Three & Out: Portal talk, Damian Jackson’s legacy and Texas fans reaction

This is HuskerOnline.com’s feature in which Sean Callahan and Bryan Munson give their weekly takes on topical issues concerning Nebraska football, baseball, and recruiting.

Today in our next installment of “Three and Out,” we discuss the transfer portal, Damian Jackson’s legacy and Texas fans’ reaction to losing Ochaun Mathis.

I think if we’ve learned anything so far about the transfer portal, the talent pool available in December and January is probably going to be much deeper than what you are going to see in May.

In December and January, you are going to see a mad rush of players every year flood the portal for a variety of reasons between head and assistant coach changes, or playing time.

These are players that enter the portal with an urgency that want to get to a new school for the start of the second semester to win a job in spring ball in most cases.

Meanwhile, in May, the pool feels much more limited to players that gave spring ball one final shot before deciding they were going to transfer.

The bottom line is your portal approach needs to be flexible. It’s so unpredictable what players are going to enter, and prospects like defensive linemen Ochaun Mathis are Devin Drew are going to command quite a bit of attention when they do.

I’ll even use Casey Rogers as an example. If he entered the portal in December, would he have had as many offers as he got in April? My guess is not. Rogers was more valuable in the portal in April/May because there are so few proven players like him available on the defensive line this late in the game.

Sadly, in some ways, the intrigue of the portal will take away the shine of traditional recruiting. I think Nebraska has done a pretty good job though of blending both together.

-Sean Callahan

Both of my sons are named after former Huskers. Their names came from Husker greats. Players that I loved to watch on the field when I was younger, and then as I got older, I respected the balance of their lives as student-athletes.

My sons’ names are Trevor, for Trev Alberts, and Jacob for Jake Young.

Both are still considered to be two of the best to ever play the game at Nebraska and they always will be. Both have their picture hanging with the Academic All-Americana and Trev has more than that with the Butkus and Jack Lambert trophies his senior year.

Both players will have a special place with me for the rest of my life, but I am adding a third. The third player won’t have his picture anywhere in the facility and won’t win any post-season awards. But he did have an understanding of what it means to be part of a team that goes way past the game of football.

Of course I am talking about Damian Jackson.

Jackson will leave Nebraska 11 total tackles to his credit after only seeing action in 20 games through four years. This is not the way to measure the impact of Jackson on the Nebraska program though.

From talking to a former Husker, Jackson made everyone accountable from the field to the weight room to the classroom. While people try to find ways to plug holes in the roster with portal transfers there is also a need to backfill the leadership that is lost with Jackson leaving the team.

If I had to use a word to sum up the story of Damian Jackson at Nebraska it would be–improbable. Jackson never played high school football. He dreamed of playing football both collegiately and possibly professionally following his four years of service.

Nebraska was the only team interested enough in Jackson to respond to his request to try and make the team. Not only did he make the roster, he was put on scholarship for the 2020 season.

Damian Jackson won’t be a player that I will think back to how he fired off on the snap of the football like Jake Young did or how he cornered off of the edge to sack a quarterback like Trev Alberts. However, I will think about his impossible journey to college football and how he overcame staggering odds of playing D1 football.

More than that though Jackson inspired a team, a school and a state. The role of bringing out the flag for every home game as well as unveiling the uniforms the team wore on 9/11 in 2021.

He will find a school and a team and they will be lucky to have him. They will think that they have great leaders already and then they will see how Jackson operates. And Husker Nation will support him wherever he goes because they won’t forget how inspired they were by him anytime soon. Once a Husker…

– Bryan Munson

The Huskers have secured a pair of portal defensive line transfers this week. TCU transfer Ochaun Mathis chose Nebraska over Texas and Texas Tech transfer Devin Drew picked the Huskers to get closer to home.

It’s always a little entertaining to take a look around and see what the other message boards are saying about Nebraska. Here is the latest installment of message board musings:

TEXAS

It’s Nebraska

Bye Felicia

Sheesh Corn holed!

Clown.

I think Texas dodge a bullet.

He played us the whole time. Nebraska, man. We lost to Nebraska at a position of essential need. We’re a cluster

Back to my prediction of 7-5.

Show me the money!

Based on that back drop, it was probably Nebraska for a while.

Shocker, the mods got It wrong.

You’re delusional if you don’t think this is a blow…but moving on.

Grab yourself a beer and forget him.

College football is dead

Please Mods stop guessing where kids (especially portals and 5 stars) are going to land…you have no idea until the NIL deal is done. The new landscape is $$$. No need to guess on Arch anymore. It will come down to the moment he is ready and his deal is what he wants…and no one will know.

Maybe Texas will now get serious about NIL

Damn, getting out paid by Nebraska. Definitely not ready for the SEC.

Did Casey do any negative recruiting? I would assume he did

I guess Nebraska is jumping up and down that they might go from 3 wins to 5 now…go figure

Hard to get worked up over a guy who received his best portal offers from 5-7 Texas and Nebraska.

Texas NIL keeps getting kicked in the balls

Why is GP here? We can’t even land his guys. Pathetic.

Nah, they just probably thought he wasn’t worth a ridiculous price.

Nebraska paid him $700K for seven months of work. Time to move on.

Your mad that 3 star recruiting GP didn’t win a recruiting battle?

Patterson is here for one reason and one reason only…the buffet!

Obviously he went corn aggie to win a conference championship and a Natty..😉

Well, this one fooled me. I thought Mathis was ours, all along.

Mom played us by showing up on the OB YouTube videos repeatedly and making it sound like we had his commitment in the bag…in hindsight I wonder if it was all a ruse to drive up Nebraska’s NIL bid.

It all worked out for the best! Wonder how Frostie is going to enjoy Mamma in his knickers?

Maybe the coaches thought relationships would win out, but in the end he wasn’t worth the price tag the children of the corn were offering.

Good grief Texas fans suck.

Players will go to the highest bidders form this point forward. A coaches ability to recruit is no longer as relevant as it has historically been.

Nebraska offered the kid $200k more than we did. Simple as that. Hard to blame the kid for making that choice. Not a slight on our coaches at all.

He was on his way to getting fired for a reason…

Mathis is a whore who went for what had to be crazy $. Nothing else make sense.

I really hate what college football has become…

Over reaction…. 5 and 7 is 5 and 7, you can’t candy coat that One of the worst defenses in the history of Texas Football last year, numbers don’t lie. A proven history of non-development of players, they leave here with a smaller skill set than when they arrived We lost to Kansas, … at home You offer a conference road trip schedule to such exotic destinations as: – Lubbock – Waco – Morgantown – Fort Worth – Stillwater Our program hasn’t been relevant in 12 years But let’s blame CDC and GP, have another drink OP..

—–

Let this be a lesson to the:

We’re Texas/Jones’ crowdAustin is a better city crowdUT education is superior crowdEtc.Etc.Etc.

What you don’t understand is none of that matters with kids. They want to go where they feel the love, a vibe, they fell the energy and feel like they fit it. Now, money plays a part. Sorry boys ..been this way for 10 years…UT isn’t what we believe it to be with kids. Now, Sark can change that…but you folks need to understand! Level 1, level 2 and level 3.

—–

Probably the only football pay check he will ever collect.

Even GP knew Mathis wasn’t worth that asking price. No counter offer here. Enjoy little red!

TOS is saying not necessarily just NIL. They placed real blame on the coaching/recruiting.

NE has a very good defense. How is that being a whore. NE had 3 players drafted BTW.

Looks like Ketch is now confirming the same thing as TOS in his recent post. Not NIL. Recruiting/coaching.

TEXAS TECH

Damn, that sucks.

Processing out or a loss? His name was said a few times but don’t have a great feel on how much of an impact this is outside of a mature body on DL which is always important

damn – wanted Drew to stick it out another year. thought he would make a good contribution. thought he’s been playing DT (not DE)

Man, that sucks, really thought he was gonna be good

Didn’t see that coming.

Dang! He seemed like a solid contributor last season.

He was as good a DL as we had the last half of the season. We will miss him.

That’s a hit, he was a solid guy in the rotation.

Dude was a solid contributor. Hopefully they have someone else in the pipeline as we need as much DL depth as possible.

Wish he would have stayed and hope he lands at a good place.

Came on strong as the season went on. Did not see that coming. Wonder what happened.

I would be very surprised if the coaches initiated this change. Devin is a super young man that has played very well IMO. We will mizz him and wish him the very best.

Ouch, good player.

This is a bummer.

Dude wasn’t a star/playmaker but he developed into a nice, solid rotation guy and I remember a few games this season where he seemed to by our second best DL (behind T Wilson).

If you told me 20 years ago Nebraska would be taking our defensive leftovers, I would have laughed out loud. My how the mighty have fallen.

I don’t know that Drew was our leftovers. I would have loved to have had him back.

– Bryan Munson