3 thoughts on a huge commitment and more for Nebraska Football

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.

“You know what’s crazy? I never let them know. It was a shock for everybody. I didn’t even let my mom know. They all found out for the first time when I announced it.”

-WR Jacory Barney on his commit announcement to Nebraska. Here's more: https://t.co/fwLeq90TBz #Huskers

— Sean Callahan (@Sean_Callahan) July 2, 2023

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.

Speed kills. Jacory Barney is exciting.

pic.twitter.com/xMY8WK2bQo

— HuskerBR (@HuskerBr) July 2, 2023

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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