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The Weekly Rundown: All focus is on 2023 recruiting this week for Nebraska

Nebraska head coach Scott Frost.
Nebraska head coach Scott Frost. (USA Today)

We set the stage for what will be a very busy week of 2023 recruiting for Nebraska in the Weekly Rundown column.

Sure bets

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

2022 recruiting appears done: JUCO defensive line prospect Taylor Lewis will not visit Lincoln this week. With the addition of Texas WR Marcus Washington, the Huskers are now three over the 85 scholarship limit for the 2022 season.

Today when you look at the big picture, it appears NU is done adding to their 2022 roster, but never say never. The only way I could see Nebraska adding another player at this point is if it's a no-brainer that makes too much sense.

With that said, the Huskers still added 33 players to their roster for the 2022 season - the most ever in one cycle. That means 38.8 percent of their 85 scholarship players will be new.

The biggest recruiting weekend in quite some time looms: This weekend Nebraska will host as many as 15 official visitors in Lincoln. Today, HuskerOnline has already confirmed 13 of those visitors.

In terms of a visit weekend, this will be by far the biggest of the Scott Frost era in terms of numbers. The previous high for official visitors was nine, back for the 2019 Ohio State game when College GameDay was here.

The last time NU hosted double-digit official visitors in one weekend was in 2017 when they had 11 prospects in town during Mike Riley's final season against Wisconsin.

New names emerging at camps: Nebraska's summer football camps will start up this weekend. Expect several new names to emerge over the month of June with two Friday Night Lights camps (June 3 and June 17), OL/DL Pipeline Camp (June 18) and the 7 on 7 Camp (June 5).

There will also be Husker coaches out on the road working different Satellite Camps. Remember, schools only get 10 total camp days over the summer. NU will use eight of their camp days in Lincoln, but you can still have coaches working other camps on those same days around the country. That rule was put into place after Jim Harbaugh had his staff work nearly all 30 days of June once summer traveling the country.

Expect some new 2024 and 2025 names and offers to emerge. It was this time last year when Malachi Coleman's name first got on the radar at NU's Friday Night Light Camp.

Nebraska and Iowa will kickoff at 3 pm on FOX.
Nebraska and Iowa will kickoff at 3 pm on FOX. (USA Today)

Surprises 

These were my surprises of the week:

Kickoff times: Nebraska was picked to be on FOX for two of the first four weekends of the College Football season. Oklahoma is the only other team that can say that, and the two teams will meet in Lincoln on Sept. 17.

I liked the Week 1 draw vs. North Dakota at 2:30 pm, as an 11 am kickoff would have been very tough after a long trip home from Dublin.

The schedulers also gave Husker fans their early home night games and two very winnable ones against Georgia Southern and Indiana.

The Nebraska vs. Iowa kickoff at 3:00 pm is the latest you will ever see a Big Ten game kick that time of year. That's basically a night game, as the sunset on Nov. 25 in Iowa City is at 4:39 pm. One of the big reasons I believe that game was pushed to 3 pm is FOX will air the USA vs. England World Cup game that same day at 1 pm. FOX owns a majority of the BTN.

Friday games: When you take away Week 1 when the Big Ten always holds Thursday and Friday games, Nebraska will play in the league's only two other scheduled Friday games.

Obviously, the Iowa game on Black Friday, but also NU's game at Rutgers on Oct. 7. Call it the Shawn Eichorst special - Friday night football still lives in the Big Ten, and the Huskers once again find themselves in that window. If you remember, Eichorst once volunteered the Huskers to play in one of the Big Ten's very early Friday night games at Illinois in 2017.

Also, the Black Friday series with Iowa lives on, something Eichorst tried to end in 2017.

OL coach Donovan raiola.
OL coach Donovan raiola. (Nebraska Athletics)

The jury is still out 

Questions still surround these things:

Nebraska's offensive line for 2022: Today, there are no late transfer names that are going to make their way to Lincoln it appears. This offensive line looks to be set.

What will it look like in Dubin? Can Teddy Prochazka and Turner Corcoran lock down the left and right tackles positions? What Donovan Raiola squeezes out of this group in 2022 will be a big part of how this season plays out.

The future of Big Ten divisions: Big Ten divisions look to be dead potentially after this season. The only question now is how will they set up the future schedule? How many protected games will each school get?

Most assume three is the magic number, and for Nebraska that would be Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota more than likely. Northwestern would probably be in that conversation too.

Will Bolt's roster flip: We saw Frost add 33 players this off-season, and Nebraska baseball is taking a similar approach.

Will Bolt has already had eight scholarship players put their names in the transfer portal since April. What will the total number of additions be for Bolt in 2022?

Lincoln East's Malachi Coleman will visit this weekend.
Lincoln East's Malachi Coleman will visit this weekend. (Casey Fritton)

The has my attention 

Moving forward, this has my attention:

Malachi Coleman: The Lincoln East star will make his official visit to Lincoln this weekend. It will be his first of presumably five official visits.

This is a big weekend for the Huskers to leave a strong impression on Coleman.

Maverick Noonan: Elkhorn South's Maverick Noonan told me Sunday night that after he visits Nebraska this weekend, he'll take trips to Minnesota (June 10), Stanford (June 17) and Iowa (June 24).

Just like Coleman, this is a big weekend for Frost and his staff to leave a strong impression on Noonan. Being the first of four official visits is also a tough spot to be in.

Brock Knutson: Scottsbluff offensive lineman Brock Knutson will visit Nebraska this weekend and is scheduled to visit Iowa State on June 17. This is one where I'll be interested if the Huskers can lock him up before he takes a trip to Ames?

Kade McIntyre: No prospect in the state of Nebraska right now is hotter than Fremont Bergan's Kade McIntyre. He's picked up new offers from Nebraska, Iowa, Tennessee and most recently Oklahoma on Sunday night.

The Sooners are trying to make a run at both Coleman and McIntyre. The Huskers have their work cut out for them. I would assume both Coleman and McIntyre take visits to Norman.

Big Ten Baseball tournament format: I love the Big Ten baseball tournament. I had it on for most of the weekend. How could you not? The thing ran from 9 am to 3 am for three straight days before Saturday's final two games.

With that said, the format of the tournament was tough. I'm not sure how you fix it. If you play four baseball games in one location per day, it's next to impossible to keep things on time. Three-hour baseball games just don't happen very often in a due-or-die tournament. The only thing they could do is run games at two locations in Omaha on days where there are four games scheduled.

I don't see the league doing this, but it would be a solution to eliminate games being played until 3 am.


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.

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