The 3-2-1: The future of college football and what approach Nebraska will take

INDIANAPOLIS – We learned a lot about the future of college football this week and Nebraska’s approach moving forward.

In this week’s 3-2-1 column, we hit on that and more with three things we learned, two questions, and one prediction.

RELATED – Nebraska AD Troy Dannen says Memorial Stadium can still host HS championship games when it goes to grass

THREE THINGS WE LEARNED THIS WEEK

1 – Big Ten schools/Nebraska want to stay competitive on the NIL landscape

Earlier this week, the SEC threw out $15 million for football. The NCAA will allow teams to put up to $22 million towards future in-house distribution payouts to all student-athletes.

The SEC has said it wants to ideally use $15 million of that $22 million for football. How will the Big Ten schools react?

Nebraska AD Troy Dannen made no bones about how he thinks they should go about it.

“I don’t think anybody wants anybody to spend more than anybody else does,” Dannen said. “We all want to have that level of a playing field.”

Dannen then was very blunt about the future of college athletics and those trying to create “equity.”

“Go back to when cost of attendance was coming in,” Dannen said. “If somebody was getting $3500 in the cost of attendance and we were giving them $2500, we said, ‘There is no way a kid will ever come to our school because of the $1000 difference.’ They don’t even talk about cost of attendance anymore.

“We all want to be on as level of a playing field as possible, including financially and how we support our programs. That said, the playing field is never level. Whether it’s facilities, weather, history, infrastructure, or access to talent. There are inequities across the way. Where we’ve gotten into trouble is trying to legislate equitably, and it’s just not.”

2 – There are still several unknowns about the future of roster sizes

We learned on Wednesday that the NCAA will move to a universal roster size of 105 players as early as 2025. What does that mean for Nebraska moving forward?

The biggest thing is that the walk-on program as we know it is no longer. As head coach Matt Rhule joked, we will have to explain to young kids what the movie Rudy was about in about twenty years.

What we don’t know is how the 105-man roster will work. Can teams possibly have more than 105 players in their program but only activate 105 on their fall camp rosters? Rhule also made a great point: What happens if a player gets hurt? Will teams cut them off the 105, or will they not count?

There are so many unknowns about this. As Rhule said, it’s not just about 105 players. We need to learn more about this and how the NCAA plans to move forward.

3 – Carter Nelson has lived up to the early hype thus far

Of everything we learned from Rhule on Wednesday, I thought his comments about freshman Carter Nelson were the most intriguing.

Rhule said Nelson has moved to wide receiver, and he’s a clear “difference maker” that they plan to get on the field this fall. He called Nelson an “upgrade” to what they had a year ago.

This is a promising development that Nelson has already turned heads after just a couple of months on campus. When you talk about transitioning from eight-man football to Nebraska, it’s unpredictable how that will go.

TWO QUESTIONS THIS WEEK

1 – What’s the latest on the arrival of German DL David Höffken?

What is the arrival status of German defensive lineman David Höffken ? This week in Indianapolis, Rhule delivered some promising news.

He praised recruiting staff member Ryan Callaghan, who has led the charge to get all the necessary things to get Höffken on campus done. Höffken recently received his Student visa and is expected to arrive on campus by July 27.

2 – What jumps out about Matt Rhule’s track record on hiring high school football coaches to his staff?

Nebraska announced hiring former Lee’s Summitt North head coach Jamar Mozee earlier this month. How many former high school football coaches has Rhule now hired over his time in college football?

Rhule shared that number on Wednesday. Overall, Rhule has hired 15 different former high school football coaches during his stops at Temple, Baylor, and Nebraska.

Rhule said that when he goes on the road to recruit, one of his favorite things is to meet successful high school football coaches around the country and potentially find ways to hire them on his coaching staff. There can’t be a Power Four head coach in the country who’s hired more former high school coaches to his staff than Rhule.

ONE PREDICTION: Nebraska will get a visit from five-star+ OL David Sanders

We know it’s already set to be a big visitor weekend for Nebraska over the next few days. We also learned that five-star athlete Michael Terry III is now a confirmed visitor for next week.

I’ll make this prediction right now: Terry III won’t be the only five-star player to make his way to campus this week for the Huskers. I predict five-star offensive lineman David Sanders will return to Lincoln sometime this week. The Huskers appear very much in the conversation with both Terry III and Sanders.

Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and is heard daily at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall, and each week, he appears on Nebraska Public Media’s Big Red Wrap-Up Tuesdays at 7 pm .

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