HOL anonymous high school coaches feedback

[70county]

Anyone who has spent time in Arizona knows about Jerry Colangelo. If NU wants to hire someone to change the direction of the Athletic Department and our major sports - they should hire him as a part time consultant. I have attached an article to reference for your enjoyment. But there is one statement from the Arizona Republic that stands out, and even though referencing GCU's basketball coach, I think it applies to any HC that wants to drive success:

"He's doing an amazing job," Colangelo said. "He's as hard working as you can find as a coach. To recruit, you have to work 365 days at it. The recruiting never stops. To watch his development this year and what's taken place with the players, etc., it's over the top."*

* https://www.azcentral.com/story/spo...-vision-once-colangelo-came-board/4721262001/

This has to be an absolute joke! That snake is best never stepping foot in this state... #TTP

 

[Megatron]

This has to be an absolute joke! That snake is best never stepping foot in this state... #TTP

You’ll have to fill me in. Must be something I don’t know.

 

[FeelLikeAStranger]

I had heard Bo just expected people to come here. When Riley got here, I remember multiple coaches saying "i've seen and talked to this staff more than the other staff the last 7 years." That said, we would send Hughes up to the State Track Meet to recruit and he lasted a year.

I think this staff is doing ok, but a recruiting analyst told me "the bigger your support staff the more issues that can come up if you aren't organized." I think that rings a true a bit for us.

Win and this all goes away like you said. I'm sure TO wasn't at every high school.

Didnt have to be...his offense was, for the most part. He literally created an entire state of feeder schools through coaching clinics and outreach, etc.

I think any head coach at Nebraska should put an emphasis on football in the state. It goes a long way.

 

[CrabHusker]

I think it's obvious, Rivals has an ax to grind. ONLY explanation here.

Disagree.

Fair and balanced.

Snicker.

 

[DuckTownHusker]

I am not sure that we have lost a kid outside of Omaha that we have recruited since Frost has been here. The Omaha schools/coaches have an elitist mentality that they have to be coddled to and if you don't offer every kid they have its an insult. The rest of the state doesn't seem to share the same feeling that the Omaha high schools do. I can say this as an assistant coach at a class A school. These kids from Omaha have a different mentality than the kids in the rest of the state.

Its a different mentality with kids in general than it used to be but the big cities like Omaha kids will transfer to many schools and have no allegiance or loyalty to anyone except themselves

If we won games this would all be a non issue

It's a big city issue. Metropolitan area.

There are HUNDREDS of high school kids in Omaha who's families are from every place in the country. Their dad played for Florida. Uncle was a LB for USC. Their family bleeds Tennessee Orange. And Mom/Dad moved to Omaha for a job and brought their fandom with them.

Meanwhile, nobody (relatively) is moving to Alliance, York, or Hastings for a job. At least not some big career move from NYC or California.

There's inherently less "Huskerness" in metro areas simply due to population movement.

 

[ShortSideOption]

Seems like an easy fix. Just communicate with the hs coaches more. ??

I think that's an easy fix to work with. But some of the things that come with that could be tough. If there is already some miscommunication and disorganization when we are mostly talking to the recruits, what happens when we double who we are talking to when you add the coach to the mix?

If Iowa State, Mizzou, and Iowa can do it effectively I think we should be able to as well but we just aren't quite at that level yet.

 

[ShortSideOption]

Didnt have to be...his offense was, for the most part. He literally created an entire state of feeder schools through coaching clinics and outreach, etc.

I think any head coach at Nebraska should put an emphasis on football in the state. It goes a long way.

Agree. Crouch, Davies, McLaughlin, that Millard North program was just one of many before you start talking about the fullbacks from Brainard or even the WRs from Tecumseh or Papillion coming in.

What's interesting is schools like Bellevue West are running the spread now too. While I wouldn't say Bell West is exactly like Nebraska since they are a bit more Air Raid, but they have weapons everywhere that would fit nicely here. That could be a great feeder program for us with a coach that bleeds Huskers.

I think they need a little more outreach to the coaches. I was looking at our walk-on class, and we only have 4 kids coming from outside the Lincoln or Omaha area. We still have 21 coming in, but it's mostly the big city kids.

 

[NUinID]

It's a big city issue. Metropolitan area.

There are HUNDREDS of high school kids in Omaha who's families are from every place in the country. Their dad played for Florida. Uncle was a LB for USC. Their family bleeds Tennessee Orange. And Mom/Dad moved to Omaha for a job and brought their fandom with them.

Meanwhile, nobody (relatively) is moving to Alliance, York, or Hastings for a job. At least not some big career move from NYC or California.

There's inherently less "Huskerness" in metro areas simply due to population movement.

I think this is a definitely part of the problem. Not the only one. I agree with @speedy44 and his assessment also. Winning more games than we are losing will also be a big help.

 

[speedy44]

It's a big city issue. Metropolitan area.

There are HUNDREDS of high school kids in Omaha who's families are from every place in the country. Their dad played for Florida. Uncle was a LB for USC. Their family bleeds Tennessee Orange. And Mom/Dad moved to Omaha for a job and brought their fandom with them.

Meanwhile, nobody (relatively) is moving to Alliance, York, or Hastings for a job. At least not some big career move from NYC or California.

There's inherently less "Huskerness" in metro areas simply due to population movement.

You nailed it and I never thought of it that way but we have one or two kids move in a year it seems like but we lose just as many. The talent level in Omaha is incredible and its hard for the rest of the state to complete. Thats true at class A and B

 

[True Husker]

I've brought this up before, so i'll just repost it:

The Omaha kids have more options. Guys like Haarberg, Carnie, and Gifford are choosing us over Iowa, Boston College, and Oregon State. Even go look at the 2019 class where our staff did a great job keeping guys, the out of Omaha guys were Snodgrass, Nelson, and Piper. The best offer was Iowa for those recruits. Deshawn Woods has LSU and Florida offers, Jackson has Notre Dame and A&M offers, Helms has an Oklahoma offer, Riley got offered from Penn State. Since the 2011 class, there's only been 2 in-state recruits outside of Omaha that had bigger offers than Iowa, and that's Bryson Williams and Jared Bubak. That's pretty staggering to only have two in a decade. So what if more kids outside of Omaha had the offers these Omaha kids did, would we all of a sudden be losing them at the rate we are losing these Omaha kids? I think yes. And that's one of the big issues IMO.

I don't think Huffman, Limongi, Landstrom, or any other coaches have elitist mentalities, I just believe they have exposure to more coaches and recruiting styles than outside of Omaha coaches. I truly don't think Woods, Riley, Helms, or Jackson have us outside their top 5 because of an elitist mentality from them or their coach. They are looking at winning programs where they've been recruited the best.

I do think I have something kind of figured out though... I think our staff is reaching out to the kids quite a bit. Now, the message may not always be what the kid wants, but I do think they are reaching out quite a bit. But where I think we drop the ball which is being illustrated a bit with this survey, is we don't reach out to the coaches as much as we do the kids and we don't reach out to the coaches as much as Iowa State, Mizzou, or Iowa does. So when a kid hears something he just thinks about it on his own, where if the coaches were involved like Miami is doing then the message becomes relayed multiple times and you have someone on your side within the school.

I do understand that creates quite a bit more work for our staff. But to me hearing what the recruits say, and then hearing how the coaches responded to this seems like there's a disconnect.

EDIT: Left Cam Jurgens out of my out of Omaha kids with big time offers for some reason. My bad.

In three words, what I have heard a recruit directly say is: indecisive and stand-offish.

 

[ShortSideOption]

In three words, what I have heard a recruit directly say is: indecisive and stand-offish.

I think the issue is the indecisiveness comes from who they are talking to being unsure about the final verdict on the recruit or being on a different page as other people.

What's very interesting to me is when our staff says "if it were up to me, he'd have an offer right now." As opposed to a group like Iowa saying "this is what Kirk is waiting to see before we offer." They are pretty lockstep. What's really confusing is with a guy like Carnie who was coming to Nebraska no matter what, we did that with him. "This is what we want to see" and he put out a highlight reel with those things and he got an offer.

Really really really devils advocate here, but nearly all the guys we had a chance with (Riley, Helms, and Woods) are offensive guys. So was there some indecision on what our direction is offensively? Everyone keeps saying we are going bigger with more north/south, so are we a little up in the air?

 

[True Husker]

I think the issue is the indecisiveness comes from who they are talking to being unsure about the final verdict on the recruit or being on a different page as other people.

What's very interesting to me is when our staff says "if it were up to me, he'd have an offer right now." As opposed to a group like Iowa saying "this is what Kirk is waiting to see before we offer." They are pretty lockstep. What's really confusing is with a guy like Carnie who was coming to Nebraska no matter what, we did that with him. "This is what we want to see" and he put out a highlight reel with those things and he got an offer.

Really really really devils advocate here, but nearly all the guys we had a chance with (Riley, Helms, and Woods) are offensive guys. So was there some indecision on what our direction is offensively? Everyone keeps saying we are going bigger with more north/south, so are we a little up in the air?

Personally, I just think this staff is inexperienced when dealing with higher level talent and players than that of UCF.

 

[True Husker]

I think the issue is the indecisiveness comes from who they are talking to being unsure about the final verdict on the recruit or being on a different page as other people.

What's very interesting to me is when our staff says "if it were up to me, he'd have an offer right now." As opposed to a group like Iowa saying "this is what Kirk is waiting to see before we offer." They are pretty lockstep. What's really confusing is with a guy like Carnie who was coming to Nebraska no matter what, we did that with him. "This is what we want to see" and he put out a highlight reel with those things and he got an offer.

Really really really devils advocate here, but nearly all the guys we had a chance with (Riley, Helms, and Woods) are offensive guys. So was there some indecision on what our direction is offensively? Everyone keeps saying we are going bigger with more north/south, so are we a little up in the air?

It’s one thing to place demands on players when you are Bama or Clemson, but when you have no reason to be picky after as many losing seasons as we have had, that tells me your too prideful, wet behind the ears, and inexperienced.

 

[YUENGLING]

It's a big city issue. Metropolitan area.

There are HUNDREDS of high school kids in Omaha who's families are from every place in the country. Their dad played for Florida. Uncle was a LB for USC. Their family bleeds Tennessee Orange. And Mom/Dad moved to Omaha for a job and brought their fandom with them.

Meanwhile, nobody (relatively) is moving to Alliance, York, or Hastings for a job. At least not some big career move from NYC or California.

There's inherently less "Huskerness" in metro areas simply due to population movement.

Bingo!

 

[HuskerSuperGenius]

Personally, I just think this staff is inexperienced when dealing with higher level talent and players than that of UCF.

Thats a BINGO!

1. Overall, Scott's staff has recruited well.
2. The recruiting and relationship issues in the local area point out the INEXPERIENCE of the staff which we see in multiple other areas:
A. Lack of attention to Special Teams
B. Failure to keep recruits on campus
C. Penalties
D. Inability to close out games they could have/should have won.

One special season and this staff felt that they had "special sauce" and didn't have to do the little things. That is a manifestation of an inexperienced Head Coach!

GBR