LINCOLN — I'm no Tom Luginbill, but Wednesday felt like the most successful Nebraska football signing date in the past 10 years. There was good news everywhere you looked.
• Local recruiting gurus got their buzz on early. Word spread Wednesday morning that safety Corey Cooper signed a letter of intent with the Huskers. Quarterback Brion Carnes then shocked the world, or parts of it, by signing with NU after everyone in the free (and paid) Internet world thought he was going to Western Kentucky.
Nothing makes for a memorable signing day like getting unexpected good news. Could the Huskers go 3 for 3? Not so fast. Owa Odighizuwa announced he was going to play for Rick “Skippy'' Neuheisel at UCLA. It was a minor disappointment, not a buzz killer, summed up for the entire state by one Mark Pelini, and we don't mean the NU walk-on from Youngstown, Ohio.
“That's his mistake,'' Bo Pelini said. “I try not to get stressed about those things.''
• Nebraska did not lose a quarterback to Western Kentucky. That just might be the best news of the day.
• I know Odighizuwa would have been a great “get'' for Pelini, but I'm trying to look on the bright side here. At least I don't have to remember how to spell his name the next four years.
• The Cooper and Carnes signings continued the momentum of the 2009 season and Holiday Bowl whacking of Arizona on ESPN. This is a program on the move upward, and the class of 21 players says it all. It's loaded with quality, character and big names and no-names alike waiting to be developed. It's got balance, as in 11 defensive players and nine offensive players (or 12 to the defense if you include Bronson Marsh). It's got an offensive tackle who seems ready to start next season. It's full of good football players who want to jump on board the bandwagon.
And while you can't get every defensive line stud from Portland with a hard-to-spell name, NU has moved into a position of being selective to fill needs and add depth at certain positions in Pelini's third season.
• If you fretted that NU's lack of production and identity on offense would hurt the efforts to recruit thoroughbreds, you can breathe today. The class is not top-heavy with defense. NU appears to have gotten a quality quarterback and I-back out of the deal, plus receivers Pelini says he likes.
Also: while ESPN's Luginbill was quoted before the Carnes signing as saying the Huskers didn't get any game-changing skill players on offense, he might have missed the point. If “Yoshi'' Hardrick, a 6-foot-7, 315-pound tackle/mountain, can be a masher at tackle this fall, that's the kind of impact player this offense needs. Pelini has been piling up the O-linemen the past two years. It all starts up there, folks.
“Sometimes kids see (a struggling offense) as an opportunity for them,'' Pelini said.
• For those who believe in karma, NU's class was ranked 23rd by rivals.com. Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne, who attended the press conference, said, “I think our best teams were ranked 20th, 25th, 30th or 35th (in recruiting).''
By the way, Osborne never looked so relaxed at a signing day press conference.
• Those who want an identity for Shawn Watson's offense got the signing of Carnes, a run-pass threat with breakaway moves, to go with Jamal Turner, a similar combo threat who committed for 2011. You see a trend here? Once these kids get here and start developing, Pelini's offense will quickly take shape. And while Zac Lee broke out and ran aggressively in the Holiday Bowl, imagine some of those plays with a quarterback who can really hoof it.
• There's Chase Rome. Do not worry about Owa. Embrace this promising defensive end prospect who comes with his own karma. Missouri can have the Gabberts. NU took Rome out of Columbia, Mo., Mizzou's backyard.
• Pelini got a class full of gamers, warriors and winners — prototype Pelini recruits.
“We want kids who love to play football,'' Pelini said. “They have to be tough. You've got to do your homework on them, but a lot of times it's a gut feeling. You see a guy on film back down from a hit, and you say, ‘That isn't the guy we want.' ''
• There were 16 kids from Nebraska — four with scholarships and 12 as walk-ons. That should keep the home folks happy, although Pelini understands the best way to do that.
“People want to see Nebraska kids, but at the end of the day, people in Nebraska want to win,'' he said. “That's what they are going to hold me to. Ideally, we would get 20 kids every year from Nebraska so I could do all my recruiting by car.''
• Pelini didn't have to hire a private eye this week.
“I know a lot of the recruiting stuff on the Internet is distasteful, but recruiting is a lot better than it used to be,'' Osborne said. “It used to be really bad with coaches running around doing all kinds of crazy things. Back then, coaches could meet with recruits up until signing day. The night before signing day, kids would just disappear. Coaches would put them in hotels or hide them away. The night before we signed Turner Gill, we had no idea where he was. Nobody did.
“It used to be (signing players) never ended. I remember flying to L.A. one year in May to sign a player. And I was a guy with young kids.''
The Pelini kids apparently won't have to worry about that. When asked on Wednesday who would win the Super Bowl, Pelini said, “I don't care. I'm going to Disney World.''
Pelini will be going as Happy, not Grumpy.
Contact the writer:
444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com
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