're making a lot of the posters' point. We are not winning and appear to have high player turnover (before being here a year or two). Yes, we are doing better, but I've heard from one coach that the Nebraska coaches are unorganized in their recruiting. Back when you could visiting a high school, they would call the coach right before they were leaving Lincoln, call the coach and say, we will be there at 10, we want to talk to .... *** is right in that we should have the relationships with the coaches that they call us and say, hey you need to look at this kid as I'm getting calls from other P5 coaches.

I think it's safe to say that kids in Nebraska are less likely to transfer immediately if they aren't playing right away and are less likely to get homesick. So we really need to be on point on the local kids. Yes, so far we only missed out on Johnson and Watts. I really believe that the Johnson's had a bad taste in their mouth about the two younger brothers. THIS WAS NOT FROST'S FAULT, but it does show we have to be better at home. You're absolutely right in that if we were winning, this wouldn't be much of a conversation, be we are losing. Our best teams, had several great local players and right now the talent in Omaha and Nebraska in general is as good as I can remember in a while. I know several local HS well and they are all for their kids and "if" they feel they didn't get a fair look from Nebraska it does not help local recruiting. This even happened to the great Haden Fry, he slowed played Trev Alberts (a big hawkeye fan at the time and not a "Street and Smith's HS all American) and by the time he got around to him, Osborne already had him in the bag. Alberts has confirmed this several times.

Having said all this, I think they are changing, so let's hope for the best and if someone goes somewhere else, if we recruited them hard in an organized fashion, then okay. I realize Zatechka was only a WO recruit, but he would have been likely to give it his best shot. Maybe he just went to mizzou because of his sister? The point is that Nebraska is not good enough right now to slow play good local players as it has in the past.
I don't mean to pile on, but i'll give a story specifically like yours...

Levar Woods from Iowa, or Dan Jackson from South Dakota State would call up this one particular coach from their cell phones and say "I am going to be in town for two days, what works best for you and for me to see Player X and Player Y." The high school coach tells him and he builds around that (he calls the schools with a high priority recruit first then hits the outliers). When the college coach gets there he of course looks at their main guys, but also humors the high school coach "anyone else we should look at here or in the area? Anyone you think can get to the next level?" The coach feels like they are valued, etc. Keep in mind Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, and South Dakota State are all calling about specific guys 2-3 months before Nebraska is (identifying earlier).

I feel ok telling this now since Walters is gone... Conversely, the same coach that told me the above paragraph said he would be doing something and miss a call the night before from a Lincoln number. He calls it back and it's the Nebraska secretary but no message was left. So he doesn't think anything of it. At 830AM he misses a call from the same number but he's teaching a class. After class is out (roughly 20 minutes later) he checks the voicemail they left this time and it's the lady saying "Coach Walters is at your building please go meet him at your coaches office." So he calls the number back and says he was in class, has hall duty, but will have his assistant cover his class and go meet him in 5 minutes. "If you want to give me his number so he can just text me that's obviously fine" trying to cut out the middle man. He puts in his time, asks how the kid they are looking at is doing, and leaves after about 10 minutes. The coach says "by the way, a couple of other schools are looking at these other two guys, one is a Junior and one is just a freshman." Coach Walters responds with "we will catch them next time we are up here, the schedule is pretty tight today."

1) 2-3 month head start for division rivals recruiting kids (see why Dickerson chose Minnesota originally)
2) Showing up unannounced vs the coach giving him his cell and working it out ahead of time
3) Listening to coach suggestions on who to go after

Again, if we just recruit Dickerson the way we did the past 3 months and have him know he has an offer a couple months earlier, he's already signed with us and we aren't having to work that hard in January on him. But that's the difference between how Iowa has been recruiting as of late, and us.
 
You're making a lot of the posters' point. We are not winning and appear to have high player turnover (before being here a year or two). Yes, we are doing better, but I've heard from one coach that the Nebraska coaches are unorganized in their recruiting. Back when you could visiting a high school, they would call the coach right before they were leaving Lincoln, call the coach and say, we will be there at 10, we want to talk to .... *** is right in that we should have the relationships with the coaches that they call us and say, hey you need to look at this kid as I'm getting calls from other P5 coaches.

I think it's safe to say that kids in Nebraska are less likely to transfer immediately if they aren't playing right away and are less likely to get homesick. So we really need to be on point on the local kids. Yes, so far we only missed out on Johnson and Watts. I really believe that the Johnson's had a bad taste in their mouth about the two younger brothers. THIS WAS NOT FROST'S FAULT, but it does show we have to be better at home. You're absolutely right in that if we were winning, this wouldn't be much of a conversation, be we are losing. Our best teams, had several great local players and right now the talent in Omaha and Nebraska in general is as good as I can remember in a while. I know several local HS well and they are all for their kids and "if" they feel they didn't get a fair look from Nebraska it does not help local recruiting. This even happened to the great Haden Fry, he slowed played Trev Alberts (a big hawkeye fan at the time and not a "Street and Smith's HS all American) and by the time he got around to him, Osborne already had him in the bag. Alberts has confirmed this several times.

Having said all this, I think they are changing, so let's hope for the best and if someone goes somewhere else, if we recruited them hard in an organized fashion, then okay. I realize Zatechka was only a WO recruit, but he would have been likely to give it his best shot. Maybe he just went to mizzou because of his sister? The point is that Nebraska is not good enough right now to slow play good local players as it has in the past.
It’s weird to read this and I’m not doubting what you’re saying. When Frosts staff first got here the local coaches where saying they where doing a better job in a few months than our previous staffs had done in years. Frost got the top three linebackers in state and Hickman. They seem to be doing good with Midwest lineman as well. Sometimes I wonder if people just have a inflated view of how good the local kids are. If what you snd *** are saying is true they need to fix the communication part of what they’re doing. Hopefully as you stated it’s getting better. I know it was awful under Bo.
 
I have been pretty critical as of late regarding Frost and staff. However, I am going to call BS on the staff dropping the ball on recruiting. I just listened to Mike Schaefer on Sipple’s show this morning. He indicated recruits have told him the staff has done an excellent job in reaching out to them early and often. They are still connecting with kids. He thinks they are great salesmen. He is talked about the feedback he is getting is they put in a lot of time. An example was a LB from IL who on average is getting 4 calls from 4 different coaches.

My recollection too was that IZ declared he was uninterested in a walk-on offer. RZ has a pretty big platform. I enjoy listening to him but if you sit back and listen critically, he sounds like a dude who works about 60-70 hours a week as a doctor and gets to articulate his opinions as a hobby and really doesn’t have the time to really be an expert. IMHO, this whole thing is based upon a proud dad and proud uncle PO’d IZ didn’t get an offer based upon his genealogy.

There are plenty of things to be critical about with respect to Scott and the staff. This isn’t one of them.
 



I have been pretty critical as of late regarding Frost and staff. However, I am going to call BS on the staff dropping the ball on recruiting. I just listened to Mike Schaefer on Sipple’s show this morning. He indicated recruits have told him the staff has done an excellent job in reaching out to them early and often. They are still connecting with kids. He thinks they are great salesmen. He is talked about the feedback he is getting is they put in a lot of time. An example was a LB from IL who on average is getting 4 calls from 4 different coaches.

My recollection too was that IZ declared he was uninterested in a walk-on offer. RZ has a pretty big platform. I enjoy listening to him but if you sit back and listen critically, he sounds like a dude who works about 60-70 hours a week as a doctor and gets to articulate his opinions as a hobby and really doesn’t have the time to really be an expert. IMHO, this whole thing is based upon a proud dad and proud uncle PO’d IZ didn’t get an offer based upon his genealogy.

There are plenty of things to be critical about with respect to Scott and the staff. This isn’t one of them.
The issues with the staff are not how they recruit out of state players. They do really well there IMO. But they have a higher potential of being a flight risk. To reference another thing I don't agree with... they have verbatim said "if he was from Florida he would already have an offer" about a kid that was from Omaha.

In regard to the IZ thing... it's all about not getting back to the family for more than 2 weeks when they are trying to let you know what other schools are getting ready to do. Again, just an example of some of the things going on in Omaha with our recruiting. The kid would be committed here if he felt wanted. He didn't.

There should be zero difference between how they recruit out of state players and in-state guys. But if you can see a difference, it should be that we are all over the in-state guys. It's reversed right now.
 
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