Three & Out: Hello to the dead period, the OL mirage, and the spring game visitor weekend wasn’t successful for Nebraska
Three & Out is Nebraska On3’s feature in which recruiting analyst Bryan Munson gives his weekly takes on topical issues concerning Nebraska football and recruiting.
In this week’s Three & Out, here is where Nebraska stands heading into the dead period, the OL mirage for Nebraska, and the spring game visitor weekend was a bust for Nebraska. Here is your Three & Out:
Hello Dead Period!
Nebraska currently has 11 commitments, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the next two to three weeks go for the Huskers. By my estimation, Nebraska should add another five to six players during that timeframe, bringing their total into the high teens.
The good news? Nebraska is trending for several players who visited over the last couple of months, but as we dig inside the numbers, some things pop out. You can see them right away as you compare Nebraska’s numbers to some of the other schools in the Big Ten that currently have highly-rated classes.
SchoolTeam RankingTotal VisitorsCommitted VisitorsCommitted Elsewhere VisitorsUncommitted VisitorsOhio State143121120Oregon8377631USC114510827Penn State134918823Nebraska333310815
Some high-level takeaways:
Only Oregon has less commits than Nebraska on this list (10) and USC has the same total as the Huskers (11)
Nebraska has the second highest percentage of committed visitors to total visitors (30%), but…
Nebraska also has the second highest percentage of committed elsewhere visitor to total visitors (24%).
The Huskers are trending for seven of the remaining 15 uncommitted visitors but have the fewest remaining uncommitted visitors of all of the schools in this comparison.
Nebraska zeroed in on “their guys” and likely could have brought in more visitors, but the numbers for this class will be limited. How limited? The class could hit 20, but it shouldn’t go too far beyond that number.
There are players Nebraska is trending for that I don’t think make sense (like SJ Alofaituli) and others that I would argue Nebraska will likely land (like Will Hawthorne). It’s an excellent gauge of things, but a few data points, like old predictions, are skewing some things.
The OL mirage
Here we are. The end of June is upon us. There seem to be a few commitments pending for Nebraska from last weekend, but none will be offensive linemen. The Huskers have no offensive linemen in the class, and the once bountiful pool has run dry.
Nebraska hosted nine offensive line targets:
Alai Kalaniuvalu – Trending to USC (33%) with Michigan trailing (29%)
John Mills – Committed to Texas
David Sanders – Nebraska has been eliminated, trending to Tennessee (29%), with Georgia trailing (18%)
Douglas Utu – Committed to Tennessee
Broderick Shull – Committed to Auburn
SJ Alofaituli – Trending to Nebraska (31%), with Michigan trailing (27%)
Brian Tapu – Committed to Oregon State
Houston Kaahaaina-Torres – Trending to Nebraska (34%), with Cal trailing (22%)
Shawn Hammerbeck – Trending to Nebraska (34%), with Kansas State trailing (29%)
This was after recruits like Jack Lange, Andrew Babalola, Jack Lange, Will Kemna, Malachi Goodman, Nick Brooks, Blake Cherry, Soren Shinofield, Connor Carty, etc., committed elsewhere or eliminated Nebraska.
Something else to note: out of the three trending recruits, only one is an offensive tackle (Hammerbeck). Hammerbeck will need some time in a program to develop (6-foot-5.5 and 265 pounds). Alofaituli and Kaahaaina-Torres are both interior players.
So now what? I expect Nebraska to stay active in recruiting some true offensive tackles. They will be in the market for that type of player. There will be a number crunch at some point, but the open-for-business sign will remain lit for help at the tackle position well into the season.
Spring game official visit weekend was a bust
Nebraska tried. They put together a colossal visitor list for the spring game weekend and it just didn’t come together as they hoped. The Huskers did land their No. 1 quarterback target, TJ Lateef, but three of the other eight visitors have committed to different schools, and the uncommitted visitors are all trending to other schools.
IM HOME! #GBR https://t.co/SxaTIIrgxM
— TJ Lateef (@TJ_Lateef9) May 12, 2024
Sure, there is still a chance for Nebraska with a couple of the recruits from that weekend. The recruit that most people would say Nebraska still has a shot with is Dawson Merritt from Overland Park, Kans. Nebraska is trending in second place for Merritt with just a 1% chance to land the 4-star linebacker.
And if Merritt is a long shot for Nebraska, then there is no shot for the four uncommitted visitors for that weekend.
Shooting your shot early with your top recruits isn’t the best way to get them to become Cornhuskers. What Nebraska could consider in the future is trying to make it as much of a “commit weekend” and keeping the commits coming back each weekend they can visit until the dead period arrives.
The last weekend still reigns supreme for recruiting. Nebraska will likely end up with eight or nine commitments out of the final weekend in June. The Huskers loaded up the last weekend in June a year ago and hosted 14 official visitors. Nebraska actually had 13 commitments from that weekend until Kewan Lacy flipped later in the fall to Missouri.
Of course the last weekend is a premium weekend. All of the schools want to host the recruit for the final visit. I am sure they have had similar success as Nebraska, with recruits who visited on the last weekend before the dead period began.
Nebraska is still looking for the right thing to do. They made a change this year and tried to shoot their shot. Nebraska even gave their five-star quarterback from a year ago a vital role that weekend, along with the top quarterback target from the 2025 cycle. It just didn’t work.
I am sure that Rhule and his staff didn’t miss this plan failure either, and we can expect something different next year. They will keep tweaking and looking for a way to be more successful with the top targets and hopefully can convince a few more to spend the last weekend before the dead period in Lincoln than they did this year.
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