Stryker: Trending Above NIL

Huskers’ chances this fall improve dramatically with Ochaun Mathis’s announcement

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The future of Nebraska football took an uptick over NFL Draft weekend.

Two Cornhuskers were drafted in the second round and a third in Round 7 — nothing exceptional, but it’s something to build on. And it appears that one prominent transfer portal recruit was thinking a lot about next year’s draft.

When TCU transfer edge rusher Ochaun Mathis declared for the Huskers over his hometown Texas Longhorns, you could feel something break in the thin line of futility that has kept the Huskers in the lower division of the Big Ten West. Mostly, it’s been the lack of a big-time playmaker. It could be argued that the playmaker missing on offense (in my opinion, a breakaway threat at running back) was more important than the one missing on defense, but the Huskers came so close to beating a handful of ranked teams last fall, even one legitimate upgrade of four-star talent at a premium position could produce dramatic results.

There’s no guarantee Mathis will make the difference, but he will provide what the Huskers have lacked on defense for years — a true pass rushing threat who must be accounted for on every play. He’ll make Garrett Nelson, Ty Robinson and Caleb Tannor more effective by his presence on the field. Erik Chinander’s Blackshirts, even with their youth in the defensive backfield, have a decent shot at correcting their biggest shortcoming to date — a lack of takeaways.

Less than four months before its season opener against Northwestern, Nebraska gets a much-needed push in the right direction.

But you’re right, Nebraska has to win on the field to return to relevance. Obviously, the announcement by Mathis doesn’t check that box, but what it does accomplish is to lay the groundwork for Nebraska to return to relevance. And perhaps just as importantly, it shows the Huskers are going to be able to compete nationally in the Name, Image and Likeness wars.

This is a big win for Trev Alberts and the newly formed Nebraska Huskers Marketplace, and it’s an indication that NU will be able to land a few top-rated athletes by leveraging its association with Blake Lawrence and Opendorse, and its association with Gerrod Lambrecht and his cooperative, Athlete Branding & Marketing LLC, to its advantage. A coherent plan, targeted to the needs and talents of each athlete, coupled with training about financial responsibility (which NU has been doing for years), may just be enough to compete on the national stage. It appears to have caught the eye of Mathis, who's in his early 20s, or just as likely, his mother.  A commitment to financial planning and marketing plan development as opposed to a quick infusion of cash with no idea how to use it. Could something like that appeal to a starry-eyed 18-year-old? I hope so.

My main takeaway from the weekend is that the NU athletic department’s high-level leadership is in the best shape it’s been for a long time. It looks like Alberts has some good department heads in place to take on this brave new world of college sports, and to do it the right way, as Alberts sets the direction.

With Mathis’s announcement, Nebraska football gains immediate relevance in the world of NIL, and it solidifies its position as one of the winners in the 2022 transfer portal sweepstakes. You don’t like the portal? That’s understandable, and frankly, I think it’s going to disappoint a lot of the athletes who suffer from “grass is greener” syndrome, who assume their situation will automatically improve once they emerge from the portal into a beautiful new land of opportunity. In the majority of cases, that’s not going to happen. The courtship is wonderful; making the marriage work demands work and sacrifice, whether it’s the original marriage, or one with some other team in some other conference.

Mathis’s mother, Ochana Daniels, said NIL “didn’t play a big factor” in her son choosing Nebraska – “It was more so the amount of support he’s going to have mentally and physically,” she told the Omaha World-Herald. That’s refreshing to hear, although if you watch enough salary wars among veteran NFL quarterbacks and wide receivers who say being offered anything under $20 million a year means they’re disrespected, you could be forgiven if you think they’re not being totally honest. So let’s follow up the money angle. Do you think there was more money offered up front at Nebraska than at Texas? I can’t imagine that would be the case. But then again, I have to imagine it was a respectable offer, maybe one that made more sense in the long run. And taking Daniels at her word, she thinks Nebraska’s athletic department will provide more personal support than she saw in Texas.

I hear a lot of talk about Nebraska not being able to compete with the big boys in the NIL marketplace. This is evidence that Nebraska can compete. In fact, this may be evidence that Alberts wasn’t just blowing smoke in his April 14 press release, where he called Nebraska “a national leader in the NIL space.”

Nationally, the NIL concept is pretty much the Wild West. It cries for self-regulation and stability. I trust Nebraska’s athletic department in that more than I do the Texas athletic department, and maybe Mathis (or his mom) does as well.

So Mathis is N. Guess what: the offensive line — Nebraska’s persistent weakness since Bo Pelini left Lincoln — still needs fixing. Frost still hasn’t defeated Iowa or Wisconsin, and he’s had a devil of a time with Minnesota and Purdue. Can one player change all that? Maybe not, but the Huskers’ chances look better than they did a week ago.

Mathis has two years of college eligibility left. If all goes well, he does not plan to use both. After all, there was a reason he had “NFL DRAFT 2022-2023” written on the backdrop he used for his transfer announcement. For Frost’s sake, it makes sense for Husker fans to root that he’ll take just one season to play his way into a second-round draft choice next April. If that happens, Frost will have Alberts — and a group of dedicated NIL administrators — to thank.

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