The 3-2-1: Nebraska’s coaching staff prepares for a busy month of June as satellite camps and visits begins
The Nebraska football coaching staff will begin camp season in full force next week. The Husker staff will work three different Satellite camps in Texas and Missoui.
In this week’s 3-2-1 column, we hit on that and more with three things we learned, two questions, and one prediction.
RELATED – HuskerOnline Live RSS Chat: May 29
THREE THINGS WE LEARNED THIS WEEK
1 – Husker coaches will work three different satellite camp events next week
Camp season is officially upon us. We’ll see the Husker coaching staff kick things off early next week at the Mega Camp in Lindenwood on June 1. Linebackers coach Rob Dvoracek and running backs coach EJ Barthel are set to work the event.
Then, on June 3, NU will have seven coaches at the Mary Harden Baylor satellite camp in Belton, Texas. On June 4, that same group will head to Houston for the Houston Christian Satellite Camp.
Camps in Lincoln won’t begin until June 7, when the Big Red hosts its first Friday Night Lights camp of 2024.
In all, schools get 10 days during June to work high school and prospect camps. The Huskers will spend seven of those camp days in Lincoln from June 7 to 16. They will spend their three other days at satellite camps in Missouri and Texas.
Both the Postgraduate Camp (June 10) and the Fullback Camp (June 11) are back again in 2024. There are also two Friday Night Light camps on June 7 and June 14.
2 – SEC coaches are digging in to protect the future of college football walk-ons
The changes in the NIL landscape and revenue-sharing models have created a lot of questions for the future. One of them is football roster sizes. There’s been a proposal tossed out there to put a roster size limit on college football teams and eliminate scholarship numbers and walk-ons altogether.
Nebraska currently has around 140 players on its roster, 55 more than the 85 scholarship players the NCAA allows. During the SEC spring meetings in Florida this week, we saw the league’s football coaches strongly oppose this proposal.
Many felt that it would diminish some of the true success stories in college football. Walk-on stories can sometimes define a locker room when a player rises from rags to riches.
I think the fear now is that leagues like the SEC and Big Ten will have so much more money that they will have well over 85 scholarship players, essentially always having room to add players from the Group of Five and FCS ranks to improve their teams. The only way you can stop the Power Two from buying all the talent is to put a cap on roster sizes to spread the talent around.
However, if the SEC and Big Ten want to continue to have walk-ons, I don’t think it would be wise for the rest of college football to fight them. What’s stopping them and their TV partners from breaking off?
3 – John Cook’s contract may be the best money Nebraska spends each year
You can rarely say someone is the highest-paid coach in their sport and arguably still underpaid.
This week, Nebraska announced that volleyball head coach John Cook received a contract extension through 2028 to pay him a base salary of $825,000. He’ll also receive a retention bonus of $70,000 on June 1.
This is the best money the Nebraska athletic department spends each year. How many coaches have the power to fill football stadiums and every other venue they play in? We talk so much about the impact Caitlin Clark has had on women’s basketball, but in all honesty, Cook’s is every bit as impressive.
He’s risen the sport of volleyball to break world records and created the toughest sports ticket to get in the state. He’s also created a spillover effect for professional volleyball, where a team with a roster of little-known players draws over 10,000 a match in Omaha. Even Team USA has taken notice, as they are at least entertaining the thought of moving their entire volleyball operation to Gretna.
So yeah, John Cook is worth every bit of his contract, if not double. They could play every volleyball match at Pinnacle Bank Arena and probably still sell out, creating ticket demand.
TWO QUESTIONS THIS WEEK
1 – What should we expect out of June for Nebraska in recruiting?
What will the month of June bring for Nebraska? Currently, the Huskers have 24 official visitors locked in for the June 14 and June 21 weekends. They are scheduled to host running back Mekhi Nelson on June 7 as their only visitor that weekend.
The focus will be on June 14 and June 21. Those are the weekends that will shape the 2025 recruiting class. Also, expect a lot of moving parts.
Some visitors will drop from that list, and others will be added. That’s the name of the game in June. It’s very competitive to lock up June visit weekends with the top prospects on your board.
2 – Could Nebraska’s game with UTEP be picked up for the Big Ten’s priority Week 1 TV package?
Could Nebraska’s season opener game with UTEP get bumped up in the pecking order? Initially, I thought it was destined for a night kickoff, but when you look at the Week 1 line-up for the Big Ten, it is extremely limited.
The USC vs. LSU game in Las Vegas is an ABC game, the North Carolina vs. Minnesota game is on a Thursday, and Penn State at West Virginia is a Big 12 TV game on FOX. Fresno State at Michigan has already been selected for NBC at night. Ohio State seems like an early lock for either FOX or CBS.
After that, you can make a case UTEP at Nebraska could fall in the other spot FOX or CBS spot. Oregon plays Idaho, which is generally not a game you will see on a national network window.
Five-star ATH Michael Terry III. (Credit: Sean Callahan)
ONE PREDICTION: Dylan Raiola will impact Nebraska’s recruiting more than any player we’ve seen in years
I know this will be a hard prediction to measure, but you cannot deny the impact freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola has had on the recruiting class for Nebraska.
Five-star left tackle David Sanders told HuskerOnline he visited NU strictly because of Raiola. Both transfer wide receivers Jahmal Banks and Isaiah Neyor saw Raiola throw, which was enough to convince them to join the Big Red. When we look back at things four or five years from now, there’s a good chance we are going to say Raiola impacted the program in recruiting as much as any player in recent history.
Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and is heard daily at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall, and each week, he appears on Nebraska Public Media’s Big Red Wrap-Up Tuesdays at 7 pm.
Never miss breaking news or another HuskerOnline article again. Click HERE to sign up for HuskerOnline’s Daily and Breaking News Newsletters.
The post The 3-2-1: Nebraska’s coaching staff prepares for a busy month of June as satellite camps and visits begins appeared first on On3.
