The first official visit weekend is in the books for Nebraska football and here are five takeaways for the Huskers.
You can feel the momentum building for Nebraska football on the recruiting trail. You could definitely sense it on social media as recruits recapped their official visits to Nebraska over the weekend.
Whether it was their own social media posts, interviews with various media outlets, or whatever, there were a lot of positive things said about the Huskers and the positive buzz has begun.
Three recruits (Jacory Barney, Mario Buford, Joseph Anderson) on campus have already received new (since this weekend) expert projections to land with Nebraska football from 247 Sports or On3. It definitely seems like some commitments are coming in the 2024 class and with that in mind, here are five takeaways from the first official visit weekend for Nebraska.
Nebraska football hit a home run
The Huskers had 10 recruits on campus if you count Daniel Kaelin and of the nine that aren’t committed, Nebraska might have a shot to land every single one.
It probably won’t work out that way, but Mario Buford, Jacory Barney, Joseph Anderson, and Caleb Pyfrom are all trending to Nebraska. Carlon Jones really seemed to enjoy his time and called his visit a 10/10. Peyton Morgan echoed that sentiment, as did William Nettles.
There is still plenty of work to do with some of these recruits. But the Huskers set themselves up to build some early momentum on the recruiting trail in June and looks like they took advantage of that opportunity.
My guess is that Nebraska gets at least five commitments out of this weekend when it’s all said and done. If I was betting and the over/under was set at five, I’d bet the over.
In-state momentum keeps building
I feel as confident as I ever have that three-star offensive tackle Caleb Pyfrom is going to commit. Kaelin was on campus and took pictures with the big man, who also said Matt Rhule and the coaches made sure he knew how badly they wanted him.
With Brandon Baker trending to Oregon and other offensive line targets coming off the board such as Andrew Sprague to Michigan, Pyfom is a must-get for the Huskers. He’s got a pretty good offer list for a Midwest kid too. He’s ranked in the top 800 overall and with some development, could easily be a Big Ten starting tackle.
Nebraska football has recruited him like a top priority and honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if a commitment came sometime this week from Pyfrom, which would be another feather in the cap of Rhule and the Huskers.
Carter Nelson visited Georgia this weekend, but the trend has been favorable. The same can be said about Isaiah McMorris and Dae’vonn Hall too.
With Kaelin on board, if the Huskers can land the other four targets they lead with — Nelson, Pyfrom, McMorris, and Hall — this 2024 in-state haul could be even better than in 2023.
Nebraska football recruiting is in good hands with Rhule
Nebraska football did a great job this weekend and every official visit weekend under Matt Rhule has been productive. The people that said Rhule didn’t know to recruit were wrong. That’s not even close to being true.
The recruiting strategy has been damn near perfect and the Huskers are able to execute their plan, which includes backups like Kaelin in case Dylan Raiola didn’t commit.
You can see the visit calendar was set up to build early momentum this month, which might come in handy as Nelson, McMorris, and Hall get ready for their visits.
Everything is done for a reason. It doesn’t always work but Nebraska football recruiting is in good hands with Matt Rhule — that I know for sure.
Don’t overreact
Husker fans are feeling really good about their 2024 class right now and they should. But they aren’t alone. Most official visit weekends go off really well.
Most recruits when doing interviews speak glowingly about the visit they just took. So even though Nebraska did hit a home run this weekend, some other programs will do the same the next.
Surely, the Huskers wrapped up some recruitments this weekend. I’d be surprised if there weren’t a few silent commitments already. Yet, most of these recruits are going to take other visits and Nebraska football will still have work to do in order to land them.
Peyton Morgan is a name that comes to mind. Amare Sanders is too if he visits Florida and/or Miami. Carter Nelson is a perfect case in point.
If you just judged his visit to Georgia this weekend, you might feel like the Bulldogs are the leader. However, there are plenty of other factors at play, such as the size of the UGA tight end class.
I’d say it’s an overreaction to call Georgia the new leader, but it might be an overreaction to say the Huskers are going to land a bunch of commitments from this past weekend.
I don’t think that’s true but I also know it takes more to get a commitment than a strong official visit.
Hitting all the right spots
One thing that’s interesting about this official visit weekend is that Nebraska football hit a lot of key areas in the recruiting pipeline. The Huskers hosted recruits from Nebraska, Missouri (St. Louis), Florida, and Texas.
There are a couple of other key areas such as Pennslyvania, Kansas, and California that Nebraska likes to hit, but if Nebraska can recruit the four states listed in the first paragraph, it will be in good shape going forward.
Nebraska has always been more of a national recruiting program, even in some of the lean years. Matt Rhule is going to have the Huskers back to their winning ways soon and once the wins come, recruiting will get even better.
Yet, it’s still going pretty well and that should be reflected with some 2024 commitments in short order.
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