Huskers start June with a recruiting haul

Nebraska added five commits, pushing its class to 18th nationally. Can NU finish with a top-15 class?

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska hosted its first big visit weekend of June and came away with five new commits. That put the Huskers at 15 commits*¹ for 2027. On3 and 247Sports had the class ranked 18^th nationally as of Sunday night.

Not a bad number given NU’s traditional recruiting range, but that still had the Huskers behind nine Big Ten teams. The On3 scoring system was a little more generous, placing the Huskers sixth in the league.

It is all of course still fluid until December and signing day, but let’s take a quick look at who NU added.

CB Bryce Williams | Western (Fla.) HS | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

By recruit rating, the 6-2, 175-pound corner is the headliner from the weekend haul. With a 0.9037 rating from 247, Williams ranks as the 36^th-best corner nationally and he’s the fifth highest-rated commit in NU’s class so far. It’s another Florida win for secondary coach Addison Williams, and there’s a lot of potential here to like given Williams’ long frame. He was scheduled to visit North Carolina next weekend, took an official to Oklahoma the week before stopping in Lincoln and had offers from most of the heavy hitters.

DL Errol Demontagnac | Armwood (Fla.) HS | ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The first of two commits on the d-line, Demontagnac² got the recruiting ball rolling with a pledge on Thursday. His offer list was interesting, not in that it had Georgia, Ohio State, et al, on it, but in that it had Pittsburgh and North Carolina State on it with Demontagnac unofficially visiting NCSU in March. Those are two schools that traditionally punch above their weight on the defensive line, so that’s intriguing. At 6-3, 290, Demontagnac is already decently sized for an interior lineman.

EDGE Ma’atoe Moe | Timpview (Utah) HS | ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A week after committing to Minnesota on an official visit, Moe flipped to Nebraska. Do with that what you will, even if it’s nothing more than enjoying swiping an edge rusher from the team that sacked NU nine times last season and blew up the season. Moe (6-3, 240) is the lowest-rated commit in the class so far—somebody’s gotta be—but he did have some real interest from BYU in addition to the Gophers.

The 2027 class now includes three defensive linemen, which might be one of the key areas for any future gains for Nebraska football. Doing research for another project I’m working on—will be out soon—I’ve been reminded recently of just how good the great Husker teams were on the defensive line.

Well, both lines, actually. Nebraska has had 16 consensus All-Americans at offensive tackle and 12 at center, the most of any individual position groups. Next on the list, however, are 11 defensive tackles and 10 ends. It’s oversimplified, sure, but if Nebraska wants to win “like Nebraska again,” I’d probably start with that information. The Huskers haven’t produced an All-American on the defensive line since Ndamukong Suh in 2009.³

TE Joey Hunter | Grayson (Ga.) HS | ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Nebraska has a tight end for the 2027 class. Is it the tight end? There was no major news on Ahmed Hudson, the 5-star football-and-hoops star who committed to LSU a month ago but still made a surprise visit to Lincoln this weekend. Given the option, Nebraska would obviously take both, but Hunter (6-6, 255) is a long prospect who offers some intrigue on his own. He was most closely pursued by Syracuse and was scheduled to visit the Orange as well as Pittsburgh and North Carolina⁴ later this month.

LB Eli Harris | Grayson (Ga.) HS | ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Harris beat Hunter to the punch by a few hours, but their commitments together with previous pledges from offensive linemen Jordan Agbanoma* and KD Jones gave the Huskers four commitments from the same, powerful high school program. I’m calling them The Grayson Group, which sounds serious and official, like a football think tank. I’m probably going to have to get down to Loganville this fall to watch this team, and Harris gives me a reason to pay attention on defense. He had forthcoming visits set up with Pittsburgh and Texas A&M

Can NU land a top-15 class?

I saw this as a poll question a few weeks ago and my almost-instant reaction was, “no.” Why? Because Nebraska almost never does. It isn’t about momentum or the current commits or the players who could commit.

Recruiting is consistently range bound. There are occasional surges and crashes, but they’re almost always temporary. For the most part, teams recruit like they recruit. Nebraska has had one top-15 class this century, which is basically the start date of modern team rankings. That was Bill Callahan’s famed class of 2005, which 247 had ranked eight. Nebraska was also close in 2000 (17^th), 2011 (16^th) and 2019 (18^th).

Maybe the best way to understand this is just to look at the highs and lows of recruiting for each Big Ten team over the past decade:

With the sixth-best average class rating over the past decade, Nebraska’s in a decent place relative to the teams it plays for nine games every year. More notable, however, might be how comparatively tight the Huskers’ line is. No surprise, Ohio State and Penn State have had the least variance in recruiting rankings over the last 10 years, but after that it’s the Huskers alongside Iowa, Minnesota, Rutgers, Indiana and Illinois for stability. Lot of old Big Ten West teams in that group.

Maybe that says something about location and access to talent. Maybe it only says something about how recruit ratings and team rankings are calculated.

If the question is “will NU have a top-15 class,” I’m still comfortable with my instant answer—probably not. But the class as it currently stands is at the top of the range from the past decade, and that’s something.

Stick there through signing day, and that’s a win.

1. I wrote all of this newsletter with NU at 16 commits, but just as I was about to schedule it wide receiver Kaden Howard flipped to Georgia Tech. So, it’s 15 now, but it didn’t immediately change the class ranking and all that follows from here was still accurate.

2. What a name. Not immediately knowing where Seffner, Florida, was, I wondered for a moment if it was near Vernon, Florida. Maybe Errol was named by two film buffs who really love Errol Morris. Seffner appears to be an exurb of St. Pete, nowhere near Vernon, so this seems unlikely. Until it is directly refuted, however, I will hold out hope.

3. And I would even argue they had some pretty good ones relatively recently. Maliek Collins, Randy Gregory, the Davis twins and Ty Robinson all come to mind.

4. Not sure what to make of the fact Nebraska and North Carolina have shared a couple of camp itineraries for these prospects. Maybe it’s an NFL eye thing—that presumes Bill Belichick is making decisions about the players UNC pursues—and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.