Nebraska's approach to their roster build..

[cwessel76]

Good subject matter. My theory on roster build, is that you don't want to go to the portal every year to find players to fill your roster. From a HS recruiting aspect you should keep your class sizes fairly consistent and inline with distributed position choices. Invariably you will have years where there are a large numbers of better athletes at certain positions, when that happens you must adjust how you divide classes going forward, so as not to be out of whack in your distribution.

You should only be going to the portal when you have fundamental failure in your recruiting of positions or unexpected injuries or portal emigration (players leaving).

General rule on the portal is that 90% of portal players are ones that didn't prove to be talented enough at their original school. Another 5% are complete mercenaries, who won't be devoted to team goals. Only 5% are probably worth your time and effort, and that is going to be expensive and require a lot of effort to cull into your roster.

It is more productive to develop your own players and keep them.

10 to 15 years ago this process was pretty well understood by both schools and coaches; then the pay to play decision came down, and the portal happened, and everyone, and every school simply lost their minds on how to handle their rosters.

I agree with most of what you said with the exception of your idea of 90% of portal players couldn’t hack it at their previous school. I would roughly estimate that number to be about 40-50%. The real story is so specific to the situation (poor coaching, attitude/work ethic issues, scheme fit, etc).

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

I'll try and find the article I am talking about in this thread later. About a year ago someone did a study on players in the portal, and what happened to them. Statistically the majority of them were dropping down a division of competition level rather than going up the ladder, and it wasn't close on those going down rather than up. It literally is a 90% are going down the ladder rather than up. The other factor was success level for those that went up, and it wasn't good either. We get used to viewing the odd success rather than the more common drop, because that is what the media focuses on, and what the announcers talk about during games.

 

[Bootleg11]

There's like 10k in the portal most aren't finding a new home.


Nebraska currently sits at #33 in the 247 portal rankings. Rankings can be distorted because some schools are taking 30+ guys. But we look at place like Cal...they have 12 commits (Nebraska is currently at 14) and they are sitting at #13 in the rankings. Ole Miss is at #5 with 13 transfers coming in. Tennessee #17 with 11 transfers, Oklahoma #19 with 13 commits.

My point being...Matt Rhule made the choice to come out and say that financially there would be nothing holding them back this year during the transfer portal.

Money talks in this game. Why isn't Nebraska's money talking more? For a team that decided that 2025-2026 recruiting was going to be portal heavy they aren't exactly killing it in the portal.

 

[cwessel76]

There's like 10k in the portal most aren't finding a new home.


Nebraska currently sits at #33 in the 247 portal rankings. Rankings can be distorted because some schools are taking 30+ guys. But we look at place like Cal...they have 12 commits (Nebraska is currently at 14) and they are sitting at #13 in the rankings. Ole Miss is at #5 with 13 transfers coming in. Tennessee #17 with 11 transfers, Oklahoma #19 with 13 commits.

My point being...Matt Rhule made the choice to come out and say that financially there would be nothing holding them back this year during the transfer portal.

Money talks in this game. Why isn't Nebraska's money talking more? For a team that decided that 2025-2026 recruiting was going to be portal heavy they aren't exactly killing it in the portal.

If only we had a local media that would ask honest questions…

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

There's like 10k in the portal most aren't finding a new home.


Nebraska currently sits at #33 in the 247 portal rankings. Rankings can be distorted because some schools are taking 30+ guys. But we look at place like Cal...they have 12 commits (Nebraska is currently at 14) and they are sitting at #13 in the rankings. Ole Miss is at #5 with 13 transfers coming in. Tennessee #17 with 11 transfers, Oklahoma #19 with 13 commits.

My point being...Matt Rhule made the choice to come out and say that financially there would be nothing holding them back this year during the transfer portal.

Money talks in this game. Why isn't Nebraska's money talking more? For a team that decided that 2025-2026 recruiting was going to be portal heavy they aren't exactly killing it in the portal.

Here is the deal though; most kids want to play at a school that is playing at a better level than where they were. They aren't looking at 50/50 schools, because they know there will be more NFL scouts seeing them at Ole Miss than at NU. At Cal it is the idea of a new head coach and being optimistic about where they are going, and immediate playing time.

This is year 4 for Matt, and we need to be seeing our players win, and then the portal would be more productive for us. Our best options in the portal right now are FCS players who were underrated who will probably become NFL draft objects, but need exposure at the P4 level.

 

[Bootleg11]

Here is the deal though; most kids want to play at a school that is playing at a better level than where they were. They aren't looking at 50/50 schools, because they know there will be more NFL scouts seeing them at Ole Miss than at NU. At Cal it is the idea of a new head coach and being optimistic about where they are going, and immediate playing time.

This is year 4 for Matt, and we need to be seeing our players win, and then the portal would be more productive for us. Our best options in the portal right now are FCS players who were underrated who will probably become NFL draft objects, but need exposure at the P4 level.

Tech was a 50/50 school...until they money whipped kids into coming there...a team with very little history, in Lubbock, TX, that's not in a top 2 conference.