Nebraska Football: Recruiting turmoil starts after Chinander firing

When the Nebraska football program announced that Scott Frost would no longer lead it, the reactions from current players and recruits was interesting if only because there wasn’t a great deal of blowback. However, now that defensive coordinator Erik Chinander has been let go, it appears that the turmoil has officially started.

Less than an hour after official word that Chinander was on the outs, one of the Huskers top defensive commits of the 2023 class let it be known that he’s a free agent again. Cameron Lenhardt, who happened to be the only EDGE commit of the class took to Twitter and said he was decommitting.

In the statement, the 4-star prospect specifically thanked Chinander and defensive line coach Mike Dawson (who might be on his way out soon as well) for giving him the opportunity to be a member of the Nebraska football team.

He went on to say that he had to “protect myself as an athlete,” and because of that, he wanted Huskers fans to respect his decision.

Lenhardt isn’t the only Nebraska football commit that appears to be feeling a bit uneasy about staying with the program. Defensive back commit Dwight Bootle told Rivals on Sunday that he’s a bit uneasy about what’s going down with the Huskers.

Of course, none of this is really a surprise. If anything it’s only noteworthy that it took a week for things to start to go a bit sideways when it comes to recruiting. It turns out that the Nebraska football team is in some largely uncharted waters. Coaches are not usually fired this early in the season. The Huskers have not really ever been looking for a new coach before the end of November, let alone before the end of September.

The big question now is “just who will be left when the smoke clears on this season?” It seems extremely likely the Nebraska football team will be leaning heavily into the transfer portal for a second straight season.