Nebraska on Saturday afternoon added a 13th verbal commitment to its 2021 recruiting class when defensive back Marques Buford pledged to the Huskers.
Here are three takeaways following Buford’s decision:
1. Travis Fisher’s latest defensive back class is rounding into form
This particular week is a timely one to point out that Nebraska secondary coach Travis Fisher hasn’t ever seemed to care much for recruiting rankings.
The Huskers, of course, lost four-star signee Jaiden Francois to the transfer portal on Friday and also lost four-star Henry Gray in May before either ever played a down in Lincoln.
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If you go through the players who remain on the roster and add the guys Nebraska has committed now for 2021 in Buford and Lardarius Webb Jr. (Jackson, Mississippi), really only 2019 signee Noa Pola-Gates was considered a premium recruit nationally.
Even so, Cam Taylor-Britt is a regular in Nebraska’s secondary and Braxton Clark might not be far behind. NU is high on Quinton Newsome and Myles Farmer and Javin Wright, too. All were solidly recruited out of high school but consensus three-stars. Same for Tamon Lynum and Ronald Delancy in the 2020 class.
In fact, it was in June last year that Fisher pushed to get Lynum to campus, which led to a verbal commitment as a relatively unheralded prospect. Now, Lynum has put on 26 pounds in his first seven months on campus and seems to be turning heads.
All of that is to say that, while Buford and Webb aren’t going to rocket NU up the recruiting rankings lists, they each clearly passed muster with Fisher and the NU staff. This year more than others, staffs are going to be tested in their ability to evaluate without getting to see players as much as they’d like in person. Of course, it will be months — years, in many cases — before the results are clear, but it has certainly been interesting to watch different schools’ approaches during the past few months.
For the Huskers, they could still take at least one more defensive back in this class, especially considering they’re already down two from 2020.
2. The Huskers have found a nice little niche in the prep school ranks
Buford’s commitment makes three recruiting cycles out of the past four in which the Huskers have landed a player out of a postgraduate program. Defensive lineman Casey Rogers was the first in 2018 out of Avon Old Farms in Connecticut. He had been a nationally recruited lacrosse player and eventually decided a prep school would help boost his football recruitment, which it did.
Then in 2020, the Huskers landed Alante Brown from St. Thomas More in Connecticut, the same school Buford’s slated to attend this fall. Brown had played quarterback at Chicago Simeon in high school but moved to the backfield at St. Thomas More.
Now Buford joins the list, too. Prep schools are never going to be a major source of recruiting talent, but it can’t hurt to have connections and a track record among players who decide to take an extra year after high school.
3. Will Nebraska’s small 2021 class actually be that small?
Nebraska coaches have said they expect the 2021 recruiting class to be smaller in numbers — maybe in the upper teens or around 20 — than previous classes because of scholarship space. The further into the recruiting cycle we go, though, the less clear that becomes.
Currently, the picture is less clear than it is in some years. For starters, NU could still add one scholarship player to the 2020 class, which would cap the 2021 class at 25 maximum because no spots would be available to count back.
Let’s assume that happens. By the Journal Star’s count, NU currently has 78 scholarships for 2020 accounted for including Australian punter Daniel Cerni, who has not yet arrived on campus. The Huskers have 13 scholarship seniors, so the starting point for the math is 20 spots.
There are several underclassmen walk-ons who could be candidates for scholarship spots that will be for multiple years. The list includes, but probably isn’t limited to sophomore Luke Reimer, freshmen Isaac Gifford and Ty Hahn and transfer offensive linemen Nouredin Nouili and Ezra Miller.
Those won't all happen right away, but that group could compress the available space, just like attrition invariably will create space. Where will the numbers land? That’s tricky math at this point, but the guess here is somewhere in the low 20s if not up to a full class.
— Parker Gabriel
2021 Husker football recruits
Name | Position | Hometown (School) | Stars |
---|---|---|---|
Marques Buford | DB | Oakdale, Conn. (St. Thomas More) | *** |
Koby Bretz | DB | Omaha (Westside) | *** |
James Carnie | TE | Norris | *** |
Gabe Ervin | RB | Buford, Ga. | *** |
Thomas Fidone | TE | Council Bluffs, Iowa (Lewis Central) | **** |
Mikai Gbayor | LB | Irvington, New Jersey | *** |
Kamonte Grimes | WR | Naples, Fa. (Palmetto Ridge) | *** |
Heinrich Haarberg | QB | Kearney (Catholic) | *** |
Shawn Hardy II | WR | Kingsland, Ga. (Camden County) | *** |
Wynden Ho'ohuli | OLB | Mililani, Hawaii. | **** |
Randolph Kpai | ILB | Sioux Falls, S.D. (Washington) | **** |
Chris Kolarevic | LB | Traverse City, Mich. (Northern Iowa) | |
Henry Lutovsky | OL | Mt. Pleasant, Iowa | *** |
Seth Malcom | ILB | Tabor, Iowa (Fremont-Mills) | *** |
Latrell Neville | WR | Missouri City, Texas (Hightower) | **** |
Teddy Prochazka | OT | Elkhorn (South) | **** |
A.J. Rollins | TE | Creighton Prep | *** |
Markese Stepp | RB | Indianapolis (Cathedral) | |
Samori Toure | WR | Portland (Oregon Westview) | ** |
Jailen Weaver | DE | Antioch, Calif. | *** |
Malik Williams | DB | Buford, Ga. | *** |
Branson Yager | OT | Grantsville, Utah | *** |