Nebraska football cast as ‘winners’ in Big Ten’s June recruiting battle

Head coach Matt Rhule of Nebraska Cornhuskers and quarterback Jeff Sims #14 of Nebraska Cornhuskers (Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images)
Head coach Matt Rhule of Nebraska Cornhuskers and quarterback Jeff Sims #14 of Nebraska Cornhuskers (Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images) /
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Nebraska football fans are certainly happy with how June went but people all over the country are more than a little impressed by the Huskers.

The Huskers had a pretty insane June. It was arguably the best recruiting month Nebraska football has seen since the true glory days. In all, Matt Rhule and company officially reeled in 15 commits. Considering that Jacory Barney announced his commitment on July 1 it feels like they actually got 16.

16 of the 23 scholarship kids in the class.

Plenty of people talked about what the fact that the Huskers shot up the national recruiting rankings thanks to al those commits. Now one analyst is making things official since June is over.

Rivals’ Adam Gorney put together a list of all the winners and losers of the June recruiting battles. The Nebraska football team came out unsurprisingly as one of the winners.

"First-year coach Matt Rhule led the way in the Big Ten with 15 total commitments in June and they weren’t just filler as the Huskers landed the top-two in-state players in four-star TE Carter Nelson and four-star WR Dae’Vonn Hall. If both Carter and Hall stick with Nebraska, it would be the first time the Huskers landed the top-two in-state prospects in back-to-back recruiting cycles since 2010-11. Nelson was a huge pickup as Georgia loved him and compared him to Brock Bowers."

Nebraska football beats out some big rivals

While the Huskers and (unexpectedly Rutgers) were considered winners of the June recruiting battles, two other Big Ten West rivals are considered losers by Gorney. The Hawkeyes only got five pledges in the month and none of them were considered 4-star recruits by Rivals.

Wisconsin got 7 commits and Gorney was quick to say that the month wasn’t a terrible one. It just wasn’t that great.

In the “holding steady” category was some of the Big Ten powers. Minnesota, Maryland, Indiana, Northwestern, Penn State, Ohio State all had decent months. Of course, quite a few of those teams could afford to rest on their laurels since they had very good runs before June rolled around.

Nebraska football has been struggling mightily for quite a while now. I’ll take any win I can get. And being praised as building for the future well is certainly a big one.