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Nebraska over 300 offers for the 2021 class

Interested to get the boards thoughts on this:


When I first saw it, it really doesn't matter in my opinion. With social media like twitter, instagram, etc., you can gauge an athletes interest really quick. Does it really matter if one of those offers is us sending an offer to a five star lineman over twitter and we don't get anywhere with him? My initial thought was I love it. Gotta cast a wide net and see who is interested. After all, it costs us nothing to offer a kid. Or does it?

I started hearing how our neighbors to the east are using it to negative recruit against us this cycle. How a Nebraska offer used to mean something, now look how many kids they offer. So I went back to the tweet and started looking at the general thoughts:



Let's be honest, a lot of those are just fans. But I did take notice when programs and their coaches were starting to say it to kids we are recruiting in our own backyard. And if you go to that tweet, you get a lot of Nebraska fans defending it and quoting our recruiting ranking compared to places like Wisconsin and Iowa since they were the ones popping off the most. Of course, those schools would just post the scores of the games the past 5 years to counter our recruiting ranking. They have scoreboard on us the only place that matters.

There was then a recruiting analyst that came on the radio these past couple weeks that talked about how Mike Riley went after the highly rated recruit, but maybe that recruit didn't fit into his system which is why our rankings were high but didn't get the on field success we were hoping for. Is that what we are doing currently? Are we offering every highly ranked kid? Or are we truly evaluating every offer we have out? Does it de-value our brand doing it this way? I still lean toward i'll send an offer to a kid to gauge his interest, but I can assure you our rivals are recruiting against us using this.

What's the board think?
 
That’s interesting. Certainly a lot of offers out. I’m not sure how to read that. There is a case for both sides of the fence I think.

If this program could just start winning again. Damn. It recruits well given its success. Wonder what it could do if it was winning.
 



That’s interesting. Certainly a lot of offers out. I’m not sure how to read that. There is a case for both sides of the fence I think.

If this program could just start winning again. Damn. It recruits well given its success. Wonder what it could do if it was winning.
I think I would do it the same way we are doing it. I mean, every Rivals250 guy is going to help us and then you think of the guys like Ben Stille, Devine Ozigbo, Stanley Morgan, Luke Gifford that weren't rated that high and you see how they can add up. I just found it really interesting it's a negative recruiting tactic against us, and I guess I can see their point.
 
I don't think it's that hard to believe that there are 300+ high school seniors in the country that could potentially help Nebraska.
I bet there's more than that, but what it got me thinking is are we offering the guys that we think can help us? Or are we going the Riley route of offering highly ranked guys that may not be a good fit?

Again, I think I do it the way we are doing it. But I was just shocked to hear this is one of the things our rivals brought up to a kid we are both recruiting.
 
I bet there's more than that, but what it got me thinking is are we offering the guys that we think can help us? Or are we going the Riley route of offering highly ranked guys that may not be a good fit?

Again, I think I do it the way we are doing it. But I was just shocked to hear this is one of the things our rivals brought up to a kid we are both recruiting.
There are guys that Nebraska thinks highly of that aren't high star guys - Conn, Piper, Stille, etc. Does Nebraska offer a lot of those level of guys that "fit" with the vision, or are most of the offers high rated athletic types? I would be interested to see a breakdown of those offered by position and ranking, but I bet it's pretty hard to come by. Nebraska has always tried to get the skill guys from wherever, and the rest from close to Lincoln. That's still the method, isn't it?
 
From the last 2 years it seems as if Nebraska offers early and often. Smothers I believe was lightly recruited when Nebraska offered and got their foot in the door. I like the idea of offering those you want, regardless of the number, and then weigh the feedback and pare down the list. Sure as heck beats offering everyone late.
 



I'm under the impression that Frost wants athletes and thinks he can plug them in where needed. If that's the case, I'm not sure that has been successful here, so far.

I don't follow recruiting at all because, to me, it's such an inexact science, so I can't say whether or not this is a good idea. It does seem a little out of whack that we have 37% more offers than Michigan. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that we're just recruiting numbers and not establishing relationships; that's just rival talk. Only the recruit knows whether or not he connects with the coaches.
 
My answer depends on how good our recruiting system is. Are we really good at identifying kids early? Do we communicate with everyone we offer in an effective and constant manner to keep them interested?

If we're busting our ass more than other schools, I don't have a problem with this number of offers.

If you tell me we're going to put in the same amount of work regardless of if we offer 100 kids or 300, then I have a problem with it. If we're only willing to dedicate 100 hours a week to recruiting (made up number), then we need to focus our efforts to say 100 kids (again, made up for simplicity)

If we're willing to scale up from that 100 hours to 300 hours if we offer 300 kids AND those hours are just as productive as the 100, I'm good with it.

I have no idea how well we recruit behind the scenes. I'm guessing we do pretty well given that we tend to pull in good classes with the worst results the last two years anyone alive can remember.
 
One thing I'm not sure we know is what kind of follow-up is associated with all those offer letters? If we're just carpet bombing offer letters, I don't think that's good. But if all those letters are being followed up with contact by a coach, and those offer letters are just the beginning of our relationship building process, then that may be good.
 
This does not bother me whatsoever.

I'm sure of the 326 there are probably 100 that we are extremely focused on ... their "get-ability" is probably pretty high and/or they fit a specific need. The other 226 are probably embedded in the top 300 or 400 kids throughout the country ... if one of those kids said hey I'm interested then they might move to that list of 100 almost immediately.
 



I can understand why our rivals would use this against us... heck, I’m guessing they’ll use/spin anything we do as a negative if it means they can turn a kid In their favor.

I do wonder though about quality versus quantity. The comment above regarding time/effort spent is a very good one.

If the resources committed to performing quality assessments (especially for cultural fit... which Frost openly touts as critical) are consistent no matter the quantity, then all good.

But throwing a bunch of offers out to see “what sticks” could potentially lead to harder (instead of smarter) work... and potential wastes of time/effort for the coaches AND the recruits/players.
 
If you own a 7-11 and a fine Italian restaraunt...........I believe you may have to "ask a lot more people" to come in to buy the 25 cold sandwich's you just took out of the box....... as opposed to the number of people you would have to ask to come in and enjoy the fresh pasta you just prepared.
 

I don't mind it. Throw out a blanket of offers to good players to see if they're interested. If they show interest then you really take the time to evaluate if they're a good fit. If he isn't a good fit you revoke the offer. Its not a great look but its pretty common these days. This would save a lot of time and energy for a place that recruits nationally as opposed to a school having half their class within short driving distance.
 

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