The Unknowables: What if WR Neyor approaches 2021 form?

The offseason is perhaps defined but what we can prove about teams, but the season might actually be decided by the things we never see coming.

Nebraska WR Isaiah Neyor during the Huskers’ 2024 spring game. } Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

“Isaiah Neyor is a Wide Receiver from Arlington, TX.”

So read the scouting profile at 247Sports for Neyor coming out of high school in 2019. Thanks and all, but I gathered that much from his biographical info at the top of the page.

That isn’t to shame 247, which had Neyor as a 2-star and the 383rd-best receiver in the country, for not paying attention. Nobody was. His offer list included Henderson State in Arkansas, a D-II school most notable for being Gus Malzahn’s alma mater, and a pair of FCS programs, Western Illinois and Incarnate Word. Wyoming swooped in late, got a commitment the day before early signing in 2018 and signed him the next day.

Three years after signing, including a redshirt season, Neyor was one of the top-rated prospects in the transfer portal. He committed to Tennessee ahead of the 2022 season but flipped to Texas. Injuries limited Neyor to one catch over two seasons with the Longhorns, and now he’s at Nebraska, seeking a season that will put him back on track towards an NFL future¹ that seemed certain two years ago.

Neyor is nearly unknowable as far as projecting what he’ll be in 2024 in Lincoln. Guys like that run counter to much of the offseason chatter, which focuses on the things an observer can “know” going in—returning experience, schedule, last year’s strengths and weaknesses.

Those are all useful for setting a baseline expectation for a team, and seasons will often fall within a game or two of that baseline based on nothing else. But seasons can swing—and somewhat have to—on the unknowables, things you can’t pencil in four months out.

What if Neyor is back to the 2021 form that made him one of the most sought-after transfers in the country? It’s the sort of edge it’s hard to count on this time of year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t imagine what it would be like.