My apologies on pivoting a bit from the commitments and talking about these things, but they are pretty hot on social media right now. And let’s be honest those commits ain’t going anywhere so we can talk about them next week.
First, if any of you remember this article I wrote, it dove into how Nebraska wasn’t as great at NIL as everyone was trying to tell you:
Here’s the deal, you had talking heads on the biggest Husker fan message board telling you how great ABM was. How we were so innovative. How we were the first to set something up like this and it was going to pay huge dividends. You even have tweets referenced in that article how we were a #3 NIL program. Listen, I love Husker fans’ passion. No other place in the college football world would have this many sellouts for a team that hasn’t made a bowl game since 2016 (i’m not going into validity of it right now). But the unfortunate thing is we have been grossly oversold with our NIL and ABM situation, and now the same high-profile members of the media are telling you the exact same thing about our new collective and how it is just as good if not better. In certain DMs I was telling people that we better hope some of the stuff that has happened doesn’t get out, it will severely hurt our next coaches chances. And then yesterday this happened:
Just what we didn’t need. Essentially there is some stuff floating around that our former collective wasn’t paying athletes what was promised, and even further frustrations were coming from boosters who paid said collective but saw their money not reach the final landing spot they were told it was going to. That’s a MASSIVE issue in a world where NIL can trump nearly anything going on within recruiting. Depending on what you believe, you can also attribute Raiolas hesitance to commit to Nebraska due to uncertainty around NIL payments.
But allow me to not go too negative on past things here. This is exactly what I hate about NIL and what it is turning college football into. It’s going to turn into a he said/she said situation for us. Tyreke is going to say that he was promised something and it wasn’t fulfilled. What makes it even more complicated is theoretically the University has no say in the payments, because that’s an NCAA violation. It’s all through the collective, so is that really on Alberts, Rhule, or the University of Nebraska?
That’s why it was so important for Alberts to dissolve the ABM name that didn’t fulfill obligations so we can have a “fall guy” if this would ever get out. We can say we dissolved the issue. However, how different 1890 is from ABM is up for you to decide. But we can make ABM the scape goat just like when coaches fire coordinators to help save their jobs.
I’m a little curious on “why he stopped playing” though. Is he trying to say the reason we never saw him on the field and he quit is due to not getting NIL payments fulfilled? Seems a bit short-sighted. Or were there bigger things at play than just NIL? Did something happen with the coaches that made him not want to be here? Probably a whole different post I could write.
I’m hoping that this NIL stuff makes it so coaches and collectives can say “ya, this NIL situation is tough when no one knows who you are or what you look like. Probably should try contributing on the field.” It’s going to morph a bit into paying transfers that have actually done something instead of former five stars that didn’t play or high school recruits. I mean, have we had a high star recruit from Bama, Ohio State, or USC even really play for us? It’s mostly the guys that have starting experience elsewhere that will work out to contribute like Mathis or Scott. The Raiola situation is always going to be there, but my take on this is if a person hasn’t done anything at a Power 5 level yet, you don’t need to throw the kitchen sink at them unless they are a top100 recruit. Even then it’s risky (see tweet this post is about).
The problem is really going to be if Tyreke was promised something before even playing, because the fact he ended up not being any good doesn’t matter at that point. The narrative can basically be twisted to “they will say whatever to sign you then just take it away if you don’t play.” That’s tough to overcome. With that said, i’ve ridden in cars that our collective has given to players and dropped them off at recruits apartments that are paid for. We are doing what we are supposed to in most cases. However, I have heard some of the things that I think Johnson is getting ready to spill, which won’t be awesome to have to navigate for Alberts and Rhule. Don’t freak out too much, we aren’t the only school that deals with this stuff:
Now, how accurate are some of the figures that get thrown out? Just like with Johnson i’m sure there’s some embellishment to get your point across. FWIW Florida is currently sitting with the #11 recruiting class in the country which includes one 5 star, six 4 stars, and one 3 star… so this didn’t appear to make them stumble at all. But for a place like Nebraska where NIL could have been an accelerator, we sure seem to be tripping over ourselves.
Moving to NPGs mom
If you didn’t see the original tweet (now deleted), Noa Pola-Gates mother had some choice words for former Coach Frost, Chinander, and Fisher. She ended the tweet with the “middle finger emoji”. This one is still up:
Look, I was the first one to say the former staff had their issues. But NPGs mom coming with how wrong someone was treated in the transfer portal era just seems like sour grapes to me. The kid came in at 175 pounds where the knock on him was he was going to have to put on weight to play, he ended his career at 180. And quite frankly I never saw anything out of him to think he was getting unfairly treated or should have been playing. I thought we had some good safeties that played in front of him.
I also thought Fisher did a really good job with our defensive backs. How he navigated Lamar Jackson was really a great coaching thing they I was almost positive would backfire on him, but it didn’t. Taylor-Britt looked great. And our safeties always seemed to play pretty well. I can pick on a lot of the coaches from the previous staff, but Fisher would be way down the list.
NPG played here for 4 years and was a 4 star recruit. If he felt he was lied to at some point he could have took off with no penalty to a different school. But frankly I think this was just a case of a kid that had other players move past him on the depth chart. He even stayed for another coaching staff this spring and if they thought he was someone they needed to keep, they could have as they gave scholarships to 2 walk-ons. But they didn’t.
At the end of the day everyone thinks their kid is the best, I get it. But you got a free education and stuck around for four years. If it was that bad just leave. It’s exactly the situation why the NCAA gives you a free transfer year. Part of me does think the past staff promised some stuff to kids to get them to commit, I know we did with Palmer, Thompson, etc. But I don’t believe that to be indifferent from other staffs. If what you are promised doesn’t happen just pull the rip cord and take off. The transfer portal is so rampant I have a hard time with someone that just stays the entire time then after they don’t play come with how awful it was. Maybe a bad analogy, but reminds me a bit of when Daishon Neal said he didn’t play because he knelt for the anthem. He failed to remember that two former starters were kneeling with him.
Join us tomorrow when we go over the Kaelin and Knaak commitments.
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ABM, is that Athlete Branding and Marketing? They haven’t been phased out as of yet?
Appreciate the article SSO
-Mike, Omaha
Yes, that is what we started when we had to let go of Gerrod Lambrecht (Frosts best friend) from the football operations so we put him in charge of ABM for the NIL operations. They are done as of now luckily.