Locked due to no posts in 60 days. Report 1st post if need unlocked The Huskers could still end up at 27 or 28 in this class with the late 'surprises'

[SoCalRed]

How many rides left for the walkons? This staff is still reluctant to give more than one or two in state talent offers. Bo needs to be very careful. He needs a couple of scholarships to dangle the carrot, to keep the walkons coming.

Train, I think they dangle that carrot fairly well by giving out 3 to 4 scholarships every year to walk-ons.

 

[SoCalRed]

Correct. The difference isn't that Alabama carries more guys on their roster, it's that Alabama kicks the Nick Ashes and Jay Guys of the world to the curb and uses those slots to sign more kids out of high school, whereas Nebraska usually carries them for four years. Add in the fact that Alabama oversigns and then places kids on greyshirt status, and you've got a recipe for having a roster with far fewer recruiting "busts" than your competition.

Well, they have the same number of busts that anyone else does, probably more, considering how many they sign and how many they ask to leave after two or three seasons. The difference is that they have more recruits from which to choose and plug the gaps that busts can leave on the roster.

 

[jslsker]

How many rides left for the walkons? This staff is still reluctant to give more than one or two in state talent offers. Bo needs to be very careful. He needs a couple of scholarships to dangle the carrot, to keep the walkons coming.

Bo has given out at least 4 scholarships to walk-ons every year he has been here.

 

[jslsker]

If I'm not mistaken, we already have three players on campus who are being counted back to last season, moving that class to 20 total. If you're accurate, then we're sitting on 84 scholarships which leaves room for 28 still to be filled in this class.

If we don't take twenty-eight, but settle at 25 we would stil have taken a full class, and we'd have maybe four available schollies for walk-ons this year.

That's not an unreasonable proposition.

We can take a class of 28 this year, because we had 3 early enrollees which can be counted back leaving us at 25.

If you include the 23 commits we have now, we are at 81 scholarships for next year. If we only take 25, we finish at 83 as of signing day. That automatically leaves you two spots for walk-ons. But the issue is...again...as history has proven, you will see another 4-5 guys that are slated to be on scholarship next year leave the program between now and our next game. So the spots for 2 walk-ons turn into 6 or 7.

You can't do that and expect to compete at the top level. You don't increase your talent that way.

I'm all for giving walk-ons spots but do it with the attrition that always occurs. Don't handcuff yourself by holding spots back.

 

[jslsker]

I'm sorry, sisk, but I'm looking at the numbers and I'm really trying to understand your your point about the 8-9 losses per year. Maybe I'm missing something, but that does not sound accurate to me.

The 2008 class had four total losses: Lester Ward, Collins Okafor, Kody Spano, and David Grant (if you're counting players that never make it to campus). Two were early grads who were never really factors on the field, and one transfered out to another school. I would count that as a minus three in attrition.

The 2009 class had seven total losses: Nick Ash (non-factor), Jesse Coffey (non-factor), J.T. Kerr (non-factor), Dijon Washington (non-factor), Lazzari Middleton (non-factor), Cody Green (transferred out to another school), D. Robinson (asked to leave the team). You can't count jucos as defections, and you can't really count kids that never make it to campus because of grades or injuries. Minus seven.

The 2010 class had one "defection" with Marsh transferring out. Again you can't count jucos as defections. minus one.

The 2011 class is the one that everyone wants to point to as indicative of problems in the program, but in fact, it only had four defections. Aaron Green, Tyler Moore, Ryan Klachko, and Todd Peat. Peat was a victim of injury, Klachko broke team rules and was asked to leave, Moore and Greean were dealing with multiple issues. Again, you can't count jucos as defections, and Bubba never really joined the team. Minus four.

As yet, we've seen zero defections from the 2012 class, even though we didn't get the one guy we wanted at the very last. But he was never committed to the team.

All together that adds up to fifteeen players who actually joined the team who subsequently moved on. Ten of those were complete non-factors for playing time because we had players who were simply better. Even at that we're looking at an average of three players per year who leave the team. THREE, not eight or nine. An average of three defections per year from a football team is pretty standard, and this issue really has little to do with filling the 85 scholarship limit. Three walk-ons per year being awarded a scholarship is pretty standard stuff.

IMO, you don't fill a class just for the sake of filling it. You end up with too many kids that aren't productive or who may become disillusioned by the fact that they simply can't compete even though they're on scholarship.

Go look at my post on the last page. I listed names by year breaking it down.

Every year that Bo has been here, we've losted on average, 9 games who were to be on scholarship the following year.

I agree with you entirely that you don't fill the class for the sake of filling it. What I am saying is that you recruit a higher amount to fill the class and don't stop short because attrition will happen. You can use that attrition to award walk-ons spots