LINCOLN — The young men in red jerseys and gray pants spread out around the Hawks Center field. They were hard to tell apart.
Sure, 6-foot-7 freshman pitcher Carson Jasa stood a bit taller on the first day of team practice Friday. Junior infielder Aaron Manias milled about with his right arm in a sling fresh off shoulder surgery. Some players wore hats with flat bills, others rounded.
But Nebraska baseball observers from a distance mostly need a roster sheet, and not just because 25 of the 42 Huskers joined the team last fall. Body types are similar. NU could list most of its pitchers at 6-foot-3, 225 pounds and not be too far off. With fewer than three weeks until opening weekend at the high-profile Shriners Children’s College Showdown in Texas, so much interchangeability has lineup combinations and pitching assignments as certain as long-range weather forecasts.
Maybe — just maybe — Nebraska has found big depth.
Will Bolt knows how it sounds. The fifth-year Nebraska coach from suburban Houston is familiar with the old football saying that if you have two quarterbacks, you really have none. He knows how it feels, too, not being able to pencil in an All-America middle infield and Friday-Saturday tandem of starting pitchers that were all highly drafted last July.
“It’s a bit comforting knowing there’s a lot of candidates to start and it’s a little uncomfortable saying, ‘Hey, we don’t know who those guys are just yet,’” Bolt said. “Because there are a lot.”
The Haymarket Park-sized question for Nebraska in 2024 isn’t whether new stars will emerge — they tend to, as a steady stream of MLB picks and all-conference honors can attest. It’s how wide the circle of trust will extend as the Huskers aim to end a two-year NCAA tournament drought.
Lack of depth has undermined NU in recent seasons. The school’s best high-end draft crop in 15 years last spring produced a 33-22-1 record that wasn’t close to an at-large bid. The Huskers didn’t settle on a third starter until April and went 6-6 in midweek games while never knowing who would take the ball first in those contests. When a key bat needed a breather, scoring dipped. What the team calls “Championship Sunday” — those pivotal weekend series finales — led to a frustrating 3-5-1 mark.
Nebraska ran out of pitching in regional losses in 2019 and 2021. It couldn’t absorb injuries and ineffectiveness in the three other full campaigns since its breakthrough Big Ten title in 2017.
Do the Huskers have appreciably more options now? No telling for sure until another team is in the opposite dugout, coaches say. Players see it, though. Junior Drew Christo — one of upwards of 10 pitchers who could realistically start games — only knows he’ll embrace whatever job he earns. Junior outfielder Garrett Anglim is part of an offense that could create a two-deep at most spots without a steep drop-off.
“I don’t think we have set roles right now and that just speaks to the level of competitiveness that we’ve had,” Christo said.
Said Anglim: “Even beyond one through nine, we have guys in the lineup who are ready to step up at any time.”
From where has the perceived depth come? Recruiting, for one. Nebraska brought in what is widely considered among the best junior-college classes in the country. The nine-man haul includes likely positional starters in switch-hitting Joshua Overbeek (third base), Tyler Stone (first base) and speedy Riley Silva (centerfield) as well as projected high-leverage arms in Mason McConnaughey, Evan Borst and potential closer Casey Daiss.
Meanwhile, transfers Bobby Olsen (Brown) and Grant Cleavinger (Tulane) bring experience as starter/reliever options. Rans Sanders (Omaha) and Kyle Froehlich (Northwestern State) are proven back-of-the-bullpen assets. Outfielder Clay Bradford (NCAA Division II St. Mary’s) hit .419 last year and likely won’t crack the opening day lineup.
Nebraska’s name-image-likeness support externally and athletic department investment internally are new difference makers in acquiring additional quality role players, Bolt said. As of last spring, the Huskers were among roughly 50 Division I schools — there are nearly 300 in college baseball — to offer student-athletes financial rewards of $5,980 per year for meeting established academic benchmarks. Perks like training-table meals aren’t available everywhere either.
“It allows us to fill more quality depth with some of those things than maybe feeling like you’re going to get a star transfer to come to Nebraska,” Bolt said. “Not that it can’t happen, but I think you’re going to see the ability for us to build more depth this way.”
Health is also working in the Huskers’ favor — they essentially add four contributors who all were on the team but missed the entirety of last season with injuries in pitchers Trey Frahm and Hayden Lewis, utilityman Cayden Brumbaugh and infielder Bryce Hughes. Brumbaugh, once an Oklahoma State transfer, is likely to start at second base while the former top in-state recruit Frahm is throwing with velocity in the mid-90s as a projected reliever.
The freshman class could produce quickly too. Bolt called the young pitchers probably the best he’s had at Nebraska — “those guys are going to get an opportunity right away,” he said. That’s coveted former prospects like Ryan Harrahill, Tucker Timmerman and Ty Horn, among others. Designated hitter/outfielder Case Sanderson has earned consistent praise for his advanced approach at the plate after an eye-opening summer.
Depth through development is another potential twist after NU brought in two new assistant coaches. Mike Sirianni will coach first base and has integrated new drills and ideas for Husker hitters to consider. Anglim, for example, said trying different hand placements and changing the movement of his back shoulder on swings has netted positive results behind the scenes.
A bigger impact could come from the return of Rob Childress — who served as a Husker support staffer the previous two seasons — as pitching coach, where he once led construction of the program’s best staffs in the early 2000s before taking over at Texas A&M. The 55-year-old emphasizes simple, repeatable deliveries to improve command. Nebraska boasts a slew of pitchers with considerable swing-and-miss ability who are bona fide all-Big Ten candidates should they cut down on walks.
NU’s upgraded 56-game schedule relative to last year will give it ample opportunity to play into June even without winning the Big Ten, where early favorites appear to be Cockeye and Indiana as older and returning NCAA qualifiers. Midweek tests will be tougher as the likes of Wichita State, Kansas and Kansas State appear more often.
More arms make it more manageable, Bolt said. If Nebraska can approach a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio on the mound – it was at 2.46 a season ago, 30th nationally — it would signal an elite staff. Can pitchers get three outs, take a seat and come out for three more? Do they work fast? Can they mix in some quick innings?
The Huskers, for the first time under Bolt, may be able to work backward with their pitching. That is, asking a starter to go five frames before letting a relay of bullpen arms finish. Six NU relievers have been closers at some point in their college careers.
Last May the coach sat in the bowels of Charles Schwab Field after a Big Ten tournament ouster and identified five games as the margin between Nebraska ending its season then and continuing on.
Now it’s time to see how much more strength in numbers is worth.
