One of Nebraska football recruiting’s biggest targets from the 2024 class is not exactly from the most common part of the football world. Ainsworth’s Carter Nelson plays what’s known as Eight Man football. This version of the sport was created due to the nature of the size of the schools that play it and the fact that they generally don’t have a big enough student body population to field football teams that have 11 men on both sides of the ball. Instead, as the name suggests, they have eight players on offense and eight players on defense.
Generally speaking these Eight Man players haven’t been big time targets of Nebraska football recruiting, or any other FBS Power 5 schools. But Carter Nelson is quite the outlier. The number two rated recruit in the state for 2024 has 12 Power 5 schools knocking at his door, with the latest being the Oklahoma Sooners. OU came calling over the weekend with an official offer.
There’s very little doubt that Nelson is the kind of athlete that is definitely special. That’s one of the reasons there seems to be a pretty decent shot that he’ll be playing two sports in college. He also wants to shine on the basketball court.
As for where he might ply his trade or trades? It looks like the Huskers have some work to do. Speaking to Husker Online, Nelson made it clear that he’s not blown away by shiny toys. He said it was about the people. While Mickey Joseph has managed to win over prospects in that regard, it appears he hasn’t won over the Ainsworth product just yet.
Oklahoma offers Eight Man stand out Carter Nelson from Ainsworth. #nebpreps https://t.co/aLj0pT2rGq
— Sean Callahan (@Sean_Callahan) October 15, 2022
https://mobile.twitter.com/coachowen7/status/1581339914758594562
At the moment, most recruiting services have the 2024 prospect as a heavy lean towards Kansas State. That is certainly a bad sign for a staff desperately trying to lock down the state of Nebraska.
The good news here is that Nelson (who seems to grade out best as a tight end) has a long way to go before he picks a school. His officially signing day won’t be until a year from this December. That gives Nebraska football recruiting efforts time to fight off Kansas State, Oklahoma and all comers for the Eight Man star.