Slade commits to Nebraska

Nebraska has been recruiting at "full-throtle" since their final regular season game against Iowa and the results have been impressive.

Yesterday the Huskers secured a commitment from top junior college defensive Joe Keels who had been a Wisconsin commit. Then this morning NU hit a home run as they landed Montclair, N.J. defensive end Darius Slade.

The 6-foot-5, 237-pound Slade had been considered a long-time lean towards Michigan State prior to his official visit to Nebraska for the Iowa game over Thanksgiving weekend. However, between that visit and a recent in-home visit with the Husker coaching staff things changed for the talented pass rusher.

"To be honest with you, it was definitely everything, but what really stood out was the student academic center," said following his visit to Nebraska. "The stadium and all of the other stuff was really, really good. The locker room was also amazing. It really was. It was a great visit."

Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini and defensive coordinator John Papuchis are scheduled to meet with Slade today, but it was Papuchis and coach Ron Brown who made an impact with Slade's family last week.

"I met with Nebraska," Slade said about hosting in-home visits last week. "It was pretty good. Coach Ron Brown and Coach John Papuchis, the defensive coordinator, came down and it was great talking to them.

"Unfortunately my parents weren't able to get out there on my visit with me. The (in-home) visit benefitted all of us; because the coaches came down and were pretty much able to give (my family) the same talk and show them the material about the program.

"So it was a very big visit for them to meet the coaches and for (the coaches) to get a chance to be around my family. My mom and dad had a lot of questions and they got a lot of them answered so it went great."

Slade committed to Nebraska during a ceremony at his high school this morning over Michigan State and Penn State. He had at least 20 offers to his name and finished the season with 22.5 sacks and his second consecutive state championship.