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Delusion of Osborne teams consisting of top recruiting classes

nchusker

nchusker

Red Shirt
10 Year Member
Those team were heavily compromised of Nebraska atheletes.

1995 Nebraska and the myth of championship recruiting – Concerning Sports

sportstreatise.com sportstreatise.com

With these guesstimates the starting lineup for Nebraska’s greatest team would have averaged at 2.8 stars on offense and 3.2 stars on defense. Some will surely scoff, perhaps I have Wistrom rated too low or made some other error or another in the eyes of people who followed these kinds of things back in 1992. Still, it’s hard to see this team having been comprised of blue-chip players when you look at who was involved and where they came from.
 
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nchusker said:
Those team were heavily compromised of Nebraska atheletes.

1995 Nebraska and the myth of championship recruiting – Concerning Sports

sportstreatise.com sportstreatise.com

With these guesstimates the starting lineup for Nebraska’s greatest team would have averaged at 2.8 stars on offense and 3.2 stars on defense. Some will surely scoff, perhaps I have Wistrom rated too low or made some other error or another in the eyes of people who followed these kinds of things back in 1992. Still, it’s hard to see this team having been comprised of blue-chip players when you look at who was involved and where they came from.
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Screenshot_20211024-133523_Chrome.jpg

Agree with the OP and this chart tells a pretty story.
 
nchusker said:
Those team were heavily compromised of Nebraska atheletes.

1995 Nebraska and the myth of championship recruiting – Concerning Sports

sportstreatise.com sportstreatise.com

With these guesstimates the starting lineup for Nebraska’s greatest team would have averaged at 2.8 stars on offense and 3.2 stars on defense. Some will surely scoff, perhaps I have Wistrom rated too low or made some other error or another in the eyes of people who followed these kinds of things back in 1992. Still, it’s hard to see this team having been comprised of blue-chip players when you look at who was involved and where they came from.
Click to expand...

People tend to mentally rank Nebraska's great players as finished products and forget how many were either lightly recruited or walk ons. No, Nebraska was not without talent. Far from it. Osborne won his share of battles for highly regarded kids (Gill, Frazier, Green, etc.) but he had far more 3 star type developmental players who took two or three years to see the field. These kids had talent and were developed into great players. A Lombardi Award finalist and All American like Jared Tomich is a perfect example of how NU won with less than top ten talent.
 



CrabHusker said:
People tend to mentally rank Nebraska's great players as finished products and forget how many were either lightly recruited or walk ons. No, Nebraska was not without talent. Far from it. Osborne won his share of battles for highly regarded kids (Gill, Frazier, Green, etc.) but he had far more 3 star type developmental players who took two or three years to see the field. These kids had talent and were developed into great players. A Lombardi Award finalist and All American like Jared Tomich is a perfect example of how NU won with less than top ten talent.
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That is key. Nebraska mostly developed these players. They weren’t recruited finished product.

This article does point out a fear I’ve had. That these tall tackles we are recruiting will not be good run blockers. The article states our tackles back then were 6’ 2.
 
jtf said:
This chart shows that leading up to kc years Emfinger and Lemming had top 10 classes. That’s the opposite of what the op is claiming.
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Lemming only ranked us in 3 different seasons.
Why are Wallace ranking so much different? At least he attempted to rank us in every season. :Lol:
 
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I'm not sure too many fans are under the delusion that Tom had top recruiting classes consistently. I think the larger delusion is that Tom's teams were a bunch of "little engines that could." That 92 class was pivotal, and it's average ranking is 9.7.

I'd add that once you arbitrarily designate a couple of offensive walk-ons as "zero-star" players, you have some heavily skewed data. Osborne leveraged local talent very effectively, but he was also the 3rd best recruiter of his generation behind Switzer and Bowden.

In any case, the secret behind Nebraska's success isn't some great riddle to be solved. It was mostly Tom Osborne, who truly deserves the "offensive genius" tag that the author of the linked article so casually tosses at Scott Frost. It was also a triumph of system, development, S&C and recruiting. I don't think anybody believes Tom "Gene Chizik'd" his way to championships.
 
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jtf said:
This chart shows that leading up to nc years Emfinger and Lemming had top 10 classes. That’s the opposite of what the op is claiming.
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The article in the OP acknowledges Tom's classes were consistently top 10 to 15ish. He then takes the starting lineup of the 1995 team, arbitrarily awards zero stars to walk-ons, calculates the average star ranking and voila! Tom coached up a bunch of lunch pail kids who played 8-man ball in Bayard.
 




nchusker said:
That is key. Nebraska mostly developed these players. They weren’t recruited finished product.

This article does point out a fear I’ve had. That these tall tackles we are recruiting will not be good run blockers. The article states our tackles back then were 6’ 2.
Click to expand...
Guards & tackles who were athletes & could pull & run. Plenty of class B & C Players even if not all state. Hardly any over 6’6”
 
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