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July Recruiting Thread

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July Recruiting Thread

Schedule detail

Aug 1, 2025 at 1:00 PM
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  1. Dell Husker Dell Husker
Texas Tech NIL and $ article. It’s no mystery why we don’t have the requisite amount of blue chips on our roster to consistently compete. $1.1mm for a softball player…lol.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nf...t-who-just-signed-for-an-also-ran/ar-AA1Ihr4W

Quote of interest:
During the chaos of football’s January transfer portal window, Tech brought in the top-ranked group—and the Matador Club, the school’s booster collective, bragged about spending $10 million to pull it off.

“We had the No. 1 football transfer class and it’s because we understood the issues and the loopholes and opportunities it presented and took advantage of them,” said Tech booster Cody Campbell, an oil billionaire who played for the Red Raiders in the early 2000s. “We’ve been winners in all of this.”

Those opportunities aren’t limited to the gridiron. To make sure the basketball team’s star forward JT Toppin returned for next season, the Matador Club offered him a reported $4 million. NiJaree Canady, the star softball pitcher from Stanford, was lured to West Texas with an offer of $1.1 million.
 
skerfan said:
Damn, Dayton might be leading the JV team.
Click to expand...
Could be interesting. Looks like Hunter just transferred there last month. It will be his third high school in his third state in three years.

IIRC, another QB with D1 offers, TJ Wilcox, transferred to Buford as a senior last year planning to win the job after Dylan graduated. Dayton beat him out and Wilcox left for a Florida high school.
 

​

Portrait of Tyler Palmateer Tyler Palmateer
Knoxville News Sentinel

  • Kentucky football commit and former Bearden quarterback DJ Hunter is transferring to Buford High School (Georgia).
  • Hunter cited the firing of former Bearden coach Josh Jones and the subsequent transfer of other players as key reasons for his decision.
DJ Hunter, a Kentucky football commitment who was Bearden’s quarterback last fall, said the firing of former Bearden coach Josh Jones was a key factor in his decision to transfer to perennial power Buford High School (Georgia) for next season.
Bearden fired Jones in February after three TSSAA football seasons. The change came weeks after it was discovered that the Bearden High School Football Booster Club improperly paid two coaches at least $60,000 during two years, according to an investigation by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury. No Bearden coaches were named in the investigation.
“We ended up deciding on Buford because last season Coach Jones ended up getting fired at Bearden. After that, a lot of players ended up transferring. The atmosphere was different with everyone that left,” Hunter told Knox News on June 3. “We ended up needing to find another place to play. There’s good football down there at Buford, and my sister plays basketball, and they have a good basketball program down there.”
Hunter, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound three-star prospect, first announced his decision to transfer on Instagram on June 2. He was ranked by 247Sports as the No. 13 junior in Tennessee at the time of his departure. He committed to Kentucky in April.

He completed 76-of-142 passes for 1,431 yards and nine touchdowns while also rushing for three more scores last fall, despite missing three games with a shoulder injury and another game with a sprained ankle. Bearden finished 9-4 and reached the Class 6A state quarterfinals.
Hunter transferred to Bearden from Horn Lake High School (Mississippi) before the 2024 season. In seven starts as a freshman at Horn Lake, he completed 78-of-165 passes for 1,135 passing yards and 10 touchdowns.
Buford has won 14 GHSA football state titles and went 12-2 during its Class 6A state semifinals run in 2024. The Wolves’ Aug. 14 home opener against Milton (Georgia) will be broadcast on ESPN.
 
Omar Little said:
Can someone post today’s tunnel talk?
Click to expand...
Oops


Callahan’s weekly nuggets​

***With the future of the playoff very much up in the air, the Big 12 took a very interesting stance by favoring a 5+11 model over an AQ model that would give them two spots every year.












I’m told a lot of it has to do with its rarity, where the Big 12 can position itself publicly as an equal with the SEC. The members of the Big 12 also don’t want to ever admit they are half the league of the Big Ten and SEC when it comes to AQ spots.

The key now is to see whether the number of teams will remain at 12 and not expand to 14 or 16. If they can’t agree on a format and scheduling metrics, it’s a very likely scenario. You also wonder about the power of the bowls.

Right now, six bowls are involved in the playoff. There has been a push to have first and second-round games at home sites. That would eliminate four bowl games from the playoff, and make only the semifinals part of the playoff, along with the championship site, which is not tied to a bowl. How would they be managed with the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Fiesta, and Peach Bowls, which, like it or not, are very much part of the history of college football and the championship discussion.

***For the third year in a row, Matt Rhule will move his team into the Selleck dorms on July 27. Rhule was the first NU coach to do something like this with fall camp in several years. The team will spend around two weeks or more in the dorm buildings.

***Do not sleep on Tyler Knaak in the discussion at right tackle. I’m also told both Teddy Prochazka and Turner Corcoran are in excellent shape right now with a very focused vibe heading into 2025. The offensive line hasn’t had this much depth and experience at Nebraska in quite some time.

***Random nugget here, but I had someone who was at Warner Bros. in California message me this week that they are shooting something right now, Nebraska-related, with actor Steve Carell.

I am not sure what the film or project is, but the video he sent me was a simulation of the University of Nebraska campus, featuring a large sign that read, “Welcome Freshman.” Hopefully, it’s not a sequel to “Tommy Lee Goes to College.”

Lets talk 2026 recruiting and rev-share​

***Nebraska wants to close on Swedish defensive lineman Valdin Sone, but the issue remains the market to get him.

Some teams involved may have chosen to pay their roster in advance with frontloading, leaving them more rev-share money for 2026 recruits. That strategy has thrown off the market, allowing some teams to have more money based on how much they allocated for the 2026 recruits and paid for in advance with front-loading.

Things are expected to level out over the next year, but for now, the market is all over the place because of the front-loading. I do believe Nebraska has done some of that, but not to the extent we are seeing at other places like Texas Tech and USC.

Moving forward, NU does feel good about its plan to operate once this front-loading year is behind us.

-Sean Callahan


As Sipple sees (and hears) it​

***I like what I’m hearing this summer about Nebraska’s running back situation.

Mainly, I like what I’m hearing about the competitive nature of the group. It sounds to me like the so-called backups aren’t necessarily willing to concede the starting job to Emmett Johnson. You would expect that sort of competitive fire to be the case in a Power-4 program, but it’s still good to hear because it’s never a sure thing.

***We simply haven’t seen much of redshirt freshman Mekhi Nelson (one carry for 2 yards last season). But I’m told Nelson is a vicious competitor with a bit of a mean streak. He apparently falls under the “killer competitor” category.

Bottom line, Nelson isn’t conceding anything to anyone. I love it. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him rise to No. 2 and perhaps even strongly challenge Johnson.

***Same goes for Isaiah Mozee, who appears set to give it a whirl at running back after initially being slated to play receiver. We’ll ask Matt Rhule about the coaches’ plans for Mozee on July 22 during Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas. But this doesn’t appear to be a situation in which Mozee is just dipping his toe in the RB water.

He’s seemingly in it to win it, as they say.

***A high school All-American for Lee’s Summit North High School in Missouri, Mozee stood out mostly as a receiver. However, during his four seasons of prep ball, he carried the rock 78 times for 665 yards and 11 scores. That’s 8.5 yards per carry.

Yes, this situation has my attention.

***I talked this week with Frank Solich, one of the greatest running backs coaches of all time, about Derek Brown and Dahrran Diedrick, who are among former players set to be inducted this fall into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame.

Frank said he hasn’t watched much of Emmett Johnson, or any of the Husker running backs, for that matter. But Frank did mention during the conversation that he didn’t put a big emphasis on breakaway speed when evaluating backs. Vision is more important, he said.

Emmett Johnson has excellent vision but isn’t a speed burner.

“You can be a great back who doesn’t have great (straight-line) speed,” Solich said. “If you have vision and see angles — and can make the instinctive cut off of your vision of players coming at you — that’s huge in the overall equation in my mind.

“You look at guys like (Mike) Rozier, they had great vision and found the creases. They had good acceleration but maybe could get run down by a corner or a legitimate speed guy.

“Vision and instincts and acceleration in and out of creases and getting yards after contact … that’s the kind of guys we had at Nebraska for the most part.”

***I could talk to Frank all day about that stuff.

***Scott Frost just can’t help himself, or so it seems. His comments during Big 12 Media Days this week were unfortunate in a lot of ways. It would be nice to see him show more humility and willingness to accept responsibility for going 16-31 at NU, including just 5-22 in one-score games.

He said this week he didn’t really want to take the Nebraska job in the first place. At least he’s not lying. I always got that impression from him — that he was hesitant to go all-in on the Husker job — before the job opened. In 2017, as Mike Riley’s destiny became increasingly obvious, sources close to Frost (and Scott himself) made it clear that it was far from a sure thing that he would ultimately agree to take the job. I hung up the phone at least a few times thinking, “Wow, this Frost-to-Nebraska thing might not happen at all.”

He handled essentially the entire situation poorly — hardly anything was good about it. He’s still handling it poorly. Amazing.

***On the other hand, Mark Manning is pushing a lot of the right buttons as Nebraska’s wrestling coach. Before welcoming transfer heavyweight A.J. Ferrari into the fold, Manning asked his current wrestlers what they thought about it.

“They were all about it,” Manning says. “That’s huge. That tells you a lot about their confidence level in themselves.”

Nebraska, of course, comes off a runner-up finish in the team race at nationals.

“We’re right there. We’re knocking on the door,” Manning says. “It’s not like we’re trying to invent something that’s never been done before.

“I think A.J. is that last piece of the puzzle, you know?”

***Maybe you’re getting used to the new college athletics world. Maybe it’s become a stale conversation for some of you. Not for me. I still get amazed. It happened Thursday when an assistant coach in a Power-4 hoops program told me the program’s head coach spends as much (or more) time jetting off to raise money for players as he does on actually recruiting them.

I know Fred Hoiberg spends a lot of time raising money – more time than he probably ever dreamed he’d spend.

It’s a colossal adjustment for coaches, and I admire those willing to do what it takes.

-Steven Sipple


Mongo’s musings​

*** There was a quiet start to the week, and I anticipate things will remain the same through the weekend. A couple of weeks ago, I received some intel that Calvin Thomas was N and plugged in my prediction. When there is a gap in time between a silent verbal and a public announcement, there is always a chance that things will change, as they have with Thomas.

When I was asked about “what changed” with Thomas, the best way to put it is that UNC sharpened their pencils with their offer. I was told by someone on Thomas’s official visit weekend that Texas was out and things were down to UNC and Nebraska. It definitely played out that way in July.


*** Nebraska is at 12 commitments, and while there are several possible names for the remaining spots in the class, I can’t help but think the slowdown is exactly what Nebraska wanted and needed. The Huskers would have taken Thomas; however, they want some buffer to re-approach or identify new targets in the fall, especially if they are having a good season.

Rhule just needs a little juice to get things going. There are several programs, as I look around the team rankings, where it’s very possible you could see a coaching change if their team struggles. Nebraska needs to have some success this fall, keep these last few open spots, and get ready to either poach or approach commits to programs that have just lost their head coach.

*** It’s hard to overlook the lack of symmetry in the class. Out of 12 commitments, only two are on the defensive side of the ball. This is definitely a sign of things to come with the remaining spots in the class. Nebraska is definitely in the market for a DL, an Edge LB, and possibly a safety or versatile defensive back. Things do get a little tricky when it comes to a long snapper, and that could be another spot Nebraska is in the market for.

A possible DB target:


*** It’s been a fun month of June following Trae Taylor and tying some of the recruiting successes in the 2026 class back to Taylor, as well as seeing the groundwork he’s been laying down with recruits in the 2027 and 2028 classes. He is definitely one of the best peer recruiters I can recall during my time covering recruiting.

Which brings me back to what another source told me last week. There was a real competition for Taylor’s commitment, and I was told it was very close between Nebraska and LSU. “People don’t realize Trae almost went to LSU,” is exactly what this source said. I was also told that LSU hasn’t stopped recruiting Taylor, and both Michigan and South Carolina are still aggressively pursuing Taylor.

*** Two of the more interesting stories this week for me were the Big Ten offers to two 2027 in-state recruits. Wyatt Liebentritt from Omaha Skutt received an offer from Penn State, and Wyatt Frey from Red Cloud Lawrence-Nelson received an offer from Northwestern. The 2027 group is shaping up to be a very talented one. There are already seven in-state recruits holding D1 offers:


*** From what I was told, Jaidyn Doss was tagged and was going to remain on scholarship, but no money. He could have remained on the team at Nebraska and been a member of the team on scholarship, receiving CoA and stipend money, but without any revenue sharing or NIL benefits.

*** Not sure if everyone saw the news that Nebraska’s other top running back target, Brian Bonner, finally announced his commitment this week to Washington. I heard this week from a source that Nebraska preferred running back commitment Jamal Rule over Bonner.

-Bryan Mongo
 
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