Oh that's right, we have the eloquent but less than erudite "decommitment." Don't try to look it up. Google isn't much help and unless your dictionary is thicker than Will Henry's playbook you won't find it there either. Because the Internet was invented solely to fuel the recruiting industry, we can probably chalk the existence of such a nasty word up to the World Wide Web, like "e-mail" or "Paris Hilton," and Cornhusker fans should probably get used to the sound. You can't really heat a seat without it.
Yesterday, Jonas Gray decommited from Nebraska and (re)commited to Notre Dame all in one day. (That's commitment.) D.J. Woods is going to take some additional visits and Blain Gabbert isn't--at least not to Nebraska as he was scheduled to do in November. There will likely be more to follow.
I hate recruiting and work hard not to follow it at all but when you get a slow news day or worse, the dog days of summer, and the only college football fix you can get is following the latest decision of an 18-year-old kid, it becomes hard not to become a little enamored with the latest stud to validate your program.
It is much easier, however, to dismiss any subsequent dismissal or, if we must, decommitment. Knowing that sweatergate and the turmoil it represents would probably result in quite a few of these, Huskers fans have steeled themselves to withstand any number of decommits. In fact, there's even a handy (and conveniently balanced) statement to explain it all away: We need kids who want to play FOR Nebraska not AT Nebraska.
OK, I think I agree with that statement but I'm pretty sure that has more to do with my desire to temper premature excitement over guys I've never seen play rather than any sort of revelation regarding their intestinal fortitude or lack thereof.
But at the same time, the whole thing seems a little too convenient. "Oh, you don't want us? Good, we didn't want you anyway." Life, and more specifically being a sports fan, is never that easy.So where does the hypothetical loss of a recruit fall? Ideally, I think most everyone would love to have Blaine Gabbert, HC Bo Pelini, OC Turner Gill and an immediate jump into the 2008 preseason Top 10. It's not happening. None of it may actually happen, but I do know this: a guy can't be great when he says he's coming and a total flop when he decides he's not, so how much does it mean if Gabbert (or any of the others) goes elsewhere?
What say you Husker Nation?
5 comments:
I find it funny how those guys over at Life in the Red, just write off guys by saying that they should want to play for NE not at NE for the coaches? That is just stupid, the coaches are the ones they talk to the ones they develop are relationship with, not the weight room, not the 85,000 semi-loud fans, not the fans that turn on you when you are not doing you best. I feel sorry for these guys and sorry for Bill Callahan, it sad when somebody works so hard for something then it does not happen. Poor guy, maybe we Nebraskans should right an article about RESPECT.
Andrew
Andrew,
I think you're right. Ideally we'd like to think there something about Nebraska, something on campus or in the program that would appeal to a kid regardless of who the coach is.
But the fact is recruiting is largely based on personal relationships. For a year or so you've got one guy, a position coach mostly, calling you and whispering sweet nothings in your ear and then all of a sudden that coach may be moving.
Say you're moving to New York to be with the most wonderful person you've ever met. A few months before you make the big move, that person calls and says they're moving to Sioux Falls, so sorry. Would you still go to New York?
My guess is some people would, and some recruits will still come to Nebraska if Callahan is gone but I can't really blame those that don't.
I'd like to spend a season with the Joes who come up with player and team recruitment rankings. What these guys do? Take a look at 60 seconds of high school highlights and talk to the kid once on the phone? Do they pay attention to off-the-field factors like whether a kid can read, is likely to beat his girlfriend, or will care more about his car than his teammates?
The Huskers didn't have particularly great recruiting seasons when they won their national championships in the 90s, right?
I don't care what the "experts" say, but it disturbs me when a coach cannot get the players he wants.
But...then...Callahan has gotten the players he wants for four years and he hasn't done much with them. I feel sorry for Lucky. I remember all the hype surrounding that kid as a high schooler. He has got talent. I wonder if Bill cares about him enough to help him get to the next level. Reminds me of some of the coaches we had in High School: they didn't actually coach; they expected you to know the sport inside out before you got there. They just wanted to run through drills and make up a few plays. In other words, the players were just pawns in a giant chess game, not real people (unless of course, you were trying to be cool with them, but that's another story).
Eric,
There certainly seems to be a chasm right now between paper talent and field talent doesn't there? (Props to whomever asked this very question of Callahan in yesterday's press conference.)
I would say that 60-seconds and a phone call would be ambitious estimates. There are just too many kids playing high school football to objectively rank all of them.
If you want a look at the recruiting game, I highly recommend "Meat Market". You won't get the recruitnik view, but you will get the coaches side of things and a whole lot of it is pretty emasculating but what can you do when you're trying to appeal to the whims of a teenaged kid?
HPD,
So what about a team like Auburn, they recruit just as good as NE, but still strugle at times. Are defense is horrible, and recruiting is a big reason why. It seems that no matter what Callahan says nobody is going to believe him, so why should he bother?
Andrew
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