Matt Rhule has recruited a bright future for Nebraska — just
Dec 27, 2023 22:35:38 GMT -5
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Post by nu5ncbigred on Dec 27, 2023 22:35:38 GMT -5
McKewon: Matt Rhule has recruited a bright future for Nebraska — just don't overlook 2024
It’s a 6½-hour drive from Beaumont, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida, and you pass through three states — Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — which speaks to how tightly the Gulf Coast states bunch up around their ocean ends.
Not far from the Gulf of Mexico sits — on the Pearl River — Picayune, Mississippi, home to running back Dante Dowdell, one of Nebraska’s transfer portal targets. You’ll hear a lot in January about the Oregon transfer, who’ll likely be one of the few Husker hot-stove storylines during the next two months.
NU just made its big splash before Christmas, signing a five-star quarterback and another giant class of high school recruits. Matt Rhule signed more than 50 scholarship players in his first 13 months on campus. A vast majority of the 2023 recruits not only stayed, 20 redshirted. This includes five offensive linemen and upward of seven defensive backs, depending who landed where between receiver and corner.
People are also reading…
Will that retention be hard to sustain? Yes.
First-year players head home for the holidays and reassess. It’s a fair bet someone may opt for the portal. Just the nature of the sport.
But Nebraska largely maintained its 2023 class. Add to that group at least 25 scholarship players, plus several NIL-funded premium walk-ons.
Those two classes comprise an entire two-deep depth chart in, say, 2026, when NU invites Tennessee, Ohio State and Washington to Memorial Stadium while traveling to Oregon, Iowa and Michigan State.
You can close your eyes and envision Dylan Raiola, Kwinten Ives, Carter Nelson, Keelan Smith, Malachi Coleman and Jaylen Lloyd as the skill players behind a mostly Midwestern offensive line that includes Sam Sledge, Grant Brix, Gunnar Gottula and Gibson Pyle. You can envision on defense Mario Buford, Donovan Jones and Caleb Benning in the secondary with Cameron Lenhardt and Princewill Umanmielen rushing the passer.
“We’ve recruited a lot of high school kids the last two years,” Rhule said. “That was important to me, to have a strong base of high school players, not knowing how many we would lose. Well, we really haven’t lost many guys.”
On paper, it looks like a combo of talent and experience — in 2026. That’s the long-term vision. The future looks bright.
In the short term, a 2024 season — nine months away — looms as an important bridge.
NU should return its entire starting defensive line and at least five offensive linemen who started games last year. Trench play matters in the Big Ten, and Rhule’s crew has every reason to think it’ll be strong there.
Success in 2024 may well boil down to ... quarterback play. That might be oversimplifying it. But it’ll be our final minor thought for 2023.
In January, watch that running back transfer.
On with the Husker Rewind.
Eyes on 49er offense
A deeper dive awaits later, but Nebraska already incorporated elements of the San Francisco 49ers’ offense into its 2023 plan. Especially in the run game, where one of NU’s best plays — which produced the final touchdown of NU’s 31-14 win over Purdue — involves multiple tight ends/fullbacks lead blocking across the formation, almost like pullers in front of a back, who squeezes between their blocks.
In the case of Emmett Johnson’s touchdown, tight ends Luke Lindenmeyer and Janiran Bonner acted like H-backs. Nebraska had a version of the play where the quarterback — typically Heinrich Haarberg — followed two lead blockers, too.
And while Rhule hadn’t talked much about a “positionless” offense in 2023, offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield had in March 2023.
“Our tight ends can play running back, our running backs can play receiver, our receivers can go play tight end, our quarterbacks can go play receiver,” Satterfield said. “Whatever you do, we’re going to line you up everywhere.”
Nebraska envisioned Bonner as that tight end who can play fullback. Perhaps Carter Nelson — who rushed for 1,979 yards in high school, including 1,148 yards as a senior — becomes that Swiss Army Knife, as well.
And if Raiola wins the starting quarterback job, Haarberg will have a role in the offense, too.
He caught a pass in the season-opening loss to Minnesota. Haarberg could also be an effective short-yardage option — in the old Blake Bell role — should Nebraska want to keep some of the wear and tear off Raiola.
Of course, what helps the 49ers most is having Christian McCaffrey at running back and Deebo Samuel at receiver. McCaffrey should eclipse 2,000 yards from scrimmage this season. The 6-foot, 205-pound Samuel, as a wideout, has 900-plus rushing yards in his career.
That’s the ticket
Rhule’s first year attracted more fans to Memorial Stadium than Frost’s last year.
The Memorial Stadium scanned ticket totals for 2023 represented a bump from 2022. NU averaged 65,887 scanned ticket in seven home games this season compared to 64,814 last season, when fan interest waned in losses to Minnesota and Wisconsin, two of the three least-attended games of the past decade.
Add the 2023 Purdue game to that group, a 31-14 Husker win — the last one of the year as it turned out — played in 37 degrees. That game had 54,866 scanned tickets, almost 32,000 fewer than the announced attendance of 86,709, which includes all purchased seats, stadium personnel, media, team personnel and more.
Rhule’s first game at home vs. Northern Illinois represented the high water mark of 2023 at 73,339 scanned tickets. Warm weather games — especially in the midst of losing seasons — tend to draw better than colder weather contests, such as the annual rivalry game with Iowa, which had 62,366 scanned tickets.
NU’s second-highest total came for the Michigan game — played in a scorching 93 degrees — at 70,064, followed by Northwestern (69,940), Louisiana Tech (66,287), Maryland (64,352), Iowa and Purdue.
Nebraska’s best scanned-ticket total since East Stadium expansion — so, ever — remains the 2016 Oregon game (80,865) followed closely by Frost’s coaching debut against Colorado (80,654). Mike Riley’s debut against BYU in 2015 drew 77,416 scanned tickets.
Hoops bubble
Nebraska men’s and women’s basketball head into 2024 bouncing on the NCAA tournament bubble.
That’s no surprise — perhaps even a little disappointing — for the women, who lost to Creighton, TCU and Kansas in nonconference play. They better plan on finishing at least 9-9 in the Big Ten to make a tournament case, and 10-8 seems much safer.
For the men, it’s progress to be listed as a No. 12 seed by The Bracket Matrix, a bracket prediction website that collects the work of bracketologists. A .500 record in the Big Ten — nearly achieved last season — would result in a 19-11 record heading into the Big Ten tournament.
How strong is the league in 2023-2024? Not terribly.
Of 14 teams, only Purdue (4), Illinois (10), Wisconsin (14), Ohio State (28) and Michigan State (35) are in the NET top 50. NU has already beaten the Spartans and won’t see them again. It has six games against the other four teams.
A nine-game stretch between Jan. 3 and Feb. 1 will define the team’s trajectory this season. NU plays Wisconsin twice, hosts Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern and Ohio State and heads to (quite) beatable Iowa, Rutgers and Maryland. Nebraska can achieve a 5-4 mark during that stretch. A 6-3 mark looks even better.
Two-sport athletes
One Nebraska student-athlete headed out the door is Maggie Mendelson, who arrived in Lincoln as a 17-year-old blue-chip recruit in two sports (volleyball and basketball) and leaves after 18 months of back-up roles in both.
A novel story — Mendelson reclassified to arrive a year early — is a bit a cautionary tale, too. What might have been easier in the 1990s — one recalls Charlie Ward, Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders and Kenny Loftin — seems like a real challenge in 2023, when collegiate sports demand so much time, focus and effort.
A fall sport plus track seems like the most likely combination — the Davis twins did that and some Husker wideouts will try — but it’s rare that an athlete excels in volleyball and basketball at an elite level.
Greichaly Cepero is the best in the past 25 years at NU. She’s also among the best athletes in school history. BYU’s Jennifer Hamson pulled it off better than most in the mid-2010s. Not many can.
The 2024 Nebraska football schedule
Take a look at Nebraska football's 2024 schedule.
1 of 12
Purdue Boilermakers
Illinois Fighting Illini
Northern Iowa Panthers
Colorado Buffaloes
UTEP Miners
Iowa Hawkeyes
Wisconsin Badgers
USC Trojans
UCLA Bruins
Ohio State Buckeyes
Indiana Hoosiers
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
omaha.com/sports/huskers/football/mckewon-matt-rhule-has-recruited-a-bright-future-for-nebraska-just-dont-overlook-2024/article_204952f1-5deb-5736-b955-9bac5472286a.html
It’s a 6½-hour drive from Beaumont, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida, and you pass through three states — Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — which speaks to how tightly the Gulf Coast states bunch up around their ocean ends.
Not far from the Gulf of Mexico sits — on the Pearl River — Picayune, Mississippi, home to running back Dante Dowdell, one of Nebraska’s transfer portal targets. You’ll hear a lot in January about the Oregon transfer, who’ll likely be one of the few Husker hot-stove storylines during the next two months.
NU just made its big splash before Christmas, signing a five-star quarterback and another giant class of high school recruits. Matt Rhule signed more than 50 scholarship players in his first 13 months on campus. A vast majority of the 2023 recruits not only stayed, 20 redshirted. This includes five offensive linemen and upward of seven defensive backs, depending who landed where between receiver and corner.
People are also reading…
Will that retention be hard to sustain? Yes.
First-year players head home for the holidays and reassess. It’s a fair bet someone may opt for the portal. Just the nature of the sport.
But Nebraska largely maintained its 2023 class. Add to that group at least 25 scholarship players, plus several NIL-funded premium walk-ons.
Those two classes comprise an entire two-deep depth chart in, say, 2026, when NU invites Tennessee, Ohio State and Washington to Memorial Stadium while traveling to Oregon, Iowa and Michigan State.
You can close your eyes and envision Dylan Raiola, Kwinten Ives, Carter Nelson, Keelan Smith, Malachi Coleman and Jaylen Lloyd as the skill players behind a mostly Midwestern offensive line that includes Sam Sledge, Grant Brix, Gunnar Gottula and Gibson Pyle. You can envision on defense Mario Buford, Donovan Jones and Caleb Benning in the secondary with Cameron Lenhardt and Princewill Umanmielen rushing the passer.
“We’ve recruited a lot of high school kids the last two years,” Rhule said. “That was important to me, to have a strong base of high school players, not knowing how many we would lose. Well, we really haven’t lost many guys.”
On paper, it looks like a combo of talent and experience — in 2026. That’s the long-term vision. The future looks bright.
In the short term, a 2024 season — nine months away — looms as an important bridge.
NU should return its entire starting defensive line and at least five offensive linemen who started games last year. Trench play matters in the Big Ten, and Rhule’s crew has every reason to think it’ll be strong there.
Success in 2024 may well boil down to ... quarterback play. That might be oversimplifying it. But it’ll be our final minor thought for 2023.
In January, watch that running back transfer.
On with the Husker Rewind.
Eyes on 49er offense
A deeper dive awaits later, but Nebraska already incorporated elements of the San Francisco 49ers’ offense into its 2023 plan. Especially in the run game, where one of NU’s best plays — which produced the final touchdown of NU’s 31-14 win over Purdue — involves multiple tight ends/fullbacks lead blocking across the formation, almost like pullers in front of a back, who squeezes between their blocks.
In the case of Emmett Johnson’s touchdown, tight ends Luke Lindenmeyer and Janiran Bonner acted like H-backs. Nebraska had a version of the play where the quarterback — typically Heinrich Haarberg — followed two lead blockers, too.
And while Rhule hadn’t talked much about a “positionless” offense in 2023, offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield had in March 2023.
“Our tight ends can play running back, our running backs can play receiver, our receivers can go play tight end, our quarterbacks can go play receiver,” Satterfield said. “Whatever you do, we’re going to line you up everywhere.”
Nebraska envisioned Bonner as that tight end who can play fullback. Perhaps Carter Nelson — who rushed for 1,979 yards in high school, including 1,148 yards as a senior — becomes that Swiss Army Knife, as well.
And if Raiola wins the starting quarterback job, Haarberg will have a role in the offense, too.
He caught a pass in the season-opening loss to Minnesota. Haarberg could also be an effective short-yardage option — in the old Blake Bell role — should Nebraska want to keep some of the wear and tear off Raiola.
Of course, what helps the 49ers most is having Christian McCaffrey at running back and Deebo Samuel at receiver. McCaffrey should eclipse 2,000 yards from scrimmage this season. The 6-foot, 205-pound Samuel, as a wideout, has 900-plus rushing yards in his career.
That’s the ticket
Rhule’s first year attracted more fans to Memorial Stadium than Frost’s last year.
The Memorial Stadium scanned ticket totals for 2023 represented a bump from 2022. NU averaged 65,887 scanned ticket in seven home games this season compared to 64,814 last season, when fan interest waned in losses to Minnesota and Wisconsin, two of the three least-attended games of the past decade.
Add the 2023 Purdue game to that group, a 31-14 Husker win — the last one of the year as it turned out — played in 37 degrees. That game had 54,866 scanned tickets, almost 32,000 fewer than the announced attendance of 86,709, which includes all purchased seats, stadium personnel, media, team personnel and more.
Rhule’s first game at home vs. Northern Illinois represented the high water mark of 2023 at 73,339 scanned tickets. Warm weather games — especially in the midst of losing seasons — tend to draw better than colder weather contests, such as the annual rivalry game with Iowa, which had 62,366 scanned tickets.
NU’s second-highest total came for the Michigan game — played in a scorching 93 degrees — at 70,064, followed by Northwestern (69,940), Louisiana Tech (66,287), Maryland (64,352), Iowa and Purdue.
Nebraska’s best scanned-ticket total since East Stadium expansion — so, ever — remains the 2016 Oregon game (80,865) followed closely by Frost’s coaching debut against Colorado (80,654). Mike Riley’s debut against BYU in 2015 drew 77,416 scanned tickets.
Hoops bubble
Nebraska men’s and women’s basketball head into 2024 bouncing on the NCAA tournament bubble.
That’s no surprise — perhaps even a little disappointing — for the women, who lost to Creighton, TCU and Kansas in nonconference play. They better plan on finishing at least 9-9 in the Big Ten to make a tournament case, and 10-8 seems much safer.
For the men, it’s progress to be listed as a No. 12 seed by The Bracket Matrix, a bracket prediction website that collects the work of bracketologists. A .500 record in the Big Ten — nearly achieved last season — would result in a 19-11 record heading into the Big Ten tournament.
How strong is the league in 2023-2024? Not terribly.
Of 14 teams, only Purdue (4), Illinois (10), Wisconsin (14), Ohio State (28) and Michigan State (35) are in the NET top 50. NU has already beaten the Spartans and won’t see them again. It has six games against the other four teams.
A nine-game stretch between Jan. 3 and Feb. 1 will define the team’s trajectory this season. NU plays Wisconsin twice, hosts Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern and Ohio State and heads to (quite) beatable Iowa, Rutgers and Maryland. Nebraska can achieve a 5-4 mark during that stretch. A 6-3 mark looks even better.
Two-sport athletes
One Nebraska student-athlete headed out the door is Maggie Mendelson, who arrived in Lincoln as a 17-year-old blue-chip recruit in two sports (volleyball and basketball) and leaves after 18 months of back-up roles in both.
A novel story — Mendelson reclassified to arrive a year early — is a bit a cautionary tale, too. What might have been easier in the 1990s — one recalls Charlie Ward, Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders and Kenny Loftin — seems like a real challenge in 2023, when collegiate sports demand so much time, focus and effort.
A fall sport plus track seems like the most likely combination — the Davis twins did that and some Husker wideouts will try — but it’s rare that an athlete excels in volleyball and basketball at an elite level.
Greichaly Cepero is the best in the past 25 years at NU. She’s also among the best athletes in school history. BYU’s Jennifer Hamson pulled it off better than most in the mid-2010s. Not many can.
The 2024 Nebraska football schedule
Take a look at Nebraska football's 2024 schedule.
1 of 12
Purdue Boilermakers
Illinois Fighting Illini
Northern Iowa Panthers
Colorado Buffaloes
UTEP Miners
Iowa Hawkeyes
Wisconsin Badgers
USC Trojans
UCLA Bruins
Ohio State Buckeyes
Indiana Hoosiers
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
omaha.com/sports/huskers/football/mckewon-matt-rhule-has-recruited-a-bright-future-for-nebraska-just-dont-overlook-2024/article_204952f1-5deb-5736-b955-9bac5472286a.html