...FOR JUST BEING MIAMI. Please flash back to mid-December. Nebraska defensive line coach John Blake had just accepted an assistant coaching position at the University of North Carolina, leading to speculation that the Huskers’ recruitment of defensive linemen might suffer. At the time, NU had attracted only one oral commitment from a defensive tackle in its class of 2007. Less than a month later, Nebraska has six such commitments, with the latest two materializing Tuesday night. Chris Perry, a high school star from Keller, Texas, and Kevin Dixon, a standout at Garden City (Kan.) Community College, both reneged on pledges to other programs to become Huskers. Advertisement “I like Nebraska because of the community support,” said the 6-foot-3, 320-pound Perry. “The fans are just crazy. They have that program together.” Perry had committed to Miami in November, but said Tuesday he was troubled by the school’s coaching shakeup in the wake of head coach Larry Coker’s Nov. 24 firing. Regarded as one of Nebraska’s prime recruiting targets, Perry also received scholarship offers from Tennessee, Arkansas, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Texas Tech. Perry drew a four-star rating from Scout.com and a three-star rating from Rivals.com. He reportedly runs the 40-yard dash in 5.1 seconds and has a 26-inch vertical leap. In helping lead Fossil Ridge High School to a 10-2 record this season, Perry said he fought off constant double- and triple-team blocking. “A lot of people just game-planned around me,” he said. “It made it hard to make plays. But I kept people off of our linebackers so they could make the plays.” Meanwhile, the 6-3, 290-pound Dixon reneged on an August commitment to South Florida. He also received an offer from Louisville. He drew three-star rankings from both major recruiting services and reportedly has run the 40 in 4.89 seconds and recorded a 28-inch vertical leap. In addition to Perry and Dixon, Nebraska has oral commitments for its 2007 class from defensive linemen Shukree Barfield, also of Garden City Community College; Demetrious Davis of St. Joseph, Mo.; Terrence Moore of New Orleans; and Joseph Townsend of Foothill (Calif.) College. Barfield has signed a letter of intent, is taking classes at Nebraska and will be on hand for spring drills. Nebraska is known to have received commitments from 31 players for 2007. It is unclear how much, if any, room remains in the class.
Chris Perry is a very good football player, judgement might be suspect given that he wanted to be a Hurricane. But I am somewhat surprised that with the hiring of Randy Shannon, the DCoord he would have played for when he committed, as the head coach that he didn't decide to stay with Miami. 31 recruits? put that together with the 30+ from 2 years ago and whatever you got last year and Callahan is really churning the Huskers roster. I see that you have something like 20 JUCO's in this class, that's a lot of JUCO's. Terry