With a big win that felt like it could very well shift the season and possibly start the seismic shift of the program back in the right direction, talks switched to recruits this week. Yes, Northern Iowa is not a team that can be taken lightly. And yes, this is college football where anyone can fall on any given week, especially this year but I do believe that Nebraska knows the marketing potential it may have this week and in the weeks to come for the program. We were heading strong into year two of Deion Sanders hype, where all the cameras were pointing in one direction and Nebraska shut that down on a beautiful Saturday night this past week. This is historically going to turn the eyes onto Nebraska. Although it will not be near as intense, the recruits will notice. The media refuses to be wrong, even when it’s abundantly obvious and that will show in the Sanders experiment as well. National media will switch to talking about the team that took them down, and that team happens to be your Nebraska Cornhuskers.
The probability of Nebraska starting the season 7-0 just skyrocketed. The major stories of Florida state not making the playoffs, and good ol’ coach Prime have now faded into obscurity and let’s face it, noone wants to hear about how Georgia is the top dawg anymore. That leaves two competing stories for the media. The Nebraska Cornhuskers, with their ferocious defense and freshman standout quarterback and the Texas Longhorns. Taking advantage of having the program in the national spotlight is going to be of utmost importance for this staff and recruiting. In a world where attention wanes as tik-tok brain has become a real phenomenon, this staff may have just found itself in the middle of the spotlight. With Northern Iowa up next the coaching staff may be able to allocate more resources this week to recruiting as it will be a less hands on deck situation. This paired with the already stellar recruiting weekend Nebraska had this past week could lead to the hottest in season stretch of recruiting that we have seen in some time.
Over the weekend, there were more stars in memorial stadium than a Montana sky. Five star recruit Michael Terry III was in town as well as Alabama commit Dawson Merritt, Oklahoma commit Cortez Mills and four star linebacker Christian Jones who committed to Nebraska on Monday. Michael Terry is the number one ranked athlete in the country in the class of 2025. Many crystal balls have him heading to Texas but that surety is now fading as the trip seemed to go as planned for Nebraska. Alabama commit Dawson Merritt fell in love with the atmosphere at the Nebraska game Saturday. Merritt is a four star recruit from Overland Park Kansas who at 6’3, 215lbs could be a huge grab for the Cornhuskers. The four star wide receiver Cortez Mills had to get a special waiver from the Sooners to visit Nebraska. Oklahoma has a strict rule of not letting commits visit other schools, but as talented as Cortez Mills is, they realized that he is needed for their program and decided they would not pull his scholarship if he visited Nebraska.
During the Colorado beating the Huskers also had many 2026 recruits in town. Michael Clayton is a four star quarterback out of Orlando, FL. The 2026 quarterback recruit is going to be very important for the Huskers as that following year will be Dylan Raiola’s junior year. Getting a quarterback that can sit for one or two years then play behind and learn from Raiola will be huge. Nebraska currently has 2025 four star QB TJ Lateef and is also projected to land Dayton Raiola (Dylan’s younger brother). As a part of that 2026 class that was in town there were two four star runningbacks and the number one offensive lineman in that class, five star offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell who does have Nebraska connections.
Taking advantage of the national media and the momentum that is being generated by the Huskers this year is extremely important over the next few weeks. Capitalizing on recruiting by using the hype is what the top schools do best. As Rhule and company prepare for Northern Illinois, i do believe we will continue to hear about recruiting all week.
