Will there be any signing day week surprises for Nebraska? We hit on that and more in the Weekly Rundown column.

With signing day on Wednesday, will there be any surprises this week for Nebraska? We hit on that and more in the Monday Weekly Rundown Column.

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

The 500-mile radius for 2023: Right now the Huskers have made 35 offers in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado and Nebraska for the class of 2023, according to the Rivals.com database.

It’s clear there is a heavy push in 2023 to build the base of this recruiting class within the 500-mile radius, as it should be.

Both of their top quarterback targets are from Wichita and Des Moines. Last week, I confirmed head coach Scott Frost was in Kansas City, Wichita and all over the state of Iowa seeing key prospects for 2023 and 2024.

NU is recruiting with common sense as they build this 2023 class. There’s no need to push hard early in places like Florida and California. Focus on the guys that are local who can get to your campus in January and March. This approach should pay off, as I would not be surprised at all if at least 10 of the commits in the class of 2023 came from the 500-mile radius.

The impact of Junior Day events: The last time Nebraska had Junior Day-type events on campus was back in January of 2020.

Getting prospects on campus is as important for the Huskers as just about any Power Five program in the country. There are so many perceptions about the state of Nebraska. During my Husker Chat Live interview, for example, with wide receiver Decoldest Crawford, he thought he would see cornfields and horses all over the place in Lincoln. As we know, that’s not the case, but you need to get people here to see that for themselves.

That’s why hosting well over 50 top regional prospects the last two weekends was huge for Nebraska. Some schools have the luxury of recruiting off a brochure, but Nebraska is a place you need to get people here in person to experience.

I think we’ll look back at this month of January as a whole and see that it laid the groundwork for the entire 2023 recruiting class.

More twisting the knife into Nebraska about not taking Joe Burrow: When Joe Burrow didn’t get a Nebraska offer in high school we heard about it. When Joe Burrow didn’t get an offer from Scott Frost to be a transfer portal quarterback in 2018 we heard about it. When he won the national championship and Heisman Trophy in 2019 Nebraska was trolled hard by many national talking heads for the decision to pass on Burrow not once, but twice.

Well, guess what, we are probably going to get two more good weeks of it leading up to the Super Bowl. Be prepared for national profiles done on the Burrow family and their deep ties to Husker football. The whole story is going to get told again, now only with the top media outlets in the country telling it.

By the way, I’m very happy for Joe Burrow. He should have been a Husker in 2015 and 2018. I’m on record saying that both times. I’ve had many talks with both Joe’s father Jimmy and his brother Jamie about it over the years. It will be looked at as one of the biggest recruiting misses in program history. You also can argue it was one of Urban Meyer’s biggest misses ever as well going with Dwayne Haskins over Burrow at Ohio State. Buckeye fans have even argued they got a better deal with Justin Fields, but you sure can’t make that argument now. Burrow is a generational talent that a lot of people missed on.

These were my surprises of the week:

DL Jordon Riley entering the portal: Heading into 2022 it appeared sixth-year senior defensive lineman Jordon Riley was in a great spot to see playing time. That’s why his entry into the transfer portal on Friday was a bit puzzling.

On Sunday Riley announced he was Oregon-bound, following former position coach Tony Tuioti.

What’s hard for me to figure out is how Riley will gain immediate eligibility in Eugene. Oregon will now be his third Power Five school he’s played for, along with his time at Garden City Community College. It will be interesting to see if Riley will have to get a waiver from the NCAA to gain immediate eligibility in 2022.

OL Deshawn Woods: A year ago at this time Omaha Central offensive lineman Deshawn Woods owned the local headlines by eliminating Nebraska. He ended up committing to Missouri.

On Friday, PowerMizzou.com reported it was highly unlikely Woods signs with Missouri on Wednesday. In fact, there has been some recent smoke with Woods and Wyoming. What happened with Woods? A year ago when he eliminated the Huskers, Scott Frost took quite a bit of heat. Now his future remains up in the air.

Questions still surround these things:

Portal adds: Nebraska is not done in the portal. Mark my word. They remain heavily in the hunt for a defensive lineman, offensive lineman and pass rusher. What names will turn up in the coming months?

Damion Daniels and Deontre Thomas: Both chose to go pro. Daniels did not get an NFL combine invite. Would another year have gone a long way for both players?

Roster management: Nebraska is adding to their roster at a rate nobody could have expected. The reality is that means some tough conversations are going to happen this spring with several different players about their futures in the program.

Today, I would expect you’ll see around another five players move on between now and May. That’s the reality of college football right now. I also think a lot of teams made misses in 2021 because of the lack of in-person evaluation, which will lead to more attrition.

Moving forward, this has my attention:

Signing day week surprises: Things just seem too quiet right now. There was no publicly tracked activity on the road for 2022 other than running back Ajay Allen. Will that be the only thing to watch this week, or is there anything else brewing we don’t know about?

Scott Frost on Wednesday: We’ll talk to Frost for the first time on Wednesday since December. What will his message be after adding five new coaches to his staff and close to 30 new scholarship players?

It’s really been a run of roster management and coaching additions like we’ve never seen before at Nebraska.

Zac Taylor: Former Husker quarterback Zac Taylor will go down as one of the most popular players we’ve seen at NU in what I call the “post title era,” which is anything after the 2001 season.

How can you not be happy for Taylor? This is a guy that has earned everything he’s gotten and you won’t find a better human being than Taylor.

I still find it interesting that Taylor was highly interested in joining Frost’s staff in 2018 if Troy Walters would’ve landed a head job that year. Walters missed out on the Rice gig, and what’s funny is he now works for Taylor in Cincinnati after Frost parted ways with him in 2019.

There are so many six degrees of separation to Nebraska on the Bengals it’s not even funny. Did I mention Bill Callahan’s son Brian is Taylor’s offensive coordinator? It’s safe to say all of Nebraska, other than maybe local Rams fan and radio host John Bishop, will be rooting for Cincinnati on Super Bowl Sunday.

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.