Nebraska picked up their 2023 QB commit last night in 5.6 three star William Watson out of Massachusetts. He was the player of the year in the state, and he has been a 3 year starter for his team. Whipple coming from that area obviously had a good connection with him and liked what he saw.
But there are some things I just struggle with for this commitment. The first is, whenever we have a Power 5 player in our own backyard, I think it’s imperative that we keep them here. Zane Flores from Gretna has multiple Power 5 offers now with more coming. Take a look at his hudl highlights.
There’s definitely a difference you see when watching the HUDL films. First, Watson is more of a runner while Flores definitely has the more talented arm. For me, with the struggles i’ve seen our offense have with a running QB that struggled with accuracy from time to time in Martinez, I would lean towards accuracy. Our staff went that route too, after grabbing Martinez, McCaffrey, and Smothers, we reversed course and went with Haarberg as our 2021 QB. Flores touts a 70% completion percentage while Watson was 60% at the high school level this past fall.
Another thing I take a look at is Flores won games with inferior talent compared to teams like Omaha Westside. He just made his team better. Let’s not make it look like Watson didn’t do the same, but when you have a home state kid doing it, I think it’s something to ponder.
The last thing I wonder about is who we are going after at QB. After taking Haarberg from Kearney Catholic, we followed that up with Torres out of San Antonio who blew his knee out senior year, Casey Thompson the Texas transfer, and Chubba Purdy the Florida State transfer. Why not take a chance on Flores now? Let’s be real, Flores isn’t beating out Thompson in 2023 if he is still around, but if you believe in Purdy and Torres, might not be a bad time to grab a local kid. Instead, we go grab a guy from Massachusetts.
In year 5 I think you should be able to grab the Power 5 QB in your own backyard that wants to come here.
But let’s be real… QB play was one of the reasons we have struggled a bit the past 4 years and we fired our OC for the second time and are now on our third. What are we supposed to do, tell him he can’t go get who he wants? I actually like Watson as a commit. I’m just not sure he is that much better than a guy we have locally.
Frost needed to revamp the QB room and let Whipple have his way a bit, so i’m ok with their decision. I just would have found a way to get Flores here as well. If it were me, once we made an OC switch I would have told Torres he needed to find somewhere new and offered Flores AND Watson a scholarship for 2023. You have plenty of guys competing for 2022 with Haarberg, Smothers, Purdy, and Williams. If you need a 5th string guy you’re in trouble anyway, and you have Masker still here.
Last point on this… the transfer portal makes it so Flores is less of a risk in my opinion. Let’s say Flores sucks, after 2-3 years you can go get someone that has the experience of Purdy or Williams anyway. I just think we should have tried a bit harder to keep the local kid home. It’s not like we pulled in Arch Manning here for this 2023 class.
I know some people are rolling their eyes, that’s fine. For the record we have stepped up Omaha recruiting with some renewed energy, so that’s not what this is about. I just think if Oklahoma State and Kansas State are recruiting a kid in your backyard, get him here.
To reiterate, I like the Watson commit. Just get them both here.
Should have DB preview up later this week!
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I didn’t watch the film, and not sure who is better. Your points are valid tho, local kid will stay a few years longer then a kid from the cost. But don’t coaching staffs have equal offers out there and it is just the first one to commit gets the spot? If they keep pushing off Watson to get Flores but Flores goes somewhere else and then by that time Watson is also gone. So basically its a gamble, they got to take one or get nothing.
I think so, I think my main point was that you could get Flores to commit right now as well. They usually offer in tiers, so they’ll offer 3 guys and if no one bites in a timely manner they move down to their next tier of guys.
I personally don’t believe any of the QBs we’ve recruited since Frost has been here is going to move the needle for us.
I have no clue if they’ll pan out, but I think our transfer QBs are his best shot at making us competitve, but I guess we’ll see
I think that’s fair, and to be honest maybe Watson will move it more than Flores could. I just don’t see a ton of difference right now between the two. I see a difference in skillset for sure (watson better runner flores better passer), but I don’t know if I see a massive difference maker from either at this point.
There shouldn’t be any local kids with P5 talent that end up elsewhere IMO. Your points are dead on about grabbing Flores and letting Torres go. We have Ghompson/Purdy for the next 2, 3, or 4 years with Haarberg competing as well. The more local talent you let slip away the worse it looks.
And I want to be careful saying that a local kid should get an offer no matter what, but we clearly have room if we grabbed 4 QBs in 3 months between Torres signing, Purdy signing, Thompson signing, and now this kid committing. A better way to say it is Flores is every bit the player Haarberg is that’s rostered right now.
In addition noticed they have been offering DL players the last few days from the portal. Twins from North Texas look interesting.
Spring ball will be awfully interesting, but I got to believe they will be tight lipped about how things are going and pretty vanilla for the Spring game. The qb room will be fascinating to watch with all the new faces and the departed 2AM. Soooo many new moving parts…can only hope for the best…hopefully its not too little too late