Portal thoughts; OL questions, DL, and RB

I am really not trying to duplicate other threads here, my primary purpose is discuss depth on the team already, and why in many cases, we probably shouldn't go throwing money into the portal.

People often pretend that the TP is some magic device in which rich teams always win, it isn't. The failure rate on TP players is about 50% or higher for even the best teams. I do believe that Matt Rhule is correct about "recruiting your own roster" when it comes to off season decisions. If you have done an appropriate amount of work in bringing in HS recruits, AND THEN DEVELOPED THOSE RECRUITS, you shouldn't be reaching all over the portal to fill slots throughout your team.

Mostly Rhule's classes have been pretty well considered in the HS recruiting world. The problem is that in many cases we haven't developed those players effectively. No position more thoroughly proves this than the OL.

Here is what we currently possess in our youngest players on our roster:



This might well be one of the best looking rosters I've seen for our OL in 20 years in terms of potential. The question is/was what the heck were we doing with all this talent, most of which was never seeing the field. There were sterling reports on numerous of these players in camp, but we kept running out the same old/same old over and over again.

I know this is going to spark some healthy disagreement here; Gunnar Gottula is a really good player, who as a redshirt Freshman started numerous games in 2024. Brix is a highly rated player, Taumua has been considered one of the better OL to come out of Hawaii recently, Pyle is a highly considered player who scored the highest score in a OL camp in Florida of top OL recruits. Peters is what you can only call a quintessential center candidate.

We haven't been developing these players appropriately, and thank God we have a new OL coach.

Next post on the DL .......

 

[Pepe Silvia]

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

Fixed
Haven't figured out yet how to use your spreadsheet functionality

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

Our DL issues are focused on primarily one position and that is the Nose or 0 - 3 tech player. In a 3 - 3 - 5 defense in most conferences excluding the B1G and the SEC you might get away without a real NT, but both of these conferences are entirely more physical than other conferences, and the week after week exposure to this brawl, requires both huge strong players, and great depth, at DL positions especially.
So where are we with this roster? The answer is a bit complex as well. We have some really good talent in a few players, some fairly average talent with a few others, and some that were it not for the recent court decision; we should have let them go. So a bit of analysis here:

We only have 2 Seniors coming up for 2026; Jaylen George and Cameron Lenhardt, of those two Lenhardt is the only solid contributor. In the Junior to be group, have Keona Davis, Lefotu, Goldman, Rogers, Noonan, Moore, Van Poppel, McGahee in other words this is a huge group. Of this group, I only see Davis, RVP, McGahee and to a limited degree Moore as real active players on our roster. Some of these guys I liked out of HS; but at different positions than where they landed. The court decision means we can't do anything really with these other players.

Finally in the Freshmen group we have some good pieces that are going to be extremely valuable going forward: Kade, Nwaneri, Simpson and Terry.

Now if you look at this in terms of players and positions, this means we have a good thing going on the Edge, and I see a lot of potential on the Jack side (there are some more players who may move there next year also). But we lack depth at the 3 - 5 tech (true DT) and at the 0 - 3 tech (Nose tackle).

The only experienced player we have who can play that position is Moore, Terry is probably more talented, but he is coming off injury and has never played D1 football. I suspect Davidson is probably gone sooner or later as I don't think he really planned to end up on defense.

I am not sold right now on RVP, I don't know what happened this year, but he didn't look like the player we expected.

Long and short; we need 2 potential starting NT's, and one experienced DT who can start.

 

[Alcaus]

Are you saying there hasn’t been OL development bc our freshman and sophomores aren’t starting?

Seems like a dubious benchmark if so.

Blocking appeared to improve as the season progressed which to me points to development compared to early in the season.

Kind of irrelevant considering there’s a new OL coach. The transfer portal delivered us our best lineman, I think it’s certainly helpful if you can find the right guys. Don’t necessarily see a need to add more pieces if Geep is happy with the existing bodies.

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

ON RB's. With Emmett declaring for the draft, we are really in hot water here, especially given that Parker is in the Portal.

We need 2 RBs and this is besides the issue at DT and NT the most important thing we need to resolve.

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

Are you saying there hasn’t been OL development bc our freshman and sophomores aren’t starting?

Seems like a dubious benchmark if so.

Blocking appeared to improve as the season progressed which to me points to development compared to early in the season.

Kind of irrelevant considering there’s a new OL coach. The transfer portal delivered us our best lineman, I think it’s certainly helpful if you can find the right guys. Don’t necessarily see a need to add more pieces if Geep is happy with the existing bodies.

I'm saying that if you are rolling out a Lutovsky at LG and you are sitting on a Brix, who isn't seeing development enough to start, then yeah you aren't developing your talent. And this is on Donovan mostly but not entirely. There is simply not enough improvement across the OL to show what the talent level is on this roster right now for the OL. Neither in Pass pro or in run blocking.

FYI if your "best guy" is Elijah Pritchett who can't seem to not make constant mistakes and cost penalties, then you have a real problem.

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

Long and short of this is that baring some change at QB I'm not really concerned much about our other positions on the roster. Of course that depends on what Dylan does or doesn't do, but from some listening to someone I trust, I am pretty confident that Dylan isn't going anywhere. As long as Dylan stays our WR's will also.

Our problems are at the DL and the RB, and that HAS to be our focus in the portal!!!

 

[Alcaus]

I'm saying that if you are rolling out a Lutovsky at LG and you are sitting on a Brix, who isn't seeing development enough to start, then yeah you aren't developing your talent. And this is on Donovan mostly but not entirely. There is simply not enough improvement across the OL to show what the talent level is on this roster right now for the OL. Neither in Pass pro or in run blocking.

FYI if your "best guy" is Elijah Pritchett who can't seem to not make constant mistakes and cost penalties, then you have a real problem.

What we know is that lineman recruiting rankings are some of the most dubious once you get into 4-star territory.

The conclusion that Brix not starting over Lutovsky seems a bit narrow when we tell ourselves a developmental program likely won’t see their freshman OL class contributing until year 3-4 in the program.

Pritchett clearly improved over the course of the season. Hard to find his penalty total but I know it’s at least three: two false starts and a targeting ejection. Seems overblown to call that constant, especially of Nebraska’s only projected 1st rd OL in the past 30 years.

I think Geep will improve development and recruiting so that’s good overall. Guess my point is that the OL isn’t in as bad a place as many feel. Transfer portal is a helpful tool, may not be needed at OL this year.

 

[ThankGODforWVB]

What we know is that lineman recruiting rankings are some of the most dubious once you get into 4-star territory.

The conclusion that Brix not starting over Lutovsky seems a bit narrow when we tell ourselves a developmental program likely won’t see their freshman OL class contributing until year 3-4 in the program.

Pritchett clearly improved over the course of the season. Hard to find his penalty total but I know it’s at least three: two false starts and a targeting ejection. Seems overblown to call that constant, especially of Nebraska’s only projected 1st rd OL in the past 30 years.

I think Geep will improve development and recruiting so that’s good overall. Guess my point is that the OL isn’t in as bad a place as many feel. Transfer portal is a helpful tool, may not be needed at OL this year.

I'm content to believe that Geep will succeed, but there needs to be some clarity on what the expectations are here, and that has been somewhat lax on the OL coaching for far too long. If you think that we shouldn't be able to see RFRs and So's starting; please tell that to Michigan who just did that in spades this last year.