Recruiting misfires, a receiver exodus and Nebraska’s speedy plan to fix it

Ninety minutes from Houston, 25 minutes from the beach, 20,000 people, Whataburger.

“Not too big,” Turner said. “Not too crowded.”

And, of course, there are Friday night lights, Blackcats football in a 3-year-old, $16 million Memorial Stadium with premium blue seats. There is a history of players — Bay City was home to Hart Lee Dykes, one of the Big Eight’s best receivers — and rivalries, like the one with El Campo that stretches 119 games. Legacies stretching generations.

“Everybody knows each other, knows where they’re going to hang out,” Turner said. “Everybody’s just cool with each other, and I like it.”

“But I’m ready to get out.”

That’s no knock on the town. That’s an eye to Turner’s immediate future in Lincoln, where he’ll move in late May. NU will welcome him and five more arriving freshman receivers — Jaidyn Doss, Demitrius Bell, Jeremiah Charles, Jaylen Lloyd and Malachi Coleman.

A few might redshirt. Some can’t — they’re too vital to NU’s 2023 season. After a continuing mass exodus of scholarship receivers who left without playing a single meaningful down, Nebraska has five scholarship guys on the roster. Three — Marcus Washington, Billy Kemp and Joshua Fleeks — will play their final year. Two — Zavier Betts and Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda — rejoined the program this winter.

Walk-ons matter, too, and Nebraska coach Matt Rhule has praised the play of guys like Alex Bullock. But in addition to what coaches say, you watch what they do with roster construction.

In the 2023 class, Rhule signed six.

Coleman, a Top 100 recruit, has the highest profile. Doss and Bell have polish and more weight to their frames. Turner, Lloyd and Charles are bigger high school track stars than they are football players; their presence in the class is proof Rhule uses track times as a recruiting guide.

The size of the class also meant Rhule knew what was coming. This winter, Decoldest Crawford transferred to Louisiana Tech and Kamonte Grimes left for Northern Iowa. This spring, Alante Brown — who left the team for personal reasons — hit the portal, along with Victor Jones and Shawn Hardy.

Collectively, those five have 22 career collegiate catches — all from Brown. They left before their eligibility was up. Since 2017, so did 15 other scholarship receivers who signed out of high school with Nebraska. And of the 14 high school scholarship signees since 2020, only two remain with the program. One is Betts. The other, Janiran Bonner, got the first touch of the 2023 spring game — as a fullback.

It is a remarkable run of misfires covered up, to some degree, by NU’s success in the transfer portal.

But it wasn’t always like this.

After an ugly Black Friday loss — the 56-14 whopper to Iowa — Keith Williams jogged toward his top student, Stanley Morgan, and put a hand on his shoulder, sharing a private word before the two went into the northwest Memorial Stadium tunnel.

It was 2017, and Mike Riley’s tenure was at its end. Williams’ time, too. Scott Frost was one week away from taking the head coaching job. Morgan, one of the best receivers in school history, was a month away from choosing to play his senior year at NU.

Nebraska’s incoming staff couldn’t have known that then, and Frost clearly didn’t trust most receivers on hand, because he signed six of his own in the 2018 class — seven if one counts Katerian Legrone. Two from junior college. Four (or five) more from high school. It’s basically what Rhule did, swapping out juco guys Mike Williams and Jaron Woodyard for additions from the portal, which delivered Kemp and Fleeks.

Keith Williams trained NFL receivers like Davante Adams and Tyreek Hill and had a patented phrase — wideouts — that to this day remains his Twitter handle. In 2017, he developed Morgan, JD Spielman and De’Mornay Pierson-El into one of the Big Ten’s best receiving trios. But he only really recruited Spielman — Morgan was recruited by Bo Pelini’s staff — and, in his three years at Nebraska, didn’t add much to the ranks.

Lavan Alston, 2015 recruit, was cut from the team by Riley in 2016. Derrion Grim, 2016 recruit, left Nebraska after seven months. Keyshawn Johnson Jr. left five months after signing in 2017. Jaevon McQuitty, 2017 signee, didn’t pan out. Tyjon Lindsey suffered from rhabdomyolysis a few weeks into the Frost era, dropped a bouncing punt at Michigan in September 2018 and two weeks later was one of the first entries into the newly minted transfer portal.

Morgan broke the 1,000-yard barrier in 2018, and, with Wan’Dale Robinson joining Spielman in 2019, Nebraska still relied on high school recruits — the “draft” portion of college football — for its top receivers. But NU had to sign Cal transfer Kanawai Noa to be the No. 3 wideout in 2019, too. In 2020, the “free agency” heated up. Iowa transfer Oliver Martin and South Dakota transfer Levi Falck joined the fray. Samori Toure was a one-year transfer from Montana in 2021. Washington from Texas and Trey Palmer from LSU came in 2022.

Meanwhile, scholarship recruits either left for a better situation — as Robinson did in ditching NU for Kentucky in 2021 — or left without making an impact. Justin McGriff (2018) and Jamie Nance (2019) went to Utah State. Miles Jones (2018) walked on at Tennessee. Demariyon Houston went to juco, then landed at Missouri, where he caught six passes last season. Darien Chase (2019) went to Portland State.

The 2021 and 2022 classes — Hardy, Latrell Neville, Grimes, Jones, Crawford and Bonner — were notable for their apparent lack of a trait Rhule adores: speed.

“I like the confirmation of numbers,” Rhule said last week on the College Football Daily podcast. “Sometimes you talk to receiver coaches, I’ve had guys work for me and they want receivers who are smooth — they can get in and out of their breaks — but I’ve been on the other side, on defense, and everybody’s afraid of getting run by.”

That’s what Palmer did to multiple teams last season. Drops and struggles against press coverage likely hurt Palmer’s NFL Draft stock — he went in the sixth round — but speed got him a spot in the soiree. Elite speed was a positive factor in former Huskers Niles Paul, Quincy Enunwa and Kenny Bell getting drafted; they ran 4.45-, 4.45- and 4.42-second 40-yard dashes at the NFL combine. Speed has helped Pierson-El (4.57) maintain a professional football career in other leagues.

On the podcast, Rhule recalled the height, weight, hand size and speed standards preferred by NFL coaches and scouts among college players. Fresh off the Carolina Panthers stint, it offered a lesson: If that’s what the pros want, recruit, if possible, to those preferences.

“We have good coaches,” Rhule said. “They should be able to teach you how to play the game.”

Coleman, the Lincoln East product, fits the bill. The 6-foot-4, 185-pounder is tall, possesses a big wingspan and ran the 100 meters in 10.46 seconds last year. If coached and developed, Coleman can run by defenders — and catch jump balls over them. He attended many Husker practices this spring.

“I just gotta take care of business,” Coleman said last week. “If the opportunity is there, obviously I’m going to take it. If not, I’m still a freshman and I’ve got a couple years left. But my expectation for me is to play freshman year.”

Coleman shut down his senior track season. So did Turner, who ran a 10.25-second 100 meters last year, winning the 4A state title in both that race and the 200. Injuries held him back this spring, and because his team didn’t qualify for the state track meet without him, he’s not able to compete there, either.

“I never got to run at all,” Turner said.

But he’s let it go for now. He’ll compete for Nebraska in track. Without the school’s interest in him as a sprinter, Turner wouldn’t be arriving just before Memorial Day.

Turner sat in his second-hour class when Husker football coaches began to inquire about his interest in playing football. He’d had a decent season — 22 catches for 495 yards — but nothing that attracted the attention of a power school.

“I’m so glad Nebraska came through,” Turner said, “and offered me.”

So he works on catching the ball and running routes. Stuff Rhule, and receivers coach Garrett McGuire, can teach. Turner will arrive as a less accomplished high school receiver compared to, say, Chase or Grimes or Jones or Crawford. But Turner runs a :10.25 100. They don’t. And if any of his new teammates want to find out how fast they are, Turner will oblige.

“If they want to race me — want to try to race me — I’d be down to race them,” he said. “I don’t want to sound cocky or anything — that’s not who I am — but whatever they want to do, I’ll do.”

Husker coaches probably wouldn’t mind an impromptu summer sprint session.

They recruited six freshman receivers to immediately compete.