Nebraska's run to the roses continues and a portal reminder
Husker volleyball is on to the final four and the transfer portal continues to transport former Huskers to inconvenient locations
The first point at which I felt certain Nebraska volleyball would beat Wisconsin was when the Huskers went on a 14-9 run after trailing 11-7 in the first set. The second point was when the Huskers nearly wasted that run and won 26-24 anyway.
This is an annoying habit of mine. I like to, privately, declare matches or games over before they actually are. I’m wrong as often as I’m right.
But when Nebraska withstood an early deficit and held off a late challenge in the first set, it felt like the Huskers’ night. They walked to a 25-17 win in the second and, after some back-and-forth, used an 8-1 run to sweep the Badgers yet again, winning 25-21 in the third.
If nothing else in 2024, we learned this: Nebraska is definitively better than Wisconsin. The Huskers faced the Badgers three times and didn’t lose a set. That wasn’t the case for much of the previous decade, but it was the case this year.
Nebraska’s run for the roses, at a final four hosted in Louisville, continues and there hasn’t been much to fault the Huskers for since losing to SMU in September. They were the third one-seed to advance to the national semifinals, joining Pittsburgh and Louisville, both from the ACC. Penn State, the fourth one-seed, survived a five-set challenge from Creighton to set up a Big Ten rematch. The Nittany Lions beat the Huskers 3-1 in State College on Black Friday.
A Portal Reminder
Two of Nebraska’s big-time transfers announced their new, big-time homes over the weekend. Jimari Butler will play next season at LSU, Princewill Umanmielen at Mississippi.1
I got a powerful reminder about the portal while reading some of the arrival-based coverage of these transfers. We’re about to get extremely bottom-line, but I know we can all handle it without jumping to conclusions. College football itself is more bottom line than it has ever been before.
The detail that leapt off the page with these transfers is this: Umanielen, by 247 Sports, is the top-rated edge rusher in the portal to this point. “Wait, really?” I said to myself.
It sort of makes sense with a bit more thought. One, Umanmielen played in all but one of the games he was at Nebraska since arriving. Two, he was a 4-star player coming out of high school, meaning his measurables were good and his time in Lincoln did nothing to diminish those. Three, “best-available” is of course a moving target.
But…when you boil it down to production, the thing that stopped me given the familiarity here, the top-rated edge rusher in this transfer class so far averaged 1.5 tackles and 0.3 tackles for loss per game over two seasons. This is where it gets difficult.
Umanmielen was a young player. His best football should be in front of him, and, to be clear, Nebraska would rather have him than watch him suit up for Ole Miss. This isn’t meant to diminish a player, program or the various transfer rankings. It’s just an attempt to acknowledge reality. Those are the numbers while acknowledging the physical gifts are there.
Put it this way: If you’re reading this newsletter, you’ve probably seen most of Umanmielen’s college snaps. Would you have guessed he’s the top edge rusher in the portal based on what you’ve seen so far?
Landing with the Rebels wasn’t a surprise. Umanmielen’s brother, Princely, transferred there from Florida last year as part of Mississippi’s transparent push to spend their way into the playoff, and Princely was largely as good as he was at Florida—3.3 tackles and 1.0 TFLs per game last season for the Gators, 3.1 and 1.2 this year for the Rebels. That’s basically as good as advertised, plug and play.
Based on some research I’ve been doing for a few months—to be shared here when I get it whipped into shape—I think that’s about the best you can hope for in the portal. Umanmielen requires a projection at this point in his career. That’s fine and fair. But he’s the top-rated edge rusher in the portal to date, which might say more about the portal than him.
This cuts both ways. Nebraska generated positive buzz by securing Missouri transfer defensive lineman Williams Nwaneri, a 5-star recruit in the 2024 class. Six of the top 10 defensive linemen in that class played at least nine games at power-conference schools as true freshmen and one was injured and shut down for the year in the second game. Nwaneri was one of three to redshirt.
Why? It’s a question I’ve yet to be able to answer satisfactorily myself or have read elsewhere. It’s still an important get for the Huskers, but it’s a projection. The 5-star high school rating carries a lot of weight the same way Umanmielen’s 4-star does now for Ole Miss.
I generally think the traditional recruiting rankings “work” on the whole, while knowing they could never account for every exception. The portal rankings, I believe, require a bit more scrutiny because these are players we should know something about as college players. Not everything, but something.
That wasn’t a big part of the conversations I was seeing among Rebel fans after landing the top-rated edge rusher in the portal and a familiar name at that. My hope, for all involved, is they never have reason to use that headline-worthy info as ammo, in the same way I hope Nwaneri is indeed a 5-star.
But the point is we often don’t know even after a year or two of college, something that isn’t implied as strongly by transfer ratings as it is by recruit ratings.
What I do think we “know” is this: Nebraska’s transfer losses on defenses are pretty heavy. In addition to Umanmielen, James Williams (2nd-rated transfer edge, Florida State), Butler (13th) and linebacker Mikai Gbayor (2nd, undecided) are among the top 120 transfers2 in the portal so far by 247.
Nebraska would be better with them than without them—even if you consider the Huskers replacing one with Nwaneri—but be careful what you read out there. College football is so big it’s almost impossible for even the most devoted reporter to know everything.
In the case of Umanmielen v. The Headlines, you probably know more than most of the headline writers.
Linebacker Stefon Thompson also officially announced that he’s following Tony White, his DC at Syracuse and last season at Nebraska, to Florida State.
So is wide receiver Malachi Coleman, who appears headed to Minnesota which hosts Nebraska next year.