Well, it’s a “here we go again…” feeling inside the walls of Memorial Stadium, or maybe it’s just me who has that feeling. Over the weekend, offensive lineman Nouredin Nouili announced through twitter he must sit out the 2022 season due to a failed drug test and forfeit a year of eligibility. He started most of the year along the line last season and still played in all 12 games. We all know how bad the offensive line was, so do with that information what you will.
Scott Frost offered his support by offering his full support of Nouili and Nouili will still participate in practices despite not being able to play in any games. Can I just ask why? What’s the point? To keep him fresh? Maybe, but workouts can do that just as well. The staff will probably offer something about how “they don’t want him to miss any reps,” but practice reps are different from reps. They just are. Just ask Frost, he would know because apparently, we have the “greatest practices of the year” before every loss. Practice only does so much.
Anyway, I’m not here to rant about practices. The suspension is just piling on everything else of the past five years. Why can’t anything ever be easy or conventional? Other teams have suspensions that last the year and failed drug tests, that’s fine. It’s just always something with this program, whether it’s players or not releasing contract details, just simple stuff. Quite frankly, none of this is what winning programs do. It’s not what happens to winning programs, it just isn’t.
You could make a highlight reel of the last four years and put the Benny Hill circus music behind it and it’s not just with on-field play either. But hey, it’s not all bad, a Husker legacy committed this weekend. Maverick Noonan (what a name) committed this weekend for 2023, and this staff has done a lot of good work locking up the state for 2023 after a forgettable 2022.
These in-state recruits have no incentive to stay anymore, though, it’s not like we’ve been good at sending guys to the NFL consistently lately, either. The first step to keeping recruits in-state is to have success.
I’m in the minority and don’t care about in-state recruiting, rather I just want the best players, but it’s still not a great look when they leave for better pastures.
Bringing this all back together with recruiting and Nouri, has the staff recruited the offensive line enough to replace a returning starter? If they have, is the replacement developed enough to take over for Nouili? I said it last week in my baseball analysis and the same applies for football, and really any sport: Experience. Matters.