Husker baseball coach Will Bolt explains philosophy behind major roster overhaul | Baseball

The Huskers had a lousy year in a lousy year for the Big Ten, which sent just two teams to the NCAA Tournament. The .434 winning percentage was NU’s lowest since 1975. Nebraska was never above .500 in 2022.

So yes, there was going to be change.

Nebraska has added 21 players to its roster. Another 12 with remaining eligibility will not return to the program.

And there’s still plenty of time for more roster churn.

“You have a year like we had, where it was disappointing, you can’t just stand pat and expect it to just magically change,” NU coach Will Bolt said earlier this week. “We knew we needed to make some personnel changes.”

Six players have been added since the end of the season. That’s in addition to the three added during the year. They play all over the field, and they’ve all played a bunch of college baseball.

While Nebraska had experience in some spots, a host of new players were forced into bigger roles from the start of the season.

There was an entirely new outfield. Inexperience in the infield meant Max Anderson, a sophomore, played third, second and first base at different points in the season. Young pitchers who may have had smaller roles were thrust into the spotlight thanks to a rash of injuries.

“You never really want to be young in college baseball if you can help it,” Bolt said. “Doesn’t mean you can’t have young guys contribute, or have a decent number of young players that are in your lineup or in your rotation.

“I just think, you look at the average age of college baseball now, it’s even more so than ever where having that experience is pretty key, and having older guys in your program is pretty key.”

That’s been a common thread connecting many of Nebraska’s additions. 

The 14 players joining NU who aren’t incoming freshmen have played junior college ball, have experience at the Division I level, or both. That doesn’t mean those players have guaranteed spots in the lineup. But it does mean those players have seen up close the grind of college baseball and the competition that comes with having a roster full of guys who know what it takes to get on the field.

“The majority of (college baseball) rosters are going to be made up of more experienced players,” Bolt said. “That was one thing that we felt like we wanted to do, and some of the guys we’ve got coming back are now going to be in their third or fourth years in college. Then you add some junior college players, and there’s some that are in their third year coming in, and some in their fourth year already.”

It’s easier to find those players, too. The junior college ranks have always been a fertile recruiting ground. But now the transfer portal has added another way for coaches to restock the cupboard.

There are currently about 3,700 baseball players in the transfer portal, Bolt said. That’s on par with the number of transfers in Division I football, and well ahead of men’s basketball. If a team has a need, it can probably find a player to fill it.

The portal — and the COVID-19 pandemic giving players an extra year of eligibility — has changed the game, even from when Bolt has his staff arrived prior to the 2020 season.

“You see it — the best teams in the country had impact transfer portal guys that have come on,” Bolt said. “They’ve either had that, or they’ve had the Tim Elkos of the world, the fifth-year, sixth-year senior, team captain, team leader, heartbeat-type guys.”

Elko, of course, was the leader of a Mississippi program that caught fire in the postseason and won the College World Series.

While it isn’t exactly the same situation, Bolt and his staff can look to a familiar program — one that also made the CWS this year — to see just what significant roster change can do.

In 2021, Texas A&M went 29-27 and 9-21 in the SEC, missing out on the conference tournament entirely.

The Aggies parted ways with head coach Rob Childress — now at Nebraska in an advisory role — and hired former TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle.

Then came the roster churn: 20 players with remaining eligibility left, or were asked to leave, the program. Fifteen newcomers joined.

In 2022, A&M went 44-20, 19-11 in the SEC, earned a No. 5 national seed, swept its way through regionals and super regionals, and won two games at the College World Series.

Will Nebraska make that kind of jump in 2023? That remains to be seen. But don’t expect the Huskers’ roster to remain static in the search for the right pieces to make it click.

“I’m sure there will be more,” Bolt said. “If we feel like we can continue to make our roster better, that’s what we’ll continue to do.”