I would hope guys like Alvarado, Schreiber, and Wilkening excite you. The problem I think you probably meant is guys like Altavilla, Hallmark, Hagge, Repinski, Roskam, Tillotson and others are fringe guys that could be all-conference, but still have a bit to prove.
There's two things I think Erstad needed to do to boost our team, recruit more local talent, and then possibly make some assistant coach moves. The first, really bugs you when you see we decided to not let Hoffman walk-on as he is now Texas A&Ms closer. Helman was down at Hutch and after his first year would have came for the minimum scholarship offer, he's started every game for them and is batting .375. Foster was never coming here so Erstad gets a pass there, but what about someone like Alec Bohm from Omaha Roncalli who has started every game for a Wichita State team that nearly swept us and is hitting .344 with 5 bombs? You can't let guys that would have came to your school for nothing go elsewhere. The good news is that Mojo Hagge opened Erstad's eyes, and we got 5 of the top 6 players in Nebraska committed for 2018, and that will pay serious dividends. No offense to Hagge, but that kid being a massive piece to our team when he was probably the 10th best player in his class his senior year helps let us know what we should be doing. Erstad grabbed the best lefty in the state Perry, and followed it up with the second best lefty in Feekin. He grabbed one of the better power arms out of the state in Gomes who is going to decide between the draft and coming to Nebraska, Erstad offered him when he hadn't played a game of varsity baseball yet. You then have other guys we took that are the foundation to help our out of state guys. We will be loaded in the coming years, they did an unbelievable job with the 2018 class, tho our final ranking may not show it.
But the piece i'm still not sure of yet is his assistants. Kirby came in and we had our worst offensive season in quite some time, so Erstad now makes the calls from the dugout. Silva I think is a good pitching coach, but 5 arms shut down this year to injury is too many. It's not all his fault, Waldrons throwing 100+innings at Westside and other things don't help. But at some point shaking things up may help.
To that point, the problem becomes you are only as good as who you can get. Like when we fired Pelini and hired Riley, I told people then it was a dumb move. Erstad is Pelini with an additional conference title and coach of the year honor, minus the off the field crap. So looking back on things, should we really change anything up (not saying you are advocating for that)? It also goes back to who you can get. We couldn't get Bolt here, but let's say we could for two years before he bolted back down to Texas for a head coaching job, would it be worth it? No good coach is coming to a conference that limits scholarships at a level that you can't compete with the SEC and Big12, it just won't happen.
I personally think we are right there but will have a bit of a setback this year. If we finish top 3 in the conference that will be a heck of a coaching job. We need to weather the storm and know that if we get everyone on campus from our 2018 class, we have a legitimate shot to get out of a regional for the first time in quite awhile. Erstad has brought us a conference title and taken us to regionals 3 of the last 4 years, that's tough to do in the 8th or 9th best conference in the country.
That got long. Apologies.
I dump both Kirby and Silva.
