Welcome Husker Nation to another fast Friday edition of the Carriker Chronicles! Where I keep it quick and easy each and every Friday, and today I want to take one final quick look at the 2017 recruiting class AND briefly talk about my former teammate Daniel Bullocks who looks like he will be the next defensive assistant coach at Nebraska.

But let’s start with the quarterback Tristan Gebbia. And I’m going to be honest – I’ve talked about him in the past. At this point I just want to see what he does in spring ball! So I’m looking forward to that. But going to our running back from this class, Jaylin Bradley. A lot of people have this guy as the dark horse of this class. Now, if you know anything about his backstory – and if you don’t, look that up. He has a heck of a backstory, he’s a tough kid, and if you look at his high school stats, they’re a lot better than I thought they would be. He’s not easy to tackle and I think he could be the dark horse of this class.

The fullback: Ben Miles. Les Miles’ son. Ya look good in Husker Red Les Miles! But he has some – and I don’t want to put too much pressure on him – but he’s got a little bit of Andy Janovich in him when I watch him on film.

Moving quickly to our wide receivers, you got Tyjon Lindsey, you got Javeon McQuitty, and you have KeyShawn Johnson Jr. of course. Now, Tyjon – did an interview with him a couple days ago. Check that out if you didn’t hear it. He’s explosive – maybe the most explosive player we have in this class. Big playmaker. Loves Nebraska and has the right attitude. I’m expecting big things outta him. I think Javeon McQuitty is going to do well in the slot. And Keyshawn Johnson Jr. – when I look at him, he’s got a little bit of baby weight on him, so I think he’s going to grow and develop very nicely.

When I look at our offensive line, I watched some more film of the offensive line. And the guy who stood out to me the most was Matt Sichtermann. And, he’s about 260-270. But he’s got a MEAN nasty streak and he LOVES to finish blocks. So there’s other guys that weight a little bit more, but as he grows and develops, he’s got the building blocks up here (taps skull), a mentality, a physicality to be a good offensive lineman for the Huskers.

Our tight ends. Austin Allen and Kurt Rafdal. These dudes are monsters! They are 6’7”, 6’8” gigantic targets and I love that! Especially with the speed we have at wide receiver.

Along the defensive line, this could be the best defensive line class we’ve had come through in quite a while. You got Damion Daniels. Perfect fit at nose guard. Big, quick, perfect fit inside and he fits a need that we definitely have. You have Deontre Thomas, gonna make a great 3-4 defensive end in Bob Diaco’s scheme. Deiontae Watts could play D end now, could beef up a little bit and move into nose guard as well. You got Guy Thomas, who I think is going to move to outside linebacker and be a 3-4 outside linebacker pass rush threat for us and I think he’s going to do very good at that job.

Now you look at the linebackers we have. We have a lot of speed. You got Willie Hampton, Avery Roberts and Andrew Ward. These guys all have a lot of speed. They’re going to need to get a little bit bigger, maintain that speed they’ve got cuz a lot of them run like a 4.5s right now as a linebacker, that’s ridiculous! So I’m excited to watch that athleticism in our linebacking core going forward.

Elijah Blades. Big commitment! We needed somebody in the secondary. This guy can play corner! He can play safety! I’m excited to see, cuz I think he’s going to get some early play time in the next year or two just based on he’s the only guy we brought in in that secondary. And this guy can play as well.

Some players to watch: I like Elijah Blades, I like Damion Daniels, especially with the needed nose guard. I like Avery Roberts. Probably the most talented player we have on the defensive side of the ball. And, he had seven sacks in high school. I think he can get after the quarterback a little bit as well.

Offense: ALL the receivers – that speed and quickness, but especially Tyjon Lindsey. Check out that interview I did with him. Our tight ends are a perfect complement. When I looked at our receivers I’m like “They are fast!” But they’re not very big. So you got speed, and now you got these big tight ends. It’s the perfect complement between speed and size. And of course the quarterback. Can’t wait till spring ball.

Now, I wanna drop my final grade on ya for this class. And it’s not an A, it’s not a C. I debated between a B+ and a B. I’m gonna go with a solid B, cuz we’re in the high teens to low 20s in most of our rankings across the country for this class. Had we been below 15, maybe low teens to ten, could have gone B+, maybe A- but a solid B on this year’s class. This is – if you look at the numbers and break down the numbers per star per player, take those with a grain of salt. These guys are gonna develop and it’s hard to project. But if you break down the per star per player average, it’s the best average we’ve had in a recruiting class in over a decade!

Wanna talk about Daniel Bullocks. My former teammate! Guy is a strong-willed, soft-spoken guy who doesn’t talk a lot but he was with the Jags – he was breaking down my film when I was a free agent, seeing if the Jacksonville Jaguars wanted to sign me! So it was kinda crazy, he was my teammate, he was breaking down me down, now he’s gonna be a coach. He’s gonna do a good job. He’ll be a perfect complement cuz sometimes you just need that strong silent type of coach. And if he indeed does come in, I think he’s going to do a great job.

Let me drop a quick stat on you about the Pro Bowl: out of 86 NFL players selected to the 2017 Pro Bowl, 50 of them were rated 3 stars or fewer coming out of high school. Can you say #intangibles?! Can you say working hard and developing yourself as a player? Now, be sure to tune in Monday. I suppose I’ll have to talk about the Super Bowl! And as always, you can find the Carriker Chronicles every Monday, Wednesday and FAAASSSTTT Friday! So until Monday Husker Nation, Go Big Red and always remember to THROW THE BONES!