Three & Out: Kicker in '22 class, new rule and thoughts on Torres injury

This is HuskerOnline.com's feature in which recruiting analysts Sean Callahan and Bryan Munson give their weekly takes on topical issues concerning Nebraska football, baseball and recruiting.

Today in our next installment of "Three and Out" we hit on if Nebraska could target a kicker in the 2022 class, the new 25+8 rule and feeling bad for Nebraska commit Richard Torres.

Anything is possible when it comes to the remaining spots in the 2022 class and adding a kicker is definitely not outside the realm of possibilities. When looking around at the kickers in the nation there are two things that stand out:

No. 1– There are 47 kickers who have been offered by a school, but there are very few of them who are within the radius of Lincoln or in the Big Ten footprint in general. In fact, the closest one to Lincoln is a kicker in junior college who already has an offer to a school close to where he went to high school. After that, there were only four other kickers who have offers in the Rivals database that weren’t holding offers.

No. 2 – After never hearing about a kicker coming from Australia to the states to play American college football I was surprised by the number of kickers not only in the database this year who were from Australia but who were already committed. There are as many kickers/punters from Australia in the Rivals database as there are kickers/punters with offers in the radius of Nebraska. So is it possible that Nebraska goes back “Down Under” and grabs another like Daniel Cerni?

There are definitely some guys on campus who are capable of kicking the football that after a season in Lincoln and in an open kicking competition in the spring you could see a very good scenario. Consider that Josh Jasek, Chase Contreraz and Brendan Franke are all JUCO/NAIA walk-ons as well as true freshman Kelen Meyer.

There could be an option for a little bit of a shell game in the 2022 class. With just a projected five spots remaining in the class, it’s predicted that Nebraska would be interested in taking two offensive linemen and three defensive backs. However, if Nebraska decided that a kicker was too good to pass up then Nebraska could shift around some things in the class to make room.

If there was a player to keep an eye on for a possible offer in the 2022 class it might be Stilwell (Kan.) Blue Valley standout Charlie Weinrich. Through three games he is 14-for-14 on PATs and 4-for-6 in field goals. His long on the year is 57 yards. He has also kicked off 22 times and 14 of those have gone for touchback.

There is another approach and that is to watch and see what happens in the portal. If you take a look around a little bit at some of the names in the portal it’s not a great list of potential recruits. You have to think that there will be a grad transfer market in December/January as well.

It will not surprise me for Nebraska to take a look at their current roster as well as national high school and junior college kickers or choose to go to the portal. The portal however is pretty dry of kickers, but I would expect that to change by December.

- Bryan Munson

The new proposed 25 initial scholarships + up to 8 spots to account for transfer portal losses is a good rule. It’s one that is needed to account for what the transfer portal has done to current FBS rosters and high school recruits.

Before this rule, we have seen teams hold up to 10 or more of their 25 spots for the transfer portal. That’s 10+ fewer spots for high school recruits. This rule should help give some of those 25 spots back to high school recruits, which is a good thing.

The bad news for Nebraska is the rule doesn’t really do much for them in 2022. The Huskers have just eight scholarship seniors and a handful of key juniors that have NFL decisions to make. That is where the 13 projection we’ve been talking about for class size comes from.

Today, the Huskers are looking at taking 13 based on eight seniors and probably a projected five juniors moving on. After that, I think there’s going to be room for some transfers when some other attrition happens. Taking 13 today would put them at 85 if five juniors moved on. You have to think they are still then holding room for three to five transfers.

-Sean Callahan

I can’t say enough about how impressed I was with what I saw last week checking out Richard Torres. His arm certainly reminded me a lot of Heinrich Haarberg’s from getting a chance to see Haarberg a number of times last fall. Their builds are eerily similar as well with Torres having a slight edge on height and weight, but with Haarberg being a better athlete.

I don’t know if I can sum the loss of Torres to his team. When I say that there was one other college football recruit that was a bit of a stretch. Torres is not just the best player that Southside had this year, he is the best player that his high school has ever had according to numerous people that we spoke with that night on the sideline.

While we were on the sideline there were a number of people who had video clips of Torres from summer and 7-on-7 as well as the Elite 11. These were clips that I had never seen before of Torres. I think that you will get a very good idea of his arm talent when these clips make their way into a highlight video.

Torres was having a good game on Friday night too and maybe it was a little bit of foreshadowing, but I was told coming out from halftime to expect him to use his legs more in the second half. It was on the first run in the third quarter just three minutes into the second half when that play was called and Torres was injured.

The stadium went completely quiet on both sides with a few voices being heard offering encouragement to Torres. The opposing team’s coaches could be seen pleading with Torres to get up, not so they could knock him down again, but out of respect for him. There is definitely some folk hero-type of feelings around that area right now for Torres.

In talking with Torres on Monday night I can report he’s in good spirits. He was actually saying that he had surgery already scheduled for Wednesday but he and his family wanted to talk through some options.

He has been in touch with Nebraska about the injury getting their advice. He also told me that the plan is still very much in place for him to get to Nebraska for the spring semester and continue his rehab in Lincoln. He hopes that similarly to Thomas Fidone, he can recover quickly, as Torres suffered no other ligament damage or damage to the meniscus.

This could quiet the process down for some schools that were maybe starting to see enough from Torres to think about making an offering and getting him to flip his commitment. I expect Torres is interested in getting his physical therapy underway and getting to Lincoln as soon as he can to start his college career.

- Bryan Munson