Nebraska's Football Recruiting

Posted on: June 6, 2024 at 09:22:45 CT

Nebraska was essentially a middle of the pack team in the old Big Seven/Big Eight going into the 1960's. At roughly the beginning of that decade the Huskers hired Bob Deveany (sp?) as head coach. His staff included Boyd Eppley as the strength and conditioning coach. They established a weight training and conditioning program in Lincoln.

I'm not familiar with the particular facts of the program other than it had first class physical facilities and there were suspicions that steriod use was not a stranger.

At the time the facility was thought to have been one of the best, if not the best in college football.

As a comparision, I have memories from the late 1960's of Mizzou mounting a makeshift facility in the old ground floor hallway running from Brewer Fieldhouse to Rothwell Gym. It consisted of a bunch of vertical 2x12's with holes drilled in them for bars to be inserted and players to engage in isometrics.

I have been told by Dan Devine's son-in-law that when Dan Devine was offered the Packer Head Coacing Job he offerred to stay at Mizzou if it would match the weight training facilities at Nebraska. The Mizzou administration passed.

I don't recall the particular dates, but about 1980 the NCAA adopted Prop 48. It allowed schools to give kids who did not meet academic minimums to get full ride scholarshilps if they sat out their frosh year and made grades as frosh to be elgible as sophs. Whether they remained elgible afterwards depended on their academic performance.

Nebraska, KState and KU all utilized Prop 48 to the fullest extent they could. Mizzou's Administration did not allow the Tiger AD to take any Prop 48 kids. To be clear, a Prop 48 kid sat out as a frosh and if he made grades as a frosh, he was elgible as a soph.

The use of Prop 48 came to an end in the Big XII in the late 1980's with the admission of Texas. It objected to Prop 48's continued use by conference schools and its view prevailed. This was a major cause of the friction between Nebraska and Texas.

The bottom line is for years in the Big Eight/Big Twelve football recruiting was skewed toward Nebraska and it made full use of the advantages. Essentially, it could take prospects that other Big Eight/Big Twelve schools couldn't or wouldn't. Bottom line is Nebraska was recruiting from a larger base of players.

Since moving to the Big Ten/Big One (or whatever its called today) Nebraska has not had this advantage and its recruiting and on field records have suffered.