Fall Camp In Full Swing

The Huskers started fall camp this past Monday and already incoming freshman receiver Niles Paul is impressing. It’s no secret that the Huskers are now getting receivers that fit well within the West Coast scheme coach Bill Callahan brought with him in 2004. While Paul will be unlikely to start any games his freshman year, he may see playing time in certain packages. Learning all the routes, patterns and conversions in the offensive playbook is a lot for a first year player to understand. This is why senior receiver Maurice Purify, clearly the most gifted athletically, doesn’t see as much playing time as he should because of all the little eccentricities of Callahan’s offense. Paul may also be called upon to spend a little time on the punt return team, something of a question mark for the ’06 Husker squad.

There is a lot of big talk coming out of camp regarding a few other incoming freshmen. Running back Quentin Castille is being labeled as an absolute freak by running backs coach Randy Jordan. Freshman wide receiver Curenski Gilleylen has also caught the eye of receivers coach Ted Gillmore and may see some healthy playing time along with Paul this season. Castille has been the big talk of the incoming freshman class of recruits but Roy Helu is also making some noise of his own and doesn’t look like he’ll be making the switch from running back to defense anytime soon.

The big recruiting news is that Nebraska has finally landed one of the best pro-style quarterbacks in the country. Blaine Gabbert is the number 14 player overall in the Rivals.com Top 100 as a five star blue chip recruit and has made the ESPN 150 class for 2008. He is the number 2 pro-style quarterback overall in the country on Rivals as well. I’m sure the Rivals crew will keep their watchful eye on him in his senior season this fall to see where exactly he’ll actually pan out after his solid junior year at Parkway West High School in Ballwin, Missouri. Nebraska had already bagged another five star recruit in 6’6” 290 pound offensive lineman and hometown boy Baker Stienkuhler out of Lincoln Southwest in Lincoln, Nebraska. Of course, both are only solid verbal commits and nothing is set in stone until February. At this point, the Husker coaching staff are working on not only the best recruiting class in the program’s history, but one of the best in the country. Hopefully these are the type of players that will finally push Nebraska over the top in the next couple of seasons.

All this talk of recruiting doesn’t undercut the importance of this season and the next. The Huskers have a lot to prove this year and need to live up to the attention they are getting. Losing out to Missouri for the Big 12 North title this year will be an obvious step backwards. As I’ve said, they’ll have to do one of a few things this year to keep climbing the college football mountain. That is either beat USC at home or Texas on the road and beat Missouri in Columbia. Also on the docket of musts is winning at home against Texas A&M who is getting a bit of pub this pre-season and Oklahoma State who will bring a potent offense to Lincoln, but little defense. The trip down to Lawrence, Kansas to play the Jayhawks should not be overlooked either. With only 22 days left until the kickoff of the 2007 season it should be an interesting one at the least and a chance to move up the latter at best.