90s Recruiting

[TheBeav815]

Felt this deserved its own thread. We see often this notion that NU dominated in the 90s with middling recruiting and a bunch of farm kid nobodies running on juice and heart. As Mike Gundy once said, THAT AIN'T TRUE!!!

Found this on Reddit, somebody put together a spreadsheet of Tom Lemming's top recruits from 90 - '05 at several positions. Best of the best kids that year. You're gonna see NEBRASKA next to a bunch of the names.

They didn't have five major services with full staffs analyzing internet video and camp numbers of thousands of kids to arrive at good composite ratings and putting out day-to-day class standings. They had a few guys ranking kids and it would show up in a magazine that only the most hardcore of CFB nerds bought.

I looked through 1990 and we got a bunch of the guys. You're going to recognize the names like Ed Steward, Calvin Jones, Donta Jones, Terry Conneally. In 90 they had like 4 guys on his top OL list and you'll see several others who ended up playing another position at NU. Like Corey Dixon who was listed at CB but played WR/PR for Nebraska.

They got elite athletes and found a way to get them on the field.

Here is the sheet.

 

[TheBeav815]

Look at just the guys who made Lemming's short list from '91.

Clester Johnson and Tony Veland as QB commits was interesting. Clester played Wingback and Veland played Safety and went on to the NFL at the position.

You may remember #21 Nose Guard Christian Peter.

ILBs Doug Coleman and Phil Ellis both made the list. I know I know, they're white, but they weren't just some hayseeds we plucked on a random 8-man team.

CB Abdul Muhammed ended up playing WR. CB Troy Dumas ended up moving down to WILL and being a damn good LB.

A couple flame-outs on the list as well, big name recruits that NU got who never really made a big impact.

 

[CatColumbia]

Interesting to not see Eric Crouch. Was he not highly regarded coming out of High School?

 

[9and4_rivals188421]

On the other end of talent recruitment and development, there's the NFL draft, which went from 12 rounds to seven rounds in 1993. In seven-year increments, here is how many Huskers were drafted during those periods:

• 1993-1999: 45 Huskers in the draft. (.892 winning percentage from 1992-1998)
• 2000-2006: 30 Huskers in the draft. (.701 winning percentage from 1999-2005)
• 2007-2013: 26 Huskers in the draft. (.660 winning percentage from 2006-2012)
• 2014-2020: 12 Huskers so far, with maybe 2-3 next year, tops. (.543 win percentage from 2013-2019 so far)

 

[TheBeav815]

92 signees:

How about the #1 option QB? That make for a good class? Tommie Frazier. They also got #14 dual threat Ben Rutz. Don't remember him personally.

Two of the top RBs in Clinton Childs and Marvin Sims.

#14 Wingback Mike Minter. NFL Safety for many years, Panthers IIRC. #19 Wingback Riley Washington.

#27 TE Ryan Terwilliger. Played DL for Nebraska I believe.

#19 OT Jeff Ogard

#39 G Jim Steibel. (Who??)

#10 DT Larry Townsend

#14 NG Scott Saltsman

#10 LB Ed Morrow

#22 OLB Larry Arnold

#61 JUCO Toby Wright

 

[John_J_Rambo]

Interesting to not see Eric Crouch. Was he not highly regarded coming out of High School?

he was not

 

[TheBeav815]

Interesting to not see Eric Crouch. Was he not highly regarded coming out of High School?

Yeah that is odd. Maybe because he stopped doing Option QBs and didn't think much of his throwing skills?

 

[WoodRiverJennings]

Interesting to not see Eric Crouch. Was he not highly regarded coming out of High School?

He was pretty highly regarded coming out of HS. I remember seeing him on at least one or two "top 100" lists. Newcombe was rated higher, though.

Edit: IIRC they were top 100 lists, but I suppose they could've been like a top 150 or 200. So damn long ago!!

 

[cubsker_rivals142943]

Crouch was hurt for a decent part of his senior year after a monster jr year. Doubt that would be as big of a deal now as it was then as far as rankings go.

 

[TheBeav815]

They have Crouch in like the 97 or 98 class under Pass-Run qbs

 

[Baxter48_rivals204143]

92 signees:

How about the #1 option QB? That make for a good class? Tommie Frazier. They also got #14 dual threat Ben Rutz. Don't remember him personally.

Two of the top RBs in Clinton Childs and Marvin Sims.

#14 Wingback Mike Minter. NFL Safety for many years, Panthers IIRC. #19 Wingback Riley Washington.

#27 TE Ryan Terwilliger. Played DL for Nebraska I believe.

#19 OT Jeff Ogard

#39 G Jim Steibel. (Who??)

#10 DT Larry Townsend

#14 NG Scott Saltsman

#10 LB Ed Morrow

#22 OLB Larry Arnold

#61 JUCO Toby Wright

Ben Rutz left Nebraska went to a juco then Kansas.

 

[zrob_rivals105618]

Interesting to not see Eric Crouch. Was he not highly regarded coming out of High School?

Though not as highly rated as Newcombe, Crouch was very highly recruited and nearly chose Notre Dame over Nebraska. Prep-Star All-American.

 

[ridge222]

Felt this deserved its own thread. We see often this notion that NU dominated in the 90s with middling recruiting and a bunch of farm kid nobodies running on juice and heart. As Mike Gundy once said, THAT AIN'T TRUE!!!

Found this on Reddit, somebody put together a spreadsheet of Tom Lemming's top recruits from 90 - '05 at several positions. Best of the best kids that year. You're gonna see NEBRASKA next to a bunch of the names.

They didn't have five major services with full staffs analyzing internet video and camp numbers of thousands of kids to arrive at good composite ratings and putting out day-to-day class standings. They had a few guys ranking kids and it would show up in a magazine that only the most hardcore of CFB nerds bought.

I looked through 1990 and we got a bunch of the guys. You're going to recognize the names like Ed Steward, Calvin Jones, Donta Jones, Terry Conneally. In 90 they had like 4 guys on his top OL list and you'll see several others who ended up playing another position at NU. Like Corey Dixon who was listed at CB but played WR/PR for Nebraska.

They got elite athletes and found a way to get them on the field.

Here is the sheet.

If you look at where a lot of these guy came from you are going to see the Big 8 & Big 12 footprint is very evident. Also NJ and MA and Cali and Florida. You would get a few here and there from IL, but hardly any from the Big 10 footprint.

Then if you go back in the 80's Omaha was producing a lot of recruits and specifically RB's.

 

[WoodRiverJennings]

If you look at where a lot of these guy came from you are going to see the Big 8 & Big 12 footprint is very evident. Also NJ and MA and Cali and Florida. You would get a few here and there from IL, but hardly any from the Big 10 footprint.

Then if you go back in the 80's Omaha was producing a lot of recruits and specifically RB's.

We also landed the top guys from AZ quite often, IIRC. That state was pretty good to us.

 

[TheBeav815]

If you look at where a lot of these guy came from you are going to see the Big 8 & Big 12 footprint is very evident. Also NJ and MA and Cali and Florida. You would get a few here and there from IL, but hardly any from the Big 10 footprint.

Then if you go back in the 80's Omaha was producing a lot of recruits and specifically RB's.

Was a different era not just for HS sports but for college. Everything lived and died on your ability to run the ball. Nebraska high schools were running power-based offenses and very often triple option offenses as well. And so were most Big 8 teams. It gave you a real good idea who was gonna be able to run, block and tackle at the next level against very similar schemes.

It was unheard of to have a QB throw it 40 times for a coach not named June Jones. Now, that's just a Saturday. They're analyzing and projecting very different kinds of athletes now, especially at the skill positions.

 

[zrob_rivals105618]

Everything lived and died on your ability to run the ball. Nebraska high schools were running power-based offenses and very often triple option offenses as well.

You are absolutely right about that. The High Schools in Nebraska were trying their absolute best to provide players built for Osborne's offense at NU. The school Crouch went to (Millard North) ran the Option specifically for that reason, and that started even with the Junior High Schools that were going to feed into Millard North eventually. It was a pretty good system and they had a lot of success.

I know the state of Nebraska doesn't have a ton of athletes that can play at NU and some people don't like Frost's offense (YET), but it would be very cool if he sticks around long enough that someday the state High Schools will will also try to tailor their athletes for his offense. I doubt that can happen, not because I lack confidence in Frost but the football and the whole world has just changed so much i don't know if it could ever be like that again.

 

[WTFMatt]

Interesting to not see Eric Crouch. Was he not highly regarded coming out of High School?

Crouch was #2 in the Pass-Run category in 1997. Interestingly enough, Bobby Newcombe was #4. I see why there was such a controversy in 1998.

 

[GILL T]

Millard North running the option had nothing to do with providing players for Nebraska. When Petito started coaching in Nebraska he ran a split back "veer" offense. True triple option with very little passing. He believed in running the ball and being the more physical team. Still does.

 

[zrob_rivals105618]

Crouch was #2 in the Pass-Run category in 1997. Interestingly enough, Bobby Newcombe was #4. I see why there was such a controversy in 1998.

#2 from which publication? There were a lot of them back then with nobody really being one that everyone knew about or followed. I still have some magazines from Prep Star and Gridiron Greats and maybe 1 or 2 others.

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

Thanks for this information.
Everyone and their blind dog can see we severely lack talent. As Osborne himself said during his halftime interview during the Florida game that it wasn’t his “game plan” that was killing Florida, but the talent that Nebraska had on the field.

What Pelini and Riley did to our talent level is still being felt. So everyone on here trashing Frost needs to have their head examined. Frost will need multiple years of solid recruiting to get this thing back. Right now his recruiting is good enough to get us back to being a top 25 team on a regular basis. From there he can build to even better recruiting. And don’t forget the walk ones he is developing. They are projects that take time.

Frost wasn’t going to come in here and start landing top ten recruiting classes right away. Unlike teams like Ohio State and Penn State, Nebraska has to recruit nationally. And that means trying to lure the Tommie Frazier type talents out of places like Florida to come to cold and boring Nebraska. What current incentives do such players have to come here? Other than Frost and our fan support, nothing. This thing is not going to get turned around overnight folks.

 

[otismotis08]

Thanks for this information.
Everyone and their blind dog can see we severely lack talent. As Osborne himself said during his halftime interview during the Florida game that it wasn’t his “game plan” that was killing Florida, but the talent that Nebraska had on the field.

What Pelini and Riley did to our talent level is still being felt. So everyone on here trashing Frost needs to have their head examined. Frost will need multiple years of solid recruiting to get this thing back. Right now his recruiting is good enough to get us back to being a top 25 team on a regular basis. From there he can build to even better recruiting. And don’t forget the walk ones he is developing. They are projects that take time.

Frost wasn’t going to come in here and start landing top ten recruiting classes right away. Unlike teams like Ohio State and Penn State, Nebraska has to recruit nationally. And that means trying to lure the Tommie Frazier type talents out of places like Florida to come to cold and boring Nebraska. What current incentives do such players have to come here? Other than Frost and our fan support, nothing. This thing is not going to get turned around overnight folks.

Still believe we need to establish and sell our identity. Simply "winning" is not it. Winning is the outcome or goal. Frost needs to get our identity set, and it needs to be unique enough to draw the top tier talent necessary to put us back on the map.

 

[Headcard]

Still believe we need to establish and sell our identity. Simply "winning" is not it. Winning is the outcome or goal. Frost needs to get our identity set, and it needs to be unique enough to draw the top tier talent necessary to put us back on the map.

Agree 100%. This is actually a concern of mine at the moment. One of the appeals of this staff, to me, was that identity. We were going to play a brand of football no one else in the B1G does. Super fast tempo, aggressive defense. We could sell playing 80+ plays a game on both sides of the ball, playing fast and free, having fun. Now it seems like our offense is a hodge podge, that doesn't always fit. I'm sure there is a clear vision and it will all come together and be awesome, but right now it kind of feels like Tim Beck. Jack of many, master of none. We will have some cool plays that hit big, but no real identity, at the moment. I think of guys that built up programs that had that TO at Nebraska, Chip at Oregon, Alvarez at Wisconsin. Even guys like Spurrier at Florida, Harbaugh at Stanford and Urban Myer everywhere. All had that clear vision and identity to sell.

 

[bshirt73]

Agree 100%. This is actually a concern of mine at the moment. One of the appeals of this staff, to me, was that identity. We were going to play a brand of football no one else in the B1G does. Super fast tempo, aggressive defense. We could sell playing 80+ plays a game on both sides of the ball, playing fast and free, having fun. Now it seems like our offense is a hodge podge, that doesn't always fit. I'm sure there is a clear vision and it will all come together and be awesome, but right now it kind of feels like Tim Beck. Jack of many, master of none. We will have some cool plays that hit big, but no real identity, at the moment. I think of guys that built up programs that had that TO at Nebraska, Chip at Oregon, Alvarez at Wisconsin. Even guys like Spurrier at Florida, Harbaugh at Stanford and Urban Myer everywhere. All had that clear vision and identity to sell.

Yes, well stated sir. I think HCSF knows he has to make a decision. Throwing the ball everywhere and having almost no inside running game has been tried over & over at our NU for years & years now....with the same horrible results.

We'll see......

 

[otismotis08]

SF alone is not an identity. I'm sure he has a vision of what his program needs to look like, but at this point I don't think it can be clearly communicated to recruits. Not until we show it on the field, week after week.

 

[9and4_rivals188421]

And that means trying to lure the Tommie Frazier type talents out of places like Florida to come to cold and boring Nebraska.

You want cold and boring? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cedar Rapids!

 

[daddy mack]

#2 from which publication? There were a lot of them back then with nobody really being one that everyone knew about or followed. I still have some magazines from Prep Star and Gridiron Greats and maybe 1 or 2 others.

I use to have a magazine from the 80s that had a top 100 players list and Nebraska landed 3 or 4 from list with Roger Craig listed number 3 in the top 100 list. Nebraska definitely was a top 5 recruiting program i from the 70s 80s and 90s. We haven’t even scratched the surface of what BD and TO built. We were the Alabama of that decade along with the Sooners and Caine’s and even CU. Missouri was on the same level as Michigan. The old Big 8 was loaded with top 100 caliber athletes and they all had NFL caliber stars. Anyone who tells you different is liar or Not alive yet.

 

[TheBeav815]

Give it time on the "identity" thing. Nobody said UCF needed an identity when Milton was playing like a freak of nature every week as a soph. NU sure as hell had an identity when Florida State was spanking them in bowl games all through the early 90s.

We're missing the equivalent of an entire, huge recruiting class from the upperclassmen on this team. 27 scholarship enrollees who quit the team from 15, 16, and 17 classes. If the NCAA hit us with a 25 scholarship reduction we'd call it "the death penalty."

Several more from 15 used up their eligibility in 4 years despite ending up UDFA to the league. Typically a guy who goes 4 and done you want that to be a pro talent. So instead of having Rs-Sr guys like Ozigbo and Morgan, they're gone. Poor depth and recruiting hamstring your team for years that way. Already in 15 they were having to play true freshmen because of their lack of quality depth and talent and that carries a cost in 2019.

Team is inexperienced and it's thin and it's young. It'll look like passing the ball just ain't for you when your WR don't get open and your QB sails the ball high and late. IMO brighter days are ahead.

 

[kaz36_rivals189319]

Ben Rutz left Nebraska went to a juco then Kansas.

I remember thinking that when they recruited Rutz that it was a little bit odd because I thought of him more as a pure passer than a dual threat, even though he was listed that way. I think he blew his knee out and that really affected him, but I remember coaches talking about him when he ran the scout team that he was one of the best passers they saw all season. IIRC, he ended up at KU after he played a year at NEO. I think he ended up with multiple knee injuries over his career.

 

[Baxter48_rivals204143]

I remember thinking that when they recruited Rutz that it was a little bit odd because I thought of him more as a pure passer than a dual threat, even though he was listed that way. I think he blew his knee out and that really affected him, but I remember coaches talking about him when he ran the scout team that he was one of the best passers they saw all season. IIRC, he ended up at KU after he played a year at NEO. I think he ended up with multiple knee injuries over his career.

Yes and the interesting part is none of us really heard much about brook, lot more of Ben

 

[WTFMatt]

#2 from which publication? There were a lot of them back then with nobody really being one that everyone knew about or followed. I still have some magazines from Prep Star and Gridiron Greats and maybe 1 or 2 others.

I have no idea which publication. I'm just going off of the spreadsheet linked in the original post. Isn't that what we're talking about here?

 

[illhawkdvv]

At that time the NCAA allowed as many red shirts a a school wanted and Neb took full advantage of it. They took tons of OF Linemen from instate redshirted all of them. Some people say they fed them some strange things and always found a few very good ones. No competition in state meant they got about every kid they wanted. That alone took care of the OL.

 

[WTFMatt]

At that time the NCAA allowed as many red shirts a a school wanted and Neb took full advantage of it. They took tons of OF Linemen from instate redshirted all of them. Some people say they fed them some strange things and always found a few very good ones. No competition in state meant they got about every kid they wanted. That alone took care of the OL.

I'm not quite sure about the red shirt as many players as we want. Any school can do that. Maybe you're thinking about the county scholarship program. That is actually in the process of being brought back. I'm not sure why we ever stopped.

 

[barney44]

I'm not quite sure about the red shirt as many players as we want. Any school can do that. Maybe you're thinking about the county scholarship program. That is actually in the process of being brought back. I'm not sure why we ever stopped.

I agree....

Bring back county scholarships!

 

[Baxter48_rivals204143]

I have no idea which publication. I'm just going off of the spreadsheet linked in the original post. Isn't that what we're talking about here?

Wasn’t the first one parade all Americans?