The Weekly Rundown: The June silly season is upon us

We hit on the busy month of June that’s about to take over the college football world and more as we kick off this Memorial Day edition of the Weekly Rundown.

You have to feel pretty good about these things right now:

A wild and crazy June: It’s been over 15 months since Nebraska has hosted any type of prospect on campus for a visit. That all changes on Tuesday.

College football recruiting is back open for business. Official visits, unofficial visits, private workouts, on-campus and satellite camps – we get the whole enchilada from June 1 to June 27.

With just two commitments in their class of 2022, you can expect that number to grow considerably over the next month. You can also expect to see quite a few new names emerge on the Huskers’ recruiting board.

The recruiting cycle itself hasn’t produced the same amount of news we are used to seeing because of the 15-month dead period. That is all going to change in June.

Upset Big Ten baseball fans: It’s inevitable we are going to see upset Big Ten baseball fans after today’s NCAA selection show.

The NCAA already made it pretty clear to the Big Ten with softball and baseball regional host sites the league is going to be punished for their decision to not play out of conference.

More than likely, one or two Big Ten teams are going to get snubbed from the field that would normally make the tournament.

The good news is Nebraska has done all it can to secure a respectable regional seed. I would not want to be Michigan or Indiana today hoping and praying they slide in as a three-seed.

Haymarket Park: 7,650 fans piled into Haymarket Park on Saturday and 5,434 on Friday. It was an old-school 1999 to 2008 type of weekend in Lincoln.

A lot of fans probably came back to the park for the first time in years. Will Bolt has put a product on the field people believe in and that shows in these numbers. I expect to see a big bump in new baseball season ticket holders in 2022.

The 2021 Husker Baseball team: How do you respond after getting swept by Rutgers? By taking 11 of 13 games from some of the top teams in the conference – Michigan, Indiana and Ohio State.

This team has something special about them. They were rewarded for their great season on Sunday by taking home the coach, player and freshman of the year honors in the Big Ten Conference. I expect to see a lot of full sports bars this weekend in Nebraska tuning into Husker Baseball.

These were my surprises of the week:

Nebraska vs. Oklahoma at 11 am: When ABC picked up Auburn at Penn State for their Sept. 18 primetime match-up things didn’t look promising to have Nebraska vs. Oklahoma at night. The two networks rotate picks. 6:30 pm is ABC’s top window and 11 a.m. is FOX’s on Sept. 18.

FOX already has an MLB block for that Saturday night. That means the options were to feature the game in their prime Big Noon spot at 11 a.m., or maybe shift it over to FS1 so it could be played at night.

The decision by FOX was an easy one in their eyes. Nebraska vs. Oklahoma belongs on a three-letter national network. 11 a.m. was the only way that can happen, as the MLB contract owns the primetime real estate.

I fully understand why OU is upset by this decision, but until FOX drops their September and October MLB night windows, get used to a lot more Big Noon kickoffs. The decisions are obviously not popular, but I can give you about $55 million reasons why you probably won’t hear any Big Ten schools complaining.

Buffalo players migrating to Kansas: So far three of Lance Leipold’s Buffalo players have announced publicly they are following him to Kansas. I’m told the final number will be six.

Why this is important is it tells you how decimated the Bulls roster could be by the time they come to Lincoln on Sept. 11. It’s unprecedented to see this many players follow a coach from School A to School B. When Scott Frost left UCF for Nebraska, the transfer portal didn’t exist until Oct. of 2018.

If the rules were different back then, Noah Vedral could’ve come with no issues and probably started both the Troy and Michigan games for the Big Red in 2018.

Questions still surround these things:

In-State offers for 2022 and 2023: As we go into the month of June, what will we learn about the 2022 and 2023 in-state crop of talent?

Can 2022 targets like Jake Appleget, Mack Owens or Vince Genatone play their way into a Nebraska offer? Will top 2023 names like Gunnar Gottula, Sam Sledge, Victor Isele and Zane Flores earn offers this summer?

I’m also intrigued to see what some bigger regional names like West Fargo (N.D.) athlete Carson Hegerle can show in June. A big part of this month is going to be about how many of these guys are offer-worthy.

Nebraska and the transfer portal: Tulsa defensive back Akayleb Evans did not have Nebraska in his top 5 released on Sunday. I’m not too surprised, as he has not responded to one inquiry from anyone that covers the Huskers.

My next question is, where does NU go now? One name to watch is Ohio State’s Tyreke Johnson, who went in the portal a few weeks ago. It’s been radio silence from Johnson since then, but he’s another top DB name NU is following.

I would not be surprised at all if some of these potential transfer portal targets are forced to come in for a one-hour workout before NU decides if they will offer or not. Every team is in a similar spot right now with one or two open scholarships.

The new June recruiting rules will help schools get a better evaluation of transfer portal targets. It will almost be like an NFL team calling a player in for a workout to see if they want to sign them.

Quarterback recruiting: Four-star quarterback target MJ Morris appears headed to North Carolina State. Nebraska reportedly held back a commitment from Morris in early May.

On Friday, three-star target Richard Torres will be the first quarterback to visit Lincoln since Morris. One has to think, right now, if his visit and presumed workout goes well with Mario Verduzco and Frost, his name is going to be at the top of the list. Honolulu (Hawaii ) St. Louis’s A.J. Bianco remains the wildcard. Conner Harrell out of Alabama also remains a possibility.

The Torres visit this week, though, will tell us the rest of the story.

Moving forward, this has my attention:

Private on-campus workouts: This will be completely new to everyone in June. Prospects can come in seven days a week for a private one-hour workout that doesn’t involve contact. That means no sled work for linemen or one-on-one type drills.

From the schedule I’ve been able to compile, June 4, 11 and 18 appear to be some of the bigger days these workouts will take place, but some others will be sprinkled in as well.

Friday Night Lights: The first of two Nebraska Friday Night Light camps will take place in Memorial Stadium this week.

Some top in-state names like Flores, Gottula and Owens are scheduled to be there, among others.

What we don’t know, though, is if these camps will be open to the public. NU has not made that announcement yet. It’s something they need to get cleared from the University.

I expect a lot of 2023 and 2024 names to come out of the FNL camps this year, as most of the top 2022 names will have private workouts.

Kicker Kelen Meyer in the Shrine Bowl: The 62nd annual Nebraska Shrine Bowl will kick off under the lights this year in Kearney on Saturday.

From a Nebraska perspective, probably the biggest storyline in the game is Ord kicker Kelen Meyer. The multi-sport athlete has one of the strongest legs in recent state history, and he very well could be handling kickoff duties for the Big Red on Aug. 28 at Illinois.

Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET’s Big Red Wrap-Tuesday’s at 7 pm.