Nebraska Football Recruiting: Where the Huskers Go From Here

Nebraska Football Recruiting: Where the Huskers Go From Here by Evan Hummel

As originally broken by the Lincoln Journal-Star, former UCONN head football coach Bob Diaco will be Nebraska football‘s new defensive coordinator. What does this mean for the Cornhuskers moving forward?

A former two-time All-Big Ten selection at linebacker, Diaco played under the great Hayden Fry at Iowa. He spent time as a defensive coordinator at Central Michigan and Cincinnati, but his big break came when Notre Dame called.

From 2010-2013, Diaco would work as the team’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach adding an assistant head coach title in 2012.

His units would average rankings of No. 19 in scoring defense (second only to eventual national champion Alabama in 2012 when Diaco would take home the Broyles Award for best assistant coach in college football) and No. 30 in total defense.

A question this hire brings up is what about Diaco’s personal taste for the 3-4 defense?

Nebraska has had difficulty bringing in traditional 4-3 formation defensive ends lately and current linebackers coach Trent Bray is one of the best recruiters on the Nebraska football staff. A defensive end like Alex Davis would make an excellent 3-4 outside linebacker, for example.

Fellow Big Ten West division foe Wisconsin has made use of the 3-4. Could we see these two programs look even more alike on the football field?

It’s likely that as defensive coordinator Diaco has quite a bit of say in what happens with the linebackers regardless, so it’ll be interesting to see how this progresses.

Looking at his work as a recruiter while at UCONN, it’s actually fairly impressive.

Not only does he have experience in the Midwest with his time spent at Iowa, Cincinnati and Notre Dame, his tenure with the Huskies give the Big Red an opportunity to tap into the Big Ten East’s recruiting footprint.

Perhaps we’ll see some more recruiting battles versus Penn State in the near future.

To those rolling their eyes at this hire as bringing on a man who failed as a head coach at UCONN, some other names who simply didn’t cut it as a head coach who excel as coordinators: Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, Kevin Steele, Greg Schiano and Kevin Wilson.

At only 43 years of age, Diaco is an exciting, energetic young prospect that Bret Bielema and Arkansas reportedly wanted to yank into the SEC. If he’s good enough for one of the elite conferences in college football, he should be more than adequate for the University of Nebraska.