As the roster churns

Updates from a surprisingly busy weekend for Nebraska football and its evolving roster

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Roster building in today’s college football isn’t a zero-sum game. It would be easier to keep track of if it were.

Because it’s not, Nebraska football had a somewhat news-y weekend on the personnel front, from losing out on an offensive tackle to a not-so-fast-my-friend from a Big 12 defensive back to a temporary NCAA waiver offering a few Huskers another season.

Here’s a recap of the recent moves:

O-line reinforcements may have to wait

New offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen said in December the Huskers needed to add a couple of transfer offensive linemen before next season. They might go into the spring semester having only added one.

Nebraska has been in the mix with a handful of hotly pursued tackles since the portal opened. As recently as last week, NU was thought to be in a two-horse race with Michigan for New Mexico State’s Shiyazh Pete. A three-year starter and all-conference selection, Pete (6-8, 320) skipped the Big Ten altogether, committing to Kentucky. He’s the Wildcats fifth addition on the o-line in this transfer class and was 247Sports’ 13th-ranked tackle in the portal.

The Huskers also hosted the top two transfer tackles per 247, Isaiah World (Nevada) and Fa’alili Fa’amoe (Washington State), in December. World chose Oregon while Fa’amoe followed head coach Jake Dickert to Wake Forest.

That leaves Nebraska with former Alabama tackle Elijah Pritchett, the fourth-ranked tackle by 247, as the Huskers’ only addition on the line so far. That’s probably how things stay until the spring transfer window opens, where there will be less supply and more demand for experienced linemen.

Nebraska will likely still be a buyer then and it won’t be cheap.

Down one in the secondary

It looked as though Arizona defensive back Marquis Groves-Killebrew was set to make Nebraska the fourth school of his career. Would’ve given Groves-Killebrew the full power-conference set, too. He signed with Texas A&M (SEC) out of high school, transferred to Louisville (ACC) after a season, then spent last year with the Wildcats (Big 12) where he made 26 tackles with four pass breakups over 10 games.

But scratch all that. Groves-Killebrew withdrew his name from the portal and will stay at Arizona. 247 had him as the 64th-best corner in the portal.

This near-miss might not sting as much. The Huskers already landed Andrew Marshall (30th) from Idaho and Jamir Conn (69th) from Southern Illinois. Also…

Up one in the secondary

Thanks to Vanderbilt’s wrecking ball of a quarterback, Diego Pavia, the Huskers are getting a load-bearing beam back in their secondary. Safety DeShon Singleton will return thanks to a one-year waiver for players who played seasons in an organization other than the NCAA.

In December, Pavia sued the NCAA on antitrust grounds, arguing that counting any collegiate seasons played against NCAA eligibility was depriving players of NIL opportunities. The NCAA responded with a blanket waiver for such players in 2025–26, and the rule will probably be revisited long-term. For now, it means Pavia, who started his career at junior college New Mexico Military Institute, can return to Vandy for 2025. The Tennessean reported his NIL value to be close to $1 million. Not bad for a guy with no Division I offers out of high school.

This path is how Singleton is returning to Nebraska’s secondary, too, after a medical hardship waiver wasn’t granted. In 2023, Singleton appeared in four games before getting injured early in the fifth game, putting him just a few snaps over the limit for a traditional redshirt. Matt Rhule seemed to think that was a pretty good case for a waiver, but the NCAA disagreed.

No matter the path, Singleton’s return ranks as one of the biggest “gets” of this portal window after he ranked second on the team with 71 tackles. He started his career at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College.

While not a corner, clearly Nebraska’s area of emphasis in the portal, Singleton’s return offers the flexibility for new defensive backs coach Addison Williams to experiment a bit this spring. With one safety spot presumably locked down, let’s see what it means for the rest of the picture.

Wide receiver Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda also got a year back, but he won’t be spending it in Lincoln. The Huskers’ primary punt returner in 2024 announced he will enter the portal with one season left to play. Garcia-Castaneda started his career at Saddleback College before transferring to New Mexico State.

While there’s been no update yet on his future, this waiver would also grant another year of eligibility to quarterback Jalyn Gramstad who transferred in from NAIA Northwestern. With Heinrich Haarberg moving to tight end full time, the Huskers brought in Marcos Davila from Purdue as a redshirt freshman and TJ Lateef arrives as part of the 2025 class of recruits. Wouldn’t be bad from a depth perspective if Gramstad elected to stay. He appeared in two games last fall, attempting three passes.