Nebraska football target Isaac Townsend commits to Oregon Ducks

Nebraska football lost an early battle over a good one this week.

Scott Frost knew going in that he wasn’t going to win every recruiting battle. It’s still got to grind the Nebraska football head coach’s gears a little bit that he lost a battle to his old team.

On Thursday afternoon, Colorado linebacker/defensive end Isaac Townsend announced he was committing to the Oregon Ducks. The announcement comes after the Cornhuskers had been putting on the full-court press this spring for the defender.

Normally in the college football world, getting your foot in the door early carries a bit of weight. The Huskers likely thought this was the case when they offered back in January and hosted Townsend, who projects as a WDE in the college ranks, for an unofficial visit in April.

https://twitter.com/IsaacTownsend13/status/1007435007072194561

Perhaps we should have been reading the writing on the wall when Townsend took an unofficial to Oregon two days earlier without an offer. He left Eugene with the promise of a scholarship in hand.

Maybe the defensive end being willing to see a school before they said whether he could play for them was the best hint we could have gotten that he only had eyes for the Ducks.

He did visit Lincoln just two days later, but it apparently wasn’t enough to sway him at that point. The loss of what is ranked as the fourth best player in the entire state of Colorado stings a bit today.

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The good news is that there is still plenty of time to steal him back. It’s also clear losses like this is why the Nebraska football coaching staff has taken the approach they have of getting so many offers out there. When someone like Isaac Townsend commits elsewhere, there isn’t a need for going back to the drawing board. The Husker coaches just move to the next name on the list.