The frequent excuse from the kool-aid crowd is that we don't have the talent that we had 10 years ago.
Guess what. We probably never will. 1995 was something special, something that will probably never be repeated.
The 1995 Huskers should be considered the pinnacle of achievement; they are considered by some to be the greatest football team ever. If you expect that to be repeated, you will go through the rest of your life sorely disappointed.
Kool-aid drinkers like to recite rivals.com rankings for the past several years as proof that "talent is our problem." Problem is, they never look at the rivals.com rankings of our opponents. Sure, Oklahoma always has great recruiting rankings, but their top-5 2003 signing class is in shambles. But has Texas Tech had better recruiting classes? Nope. And Kansas? Please.
Success in football is not just based on talent. Talent is only part of the equation. Coaching and preparation plays as big, if not bigger role. Look at Notre Dame; last year, people used the talent card to explain their struggles. Add in a great coach in Charlie Weis, and suddenly the talent level has mysteriously been upgraded.
The only thing I would add to your comments is winning certainly helps with recruiting. Callahan's lackluster seasons will do nothing to help him recruit. Where will Nebraska find itself if Callahan can recruit himself to winning?
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt it was recruiting that led to 30 years of 9+ win seasons. It was coaching.
An interesting observation made by a Penn State fan on usenet:
ReplyDeleteUNL recruiting classes:
2002 42nd
2003 40th
2004 27th
2005 5th
That's talent you can win with.
Fresno State:
2002 53rd
2003 98th
2004 111th
2005 75th
Fresno State 6-1
Nebraska 4-4
And Fresno State has played a much tougher scedule.
Just a random thought:
ReplyDeleteHow much emphasis do we put on recruiting for your system? Texas Tech may not have recruited better atheletes, but the ones that they did recruit seem to be fitting in pretty nicely (yes, until they played Texas). Can we still say that the recruits that are playing weren't all (and I stress all) recruited for the "system."
While that's great that we had the #5 recruiting class, how many of those actually contribute on a regular basis? You can't look at last year's recruiting class because those (usually) aren't the ones who are playing.
Dead on, Mike.
ReplyDeleteIf every player had the talent to perfectly execute any play, we wouldn't need coaching, would we?
The QB would just have to say "...go long", and heave it for a TD.
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