[Husker] recruiting character vs talent

[Bob Beach]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William E. Laughlin" <weldoc52 at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 3:58 PM
Subject: [Husker] recruiting character vs talent


> Bob, my first inclination was to agree with you, but this is a straw man 
> argument. I think fans have ALWAYS embraced winning the right way at NU. 
> Oh, I know, you'll cite the 9-3 seasons under TO and the critical fans, 
> but I think we all saw what recruiting strictly by the number of blue-chip 
> stars on the recruiting services has done. Over the last 4 years, some 
> fans feel the team ended up with some talented guys whose first goal was 
> apparently to look good for NFL scouts on film, and maybe not play lights 
> out on every play or work on maximizing what talent they had.


> With TO we had a built-in failsafe because a guy like that with a degree 
> like he has almost guaranteed we're not recruiting strictly for talent. 
> That was the OU way, for years.



       I think fans would much rather win the right way and with the right 
people than vice versa.  I will never argue that.  But winning is still far 
and away number one.  I have said this many times that I don't believe for a 
minute if TO had been every bit the man is, ran every bit the clean program 
he did, developed young men the way he did, and anything else you want to 
add but finished below .500 every year he wouldn't have lasted five years 
much less 25 years.  The fans would have been screaming.  And, TO knew it. 
He said in the press conference after he fired Callahan that TO himself 
would have expected to have been fired had he had more than two 
losing/subpar seasons in a row.



> I think you can screen their backgrounds and ask the kinds of revealing 
> Q's at interviews to determine what kind of individual the person 
> generally is -- you know, something beyond "How fast do you run the 40?" 
> See what their goals are, and whether they are me-firsters or team 
> players, like the kind NU used to routinely get.



      It is very hard to get to the bottom of everything.  You can do 
everything you know to do but you just can't catch everything.  TO had his 
problems as well.  Shall we start with Lawrence Phillips and Christian 
Peter?  With Lawrence Phillips background he should have had at least been 
questionable.


 > I think we need to be patient and see the kinds of players the Pelini 
staff actually gets. This guy Josh Williams is a Callahan recruit. I won't 
be the least surprised if this issue is moot in a few more years.



      I would be shocked, literally shocked, if Pelini is here any length of 
time and never has a problem with more than one recruit/player.  It is just 
the way society is.  And, with the pressure to win it you have to recruit 
talent or at least attemp to.


Bob Beach