Four-star DT Aydin Breland gives visit to Nebraska a high mark and says there’s a good chance he will make return visit
Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei defensive tackle Aydin Breland was in Lincoln this weekend for the Nebraska spring game. The four-star defensive lineman doesn’t come into first visits to schools expecting anything. Nebraska made quite an impression and he says based on that first impression there is a good chance he will be back.
“I liked it,” Breland said. “Coming into these visits, I don’t have a lot of expectations. I like to have a clean slate and let them show me what they are all about and what the city is all about. I love the coaches.”
Visit to Nebraska took some encouraging
Getting Breland to visit Nebraska took some encouraging. According to him, he’s had the offer from Nebraska for a while. But, the Huskers weren’t standing out based on their interest. A pair of his Mater Dei teammates visited and their comments influenced him to take a trip.
“Nate Frazier and Brandon Baker came here, and I asked them how they liked it, and they said, ‘Bro, it’s great.’
“I have had the offer from Nebraska for a while. They just weren’t one of the schools paying me the most attention. Once Baker told me he loved it here, loved the coaches, loved the town, and all of that got me to visit.”
Breland has been to plenty of schools and even some other spring games. He hasn’t seen anything like the Nebraska spring game. The fan support on Saturday really blew him away.
“When we first got there to the stadium, there were a lot of people,” Breland said. “And people just kept coming in. I would look at my phone, look back up, and there were more people, and I just kept thinking, ‘No way!’.”
Aydin Breland takes tour and talks about people at Nebraska
Breland took a tour of the new facilities that are still under construction. He said that he began to visualize the rooms and could see how it would all come together.
“I took a tour and went through all of the construction. Once I got my mind in my architect and construction mode, I could see it. For example, there was an academic area, and there was a fireplace, and once I saw that, then it clicked, and I could see the whole room.”
Despite Nebraska’s big facility upgrade it does get a little lost on Breland. He says that the top teams have great facilities. What he focuses on are the people in those facilities.
“Now a days, there is so much money going around with the facilities and NIL and everything else. I feel like facilities aren’t the selling point anymore. Everyone has them. I feel like a good amount of the schools that are power five have good facilities.
“I do feel that it’s the people that are in the facilities and who are running the facilities, though, that makes it different. That’s what makes it valuable.”
Breland heard a lot about the Nebraska coaching staff from Brandon Baker and the rest of the coaching staff at Nebraska. He had a great conversation with the head coach and started referring to another coach at Nebraska as “unc”.
“My first impression of coach Rhule is that he’s really hospitable,” Breland said. “Like I said before, I keep it all open, and we just chopped it up. It was real talk and really comfortable, and at the same time, we are talking about real stuff.
“Coach Omar is hilarious. He makes everything comfortable around him too. I stopped calling him coach and started calling him “unc”. He’s like that one uncle that everyone is cool with at all of the family gatherings.”
Live scrimmage had Aydin Breland thinking about hitting some QBs
The live scrimmage today had Breland thinking about being out there on the field and hitting some quarterbacks. He got a chance to talk with the defensive coaching staff at Nebraska and could see how they planned to use him in their 30-stack defense.
“I play defensive end and defensive tackle, and I love live quarterbacks because I can hit them,” Breland said. “I can definitely see myself playing the three-technique, and I saw some 4i. When they bump up their linebackers, they realign, and that pushes some guys around, and I like that too.”
The visit to Nebraska gets a very high mark from Breland. He said that the part of the visit he liked was during a photoshoot and when he finally noticed some of the decorative surroundings.
“It was an easy “9” to a “9.5”,” Breland said. “Little things make me happy, and this is really going to disappoint you. We were doing the photoshoot around all of the trophies, and here was this waterwall with an N, and I was like, “Yo!”. It’s so cool, and it was cool to me.”
Aydin Breland still adjusting list, Nebraska could get another visit
Breland maintains that his recruitment is completely open. His list of top schools could evolve with teams being swapped out based on visits and communication.
“My recruitment is still 100% open, but I realize that I have to narrow things down soon. I haven’t been everywhere yet, and things are interchangeable. Sometimes communication drops off, sometimes it comes on, and other times it’s too strong. There has to be a balance, and the coaches that can do that put them in a good spot.”
The question that Nebraska fans have after this visit is if Breland will be back? He wouldn’t say that he would, but he said that there was a good chance based on first impressions.
“There is a good chance,” Breland said. “Most definitely. Especially after this visit and the first impression.”
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