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A lot of revisionist history about floating around recently, lettuce revisit his time at Nebraska:
Hired, December 2021 to replace Greg Austin. Nebraska OL has been very underwhelming - Cam Jurgens is the only dude on our line that year, & he's declared for the draft. Frost has basically ignored OL recruiting, and there are just 9(!) scholarship linemen returning for 2022.
Justin Evans is our one offensive line recruit this year - Donnie gets there too late to add to that class, but gets 2 guys out of the portal (Kevin Williams & Hunter Anthony)
2022 - we're playing YOLO ball with Whipple & Casey Thompson. OL is Corc/Banks, Piper, Hixson, Bando & Benhart. We have one of the worst lines in CFB, made to somehow look even worse by our play-calling. Tackles get whipped most plays, interior line is well below average. Our only shot is if we can pass pro long enough for Thompson to hit the back of his drop & launch one to Trey Palmer before getting crushed (fortunately we do that to Cockeye.... hahahahahaha, suck it birds). People mostly hate Donnie & think he's our worst assistant, although most admit he has little to work with.
Rhule is hired, & he retains Donnie to the shock of most people. We finally start recruiting numbers at OL & get Gottula, Knutson, Sledge, Goldman & Maciejzak in the recruiting class, plus Ben Scott as an impact portal guy, & Tyler Knaak & Jacob Hood as developmental transfers. Had Walter Rouse until Oklahoma emptied the bank to flip him.
2023 - Ben Scott plugs in & plays fine. Corc looks moderately improved before injury. OL play as a whole is probably below average, but one of the massive jumps from 2022. There's a little bit of pass pro, and we're not regularly getting shoved into the backfield on offensive run plays. Offense as a whole is a patchwork & hard to evaluate after Jeff Sims goes haywire & Haarberg is running the show as an athlete who can throw a little bit. People go from hating Donnie to being okay/so-so on him.
Recruiting looks promising, adding Brix, Taumua, Pyle, Davidson, Jake Peters, & Ruggeroli. We grab Mazzccua from the portal as an impact guy when he's not trying to start boxing matches mid-game. Plus we get Dylan Raiola, & Donovan definitely didn't hurt with that.
2024 - our OL is even better. Benhart goes from being a running joke at tackle to a poster child for development & fringe NFL prospect. Mazzccua plays pretty well when he's not being retarded. Ben Scott still solid in the middle. Prochazka goes down with a season ending injury in fall camp, & moderately-improved Corc is gone for the season after 4 games & an injury, so we're riding with 3rd string tackle Gottula as our guy at RT. OL as a whole has gone from a below-average group to an above-average group. Besides Mazzccua being mad at Donnie for not sucking his dick, everyone is starting to love Donnie, & he's viewed as one of our top assistants.
Recruiting-wise, we add Shawn Hammerbeck, Juju Marks, Houston Ka'aha'aina-Torres, & Brian Tapu. From the portal, we grab Spindler as an impact guy, & Elijah Pritchett to plug a hole at tackle after losing a couple of our top guys & injuries on other guys lingering.
2025 - this is the first year under Donnie the OL has regressed. Pritchett has talent, but has short-circuits between the ears, so he's inconsistent & not regularly there. Corc & Teddy haven't had that Benhart jump - their continual injuries probably haven't helped that. Gottula is struggling, but out there a year earlier than what he should be as the starter. Interior line is generally decent, but tackles are a major deficiency. Raiola's weaknesses are ones that accentuate the issue.
People are mad at Donnie again (fair enough) but also being potatoes about how we got here and pretending like we didn't have 3 straight notable improvements from being the worst OL in P4 & starting with nothing to develop. The tackle positions are where we haven't gotten it done, but we have been grabbing guys from the portal most years.
We've gone from 9 scholarship OL (& only 4 underclassmen...again, WTF, what Frost did there was criminal) & zero depth to develop to 19, and have what appears to be some viable young depth at OT that looked good against weaker opponents, but isn't ready for P2 games yet. We've hit well on most of our OL in the portal.
This year has been a problem, no doubt, & in Nebraska raging about our OL coach has been a constant for the past 23 years since Tenopir... but when a position group improves its first 3 years under a coach & he did that starting with basically nothing, I'm not ready to join the
screaming for his job. I want to see some adjustments/improvements the back half of this season & need to see some signs of life at the tackle positions next year, but the upward trajectory & rebuilding of the position room has been quantifiable up until a few games ago.
Hired, December 2021 to replace Greg Austin. Nebraska OL has been very underwhelming - Cam Jurgens is the only dude on our line that year, & he's declared for the draft. Frost has basically ignored OL recruiting, and there are just 9(!) scholarship linemen returning for 2022.
Justin Evans is our one offensive line recruit this year - Donnie gets there too late to add to that class, but gets 2 guys out of the portal (Kevin Williams & Hunter Anthony)
2022 - we're playing YOLO ball with Whipple & Casey Thompson. OL is Corc/Banks, Piper, Hixson, Bando & Benhart. We have one of the worst lines in CFB, made to somehow look even worse by our play-calling. Tackles get whipped most plays, interior line is well below average. Our only shot is if we can pass pro long enough for Thompson to hit the back of his drop & launch one to Trey Palmer before getting crushed (fortunately we do that to Cockeye.... hahahahahaha, suck it birds). People mostly hate Donnie & think he's our worst assistant, although most admit he has little to work with.
Rhule is hired, & he retains Donnie to the shock of most people. We finally start recruiting numbers at OL & get Gottula, Knutson, Sledge, Goldman & Maciejzak in the recruiting class, plus Ben Scott as an impact portal guy, & Tyler Knaak & Jacob Hood as developmental transfers. Had Walter Rouse until Oklahoma emptied the bank to flip him.
2023 - Ben Scott plugs in & plays fine. Corc looks moderately improved before injury. OL play as a whole is probably below average, but one of the massive jumps from 2022. There's a little bit of pass pro, and we're not regularly getting shoved into the backfield on offensive run plays. Offense as a whole is a patchwork & hard to evaluate after Jeff Sims goes haywire & Haarberg is running the show as an athlete who can throw a little bit. People go from hating Donnie to being okay/so-so on him.
Recruiting looks promising, adding Brix, Taumua, Pyle, Davidson, Jake Peters, & Ruggeroli. We grab Mazzccua from the portal as an impact guy when he's not trying to start boxing matches mid-game. Plus we get Dylan Raiola, & Donovan definitely didn't hurt with that.
2024 - our OL is even better. Benhart goes from being a running joke at tackle to a poster child for development & fringe NFL prospect. Mazzccua plays pretty well when he's not being retarded. Ben Scott still solid in the middle. Prochazka goes down with a season ending injury in fall camp, & moderately-improved Corc is gone for the season after 4 games & an injury, so we're riding with 3rd string tackle Gottula as our guy at RT. OL as a whole has gone from a below-average group to an above-average group. Besides Mazzccua being mad at Donnie for not sucking his dick, everyone is starting to love Donnie, & he's viewed as one of our top assistants.
Recruiting-wise, we add Shawn Hammerbeck, Juju Marks, Houston Ka'aha'aina-Torres, & Brian Tapu. From the portal, we grab Spindler as an impact guy, & Elijah Pritchett to plug a hole at tackle after losing a couple of our top guys & injuries on other guys lingering.
2025 - this is the first year under Donnie the OL has regressed. Pritchett has talent, but has short-circuits between the ears, so he's inconsistent & not regularly there. Corc & Teddy haven't had that Benhart jump - their continual injuries probably haven't helped that. Gottula is struggling, but out there a year earlier than what he should be as the starter. Interior line is generally decent, but tackles are a major deficiency. Raiola's weaknesses are ones that accentuate the issue.
People are mad at Donnie again (fair enough) but also being potatoes about how we got here and pretending like we didn't have 3 straight notable improvements from being the worst OL in P4 & starting with nothing to develop. The tackle positions are where we haven't gotten it done, but we have been grabbing guys from the portal most years.
We've gone from 9 scholarship OL (& only 4 underclassmen...again, WTF, what Frost did there was criminal) & zero depth to develop to 19, and have what appears to be some viable young depth at OT that looked good against weaker opponents, but isn't ready for P2 games yet. We've hit well on most of our OL in the portal.
This year has been a problem, no doubt, & in Nebraska raging about our OL coach has been a constant for the past 23 years since Tenopir... but when a position group improves its first 3 years under a coach & he did that starting with basically nothing, I'm not ready to join the
screaming for his job. I want to see some adjustments/improvements the back half of this season & need to see some signs of life at the tackle positions next year, but the upward trajectory & rebuilding of the position room has been quantifiable up until a few games ago.
