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3 thoughts on a huge commitment and more for Nebraska Football

Published

3 months ago

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Nebraska football
Syndication: Journal-Courier

Nebraska football landed another huge commitment with Jacory Barney and here are three thoughts, plus another key projection.

You might have thought that Nebraska football was finished taking wide receivers when Quinn Clark committed earlier this week. But you would have been wrong.

Nebraska football landed the fourth commitment from a wideout in the 2024 class as four-star Jacory Barney announced his pledge to the Huskers on Saturday night over Miami and Texas A&M.

Barney was one of the June 3rd official visitors and following that trip, the Huskers seemed to be in the pole position. Miami started trending with expert projections for Barney, who is from Miami and the Hurricanes seemed poised to win out.

However, when Barney announced his commitment date, there was a bunch of Nebraska buzz on Twitter. Garret McGuire retweeted it and by Saturday evening, Barney was a Cornhusker commit.

It does seem like Nebraska would have taken Ernest Campbell if they could have gotten him. But the momentum didn’t hold after his official visit. He started trending to A&M.

Barney doesn’t run a 10.2 in the 100-meter dash. But the 6-foot, 160-pounder is dynamic and this is a massive recruiting win for Nebraska football. Here are three thoughts.

Another contested win for Nebraska football recruiting

There is plenty to like about Barney. Yet, beating out Miami for the hometown kid was impressive. The Hurricanes recruit well and have as much NIL weight to throw around as anyone. So the fact that Matt Rhule, Garret McGuire, and Nebraska were able to pull this out was head-turning.

I certainly didn’t expect his commitment Saturday, so kudos to this staff for winning yet another contested recruitment. Nebraska has beaten out Georgia, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Miami, Penn State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and others for prospects in the past week.

Just something to remember.

Building a Florida pipeline

The hire of Philip Simpson is paying dividends for Matt Rhule. It was the same kind of move he made to hire Joey McGuire at Baylor and we all know how that worked out.

Rhule did the same thing with Bob Wager and those former high school head coaches with ties to Texas and Florida are doing work. This is the second commitment from Miami in the 2024 class and the Huskers might not be done.

There was some concern about the commitment of Willis McGahee IV, but that seems to have died down. It sounds like the visit to UCF was a courtesy and Rhule was good with it.

The hire of Simpson is yet another aspect of why this Nebraska football coaching staff is firing on all cylinders on the recruiting trail right now.

Speed kills

Barney does have the ability to be an athlete and also plays defensive back, but he looks all offense to me. He’s played wide receiver, running back, and even quarterback. I’m excited to see what the Huskers will do with him, but I expect they will try to get him the ball in lots of different ways.

Barney, Isaiah McMorris, Carter Nelson, Dae’vonn Hall, Malachi Coleman —  Daniel Kaelin should have plenty of weapons. Quinn Clark and Keelan Smith have tons of potential too. Speed kills and Nebraska football is going to have plenty of it.

I don’t know Barney’s 100-meter dash time exactly. He’s run in some prestigious track events in the relay before and his scouting report leaves no reason to be concerned about that.

The highlights show that he’s a big play waiting to happen. His ball skills really stick out to me and it’s just wild to think about all the playmakers Nebraska football has added to the receiver room.

Matt Rhule believes in speed and the Cornhusker wide receiver commitments reflect that.

P.S. Is another commitment coming?

As we said, the Huskers might not be finished in the state of Florida in the 2024 class. Amare Sanders, a three-star cornerback that visited on June 3rd also, has also been projected to the Huskers.

It started with a Steve Wiltfong crystal ball on Saturday. There haven’t been any other expert projections at this point. The Huskers have a 50-percent chance according to the On3 prediction machine, but as we saw with Barney that’s not always right.

I trust the expert projections much more. It’s strange to me that a Nebraska guy hasn’t projected Sanders to the Huskers yet. It might just be a matter of time and he’s 6-foot-2, 167 pounds, and also plays basketball so I’m all for it.

Michigan, Florida, and Louisville have hosted him for unofficial visits this month. Nebraska football was the only program to get him on campus for an official visit. That could be the difference.

As I said, I’m waiting on others to follow Witlfong’s prediction, because it seems like this recruitment was still pretty wide open a week or so ago, meaning if another team pushed hard like Michigan or Florida, maybe that could change things.

We’ll see but Sanders and Grant Brix are currently the two best candidates to be Nebraska football’s 24th commitment of the 2024 class.

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Nebraska Football lands athletic playmaker in JD Crisp

Published

24 hours ago

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September 20, 2023

By

Nebraska Football
Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

Nebraska football continues to recruit for the 2024 class. They picked up a commitment from 2024 wide receiver JD Crisp on Wednesday afternoon. Crisp played both sides of the football in high school, playing both defensive back and wide receiver for Second Baptist High School.

He is not ranked in the 247Sports regular or Composite Rankings. However, he does have a solid offer sheet.  Crisp had seven offers in total, including one from Minnesota. He was officially offered by the program on September 16 and quickly made his decision.

It’s also worth noting that his recruitment was active throughout the summer. He attended Texas A&M Aggies camp on June 14. At the very least, he garnered interest from a prominent Texas school. That is notable in of itself.

What could he bring to Nebraska football?

It’s interesting that he is a two-way player. He played both the receiver and safety positions in high school. As far as Nebraska is concerned, I could certainly see him playing at receiver. He has as a tremendous amount of athleticism, and played mostly on the outside and high school. Crisp was very good at catching in space, and making contested catches and tight windows.

Playing receiver would make sense for him, given Nebraska’s lack of depth at the position moving forward. He has the agility and ability to become a solid piece if developed properly.

Nevertheless, he has overall qualities that could make him a good safety as well. This coaching staff loves the opportunity to work with athletes and molding them as they see fit. His ability to fire off the football and read a play certainly stands out.

The commitment of Crisp adds to a 2024 recruiting class that ranks 24th overall nationally. The class itself is stacked with talent. It currently has 25 commitments in total.

It will be interesting to see what Crisp can do for Nebraska football. He is definitely more of a project player. Nevertheless, his athleticism and speed is intriguing. One of this coaching staff’s strengths is identifying how players fit into the program. They will have to do that with Crisp.

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BASKETBALL

Nebraska Cornhuskers news: Jeff Sims still not 100 percent, a flip attempt, and more

Published

1 day ago

on

September 20, 2023

By

Nebraska football
Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports

Nebraska football QB Jeff Sims still isn’t 100 percent, plus more Nebraska Cornhuskers news.

One thing we know for sure about the Nebraska football quarterback situation is that we won’t know anything until kickoff on Saturday against Louisiana Tech.

Matt Rhule said that he won’t be making any announcements prior to the game, similar to last week, about the starting quarterback. Marcus Satterfield told reporters on Tuesday that Sims took “50-55 percent of the snaps” so he’s improving, but according to Rhule, he’s still not 100 percent.

Rhule indicated that Sims is throwing the ball well. The Nebraska Cornhuskers just want to see some more movement skills out of their starting quarterback. One of the starting quarterbacks I should say since Sims and Heinrich Haarberg were listed as co-starters this week on the depth chart.

We’ll see how it plays out. If Sims is healthy, I expect that he will get the start or at least play, but with how thin Nebraska football is at running back, both quarterbacks will probably be needed, especially with their prowess for pounding the rock.

Nebraska Cornhuskers aiming to flip Michigan State 4-star

Andrew Dennis is a 6-foot-5, 275-pound offensive lineman rated as a four-star prospect by the 247 Sports composite rankings. He’s out of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, and has been committed to Michigan State since April but Nebraska football is one of many programs to throw out a recent offer.

We don’t know if Dennis has any plans to visit Nebraska football. He’s been offered by Auburn, Stanford, Penn State, and Purdue just since Monday. I wouldn’t get too serious worrying about Dennis until he takes a visit to Nebraska, but if that happens, watch out.

It’s at least a name to keep on the radar and a decommitment definitely seems possible with the situation going on at Michigan State with Mel Tucker getting fired.

Nebraska Cornhuskers Big Ten basketball schedule released

We knew which teams Nebraska basketball would play in the 2023-24 Big Ten season but got the official schedule on Tuesday. The Huskers released it on their official Twitter account.

Nebraska basketball will open Big Ten on December 6th against Minnesota on the road. Fred Hoiberg’s first conference home game will be against Michigan State on December 10th.

The schedule is fairly balanced in terms of the home and road games. The Huskers have consecutive home games twice on the conference schedule. Nebraska has also back-to-back road games twice.

My first impressions though, are that Nebraska basketball is capable of a winning season in Big Ten play, which would definitely keep Fred Hoiberg in place and likely, would give the Huskers a realistic shot at making their first NCAA tournament since the 2014 season.

For More Nebraska content, follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook Page, and Subscribe to the Husker Big Red YouTube Channel. You can also find our podcast on Apple or Spotify.

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FB RECRUITING

Nebraska football is trending for a priority target, plus more Cornhuskers news

Published

3 days ago

on

September 18, 2023

By

Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

Nebraska football seems to be closing in on the commitment of three-star athlete Caleb Benning, plus another win for volleyball.

For the first time this season, Nebraska football fans are enjoying a victory Monday following the Huskers’ 35-11 win over Northern Illinois on Saturday.

It was an important win for plenty of reasons. But Matt Rhule’s team needed some momentum. The Huskers got it with that win and now, they are picking up momentum with top recruiting target Caleb Benning.

Benning has been one of the top high school players in the state this fall. He was injured last year, which slowed down his recruitment, but the Huskers have been putting on the full-court press and hosted him for a visit during the game on Saturday.

After that, Benning told reporters how much he wanted to play in the Nebraska football defense. He also said that a decision could be “pretty soon” which sounds like great news for the Huskers.

Over the weekend, Nebraska football also picked up a new expert projection to land Benning from Bryan Munson of Husker Online. This was after another recent crystal ball from 247 Sports.

The On3 prediction machine now gives the Huskers a 91-percent chance to win the commitment of Benning, while all of the crystal ball projections agree. Even Greg Smith, a former Nebraska insider who covers Midwest recruiting for rivals, also projected Benning to Nebraska.

The 5-foot-10, 183-pounder is one of the top targets left on the board along with the likes of Grant Brix, Brandon Baker, and Jayshawn Ross. His addition to the 2024 class would be huge and regardless of his ranking, Benning is a player the Huskers need on their roster in the future.

Nebraska volleyball notches another top-25 win

The Cornhuskers were back in the Bob Devaney Center on Sunday and scored another win over a top-25 opponent, their second of the week with a 3-1 win over Kentucky by the scores of 25-14, 25-22, 23-25, and 25-21.

Merritt Beason was on fire for Nebraska volleyball as she had a team-high 17 kills, a total that was matched by freshman standout Harper Murray. Beason also added three blocks, as did Murrary, but Beason hit .438 compared to .308 for Murrary.

Nebraska had 62 kills compared to 53 for Kentucky, which was limited to just a .243 hitting percentage. The Huskers only had four service aces but Bergen Reilly had 32 assists in the win, while Lexi Rodriguez pitched in with 18 digs and had a perfect serve-receive percentage.

The Cornhuskers (9-0) open Big Ten play this week against Ohio State on Friday at 8 PM CST.

For More Nebraska content, follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook Page, and Subscribe to the Husker Big Red YouTube Channel. You can also find our podcast on Apple or Spotify.

 

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