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3 thoughts on Evan Taylor commitment to Nebraska football

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Evan Taylor/Twitter

The roll on the recruiting trail continues for Nebraska football as Evan Taylor committed on Monday to the Huskers.

Nebraska football continues to build momentum on the recruiting trail in the 2024 class as the Huskers landed their fourth commitment in the past two days on Monday.

Evan Taylor, a three-star defensive back that visited over the weekend, announced his pledge on Monday. Some crystal ball projections had started to trickle in for the 6-foot-3, 180-pound receiver out of North Carolina.

Just before he committed, Taylor, who was unranked in the 247 Sports composite rankings, was bumped up to No. 888 overall. East Carolina was one of the top competitors as he just took an official visit to see the Pirates.

Rutgers was the only other Power-5 offer and with all that in mind, here are three thoughts on the commitment of Evan Taylor to Nebraska football.

Another under-the-rader commitment

Taylor is starting to get his due from the rankings, but this is another commitment where Nebraska football and the coaching staff are trusting their own eyes.

And to be fair, there’s a lot to like about Taylor. He’s 6-foot-3 and a smooth athlete. His 247 Sports profile says he ran the 100-meter dash in 11.36 as a junior, which isn’t blazing fast.

It’s not slow either. Plus, there are some guys that play faster on the football field. Taylor looks plenty fast on the field and he also looks really smooth.

He’s a good route-runner and has good hands. His highlights show a few contested catches and he gets down the field quite a bit. Taylor caught 38 passes for 528 yards and seven touchdowns as a junior, as well as playing mostly defensive back as a sophomore and tallying four interceptions.

I thought for a minute Taylor was going to be the first true wide receiver in the 2024 class. But it looks like he’ll be a defensive back which is interesting since he’ll be the second DB at 6-foot-3 or taller to commit in two days.

The Huskers need talented athletes on the back end of the defense for the 3-3-5 and that’s why this makes sense, even though the DB numbers are growing.

Another DB/athlete

Both Isaiah McMorris and Dae’vonn Hall tweeted about big announcements coming. They have also been projected to land with Nebraska football via the On3 prediction machine. Sean Callahan put in expert projections for Hall and McMorris.

This comes on the heels of Callahan reporting that Hall and Nebraska football weren’t mutually interested going forward. Hall took a visit to Kansas State last weekend and maybe, Nebraska looked more favorable after that.

It’s hard to say what happened. Nebraska didn’t want to be a fallback option for Hall, who visited Tennessee unofficially earlier this month.

Yet, the Vols haven’t offered. Hall is a four-star recruit but his ranking has dropped a bit. It would still be huge if Nebraska landed him, but you have to wonder how the addition of Taylor could impact it.

With Quinn Clark of Montana also on the books for an official visit this weekend, maybe the threat of the other spots being taken has motivated McMorris and Hall to join their quarterback.

Taylor’s recruitment might have something to do with that and Nebraska could be taking him as more of an athlete. He would be the fifth defensive back/athlete in the 2024 class for the Huskers. It does seem like a lot, especially with Caleb Benning still out there, but most of the athletes have the ability to play more than one position.

Taylor could easily play wide receiver once he gets on campus. The important thing was getting his commitment.

A strong official visit weekend

Previous official visits weekends haven’t yielded many commitments, at least not yet. Mario Buford committed after the first official visit weekend in June, but this past weekend was much more successful.

The Huskers have already landed four 2024 recruits that visited this weekend. Braylen Prude was identified at a camp, offered, took an official visit, and then committed.

It was a process of evaluation and it really worked out. Jake Peters recruitment essentially went the same way. It would be nice for Nebraska football to land some recruits with more Power-5 offers. I get that.

However, if Rhule and company are getting ahead of others due to evaluations, in addition to being more active in camps, why not take the opportunity to close?

Every new commitment, outside of Kamdyn Koch, is ranked as a composite three-star recruit and while Rhule is betting some on development, it’s worked before (at his previous stops) and it can work again.

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Nebraska Football lands athletic playmaker in JD Crisp

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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