If so, might be the easiest offseason title in history
For better or worse, this is how its gonna be going forward. Kids have very little loyalty when it comes to money, then you throw in the parental/agent type factor and it just does not pay to lose any sleep over any player.
Those days of me hoping and wishing on some high profile athlete that may sign with NU or may leave here are over. That's why I don't get excited about "who" we sign. They can come, be really great players and then gone in a year or so. They still have to prove it on the football field.
Give me a player like Suh or LP that's talking about leaving, and I'll start giving a crap again. Dylan? EJ? anyone else recently, there's a nation of talent out there to replace them and I hope they end up in the right situation. However, I'm not a "forever" Husker-type guy. When they leave like AMart, Jamari, etc, they put us in the rear view mirror, turnabout is fair play.
The idea of being a "development" program is a dated concept. Great young or proven talent is going to be easily identified by those schools that seem to win all the time. If NU was returning the entire defense we all know we need 2 dominant DL men and one difference maker at LB and we would have a very complete (not perfect) but very difficult defense to move the ball on. Then you dovetail that with a need for 2 or 3 needed dominate OLmen, another 1 and perhaps 2 (if EJ goes) RB's as well as a couple more WR's, the holes to be filled become magnified.
All those needs except 1 or 2 DL or OL and here we are again looking at maybe 7 or so wins again next year. This fanbase (and the admininstration cares less what we say) will soon become disenchanted with those low results and eventually, probably 2 years or so, Rhule will be gone and we can maybe get lucky and find the right guy. I'm resigned to the idea that's not gonna happen.
The fans I feel sorry for are those who always see the glass as half full. They get all pumped up just to be let down again. At least in my case, and many others, we have an understanding of what reality is and it makes the poor performances more palatable because we KNOW they will happen with Rhule's teams. It doesn't suck being a Husker fan, but for along time its been 51/49.