17 Aug 2017, Cornhusker News of the Day.

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Nish August 17, 2017 at 7:58pm

Cavanaugh on the line play today :
Despite the individual praise for Conrad, Cavanaugh had his own unique assessment of his unit's work on a day when the defense more often than not won the battle at the line of scrimmage.

"I just don't think we had the fricken intensity, so I jumped their butts," Cavanaugh said before adding, "I don't think today was a great day, but the fun thing for us is coach (Bob) Diaco's defense is very, very multiple, and it's awesome to go up against every day."

While Thursday was rough, Cavanaugh has been pleased with the progress made by the o-line through the first few weeks of practice.

"They've had a pretty damn good camp overall," he said.
Nish August 17, 2017 at 4:20pm

Caleb Lightbourn, right, appreciates Bob Diaco’s attention to detail and high expectations. Lightbourn is averaging about 48 yards on punts in practice.

LINCOLN — Caleb Lightbourn wishes he could have that punt back.

Nebraska fans might differ on which one the sophomore punter means. The kick that went for negative yardage against Minnesota. The shank that netted 5 yards as it traveled a dozen rows into the stands at Iowa. Maybe one of the three blocked boots, or the freelanced fake run that failed against Wyoming.

Nope, Lightbourn said. He’s stopped worrying about those mistakes from last season, which feels like a lifetime ago. The angst right now comes from knowing that one of his biggest mistakes of fall camp almost cost his team an extra half-hour of workouts on a hot morning inside Memorial Stadium last week.

The story is well-chronicled now. At last Thursday’s practice, coaches sent 6-foot-3, 310-pound guard Jerald Foster deep in punt-return formation. A catch would end the day early. But practice would endure if the ball hit the turf. Foster ended up needing to sprint to his left near the goal line and made a difficult running catch before his teammates mobbed him in celebration.

Lightbourn said Tuesday the ending could have been much less happy had Foster not channeled his inner Barry Sanders.

“I was trying to go to the right, just not that low,” Lightbourn said. “As soon as it came off my foot, I was like, ‘Uhhh ... c’mon, you gotta get there!’ I saw him sprinting, I was like, ‘Please, please catch it so I don’t get too much crap.’ It worked out pretty well. It turned out to be a pretty cool video afterward, disregarding how bad the punt was.”

Lightbourn didn’t allow himself to reflect much in the midst of last season. After coming to NU as a scholarship player from Washougal, Washington, he was thrust into duty as a true freshman after Sam Foltz died in a car accident before fall camp. But in hindsight, he said, 2016 was “a lot harder than I thought it was.” Every situation was new. He had leg strength, but sporadic accuracy.

He doesn’t want to be a wild card anymore. The guy who earned Big Ten freshman of the week honors after making five key punts against Oregon also averaged just 39.7 yards on 65 total kicks to rank 93rd among 115 FBS punters nationally.

Lightbourn’s reality changed in the spring, when new defensive coordinator Bob Diaco said he would coach punters directly. Now Lightbourn is working with a perfectionist who emphasizes mechanics. Kick through the ball. Create explosion at the point of contact. Eliminate extraneous movement.

Diaco said every detail makes a difference. The first step is an inch inside? Then the body will correct itself on the next move, and that’s when problems start. Lightbourn said the precision makes it easier to spot flaws that may crop up in his technique.

Diaco said Lightbourn is becoming more consistent.

“He’s maturing,” the coach said. “He takes accountability more and is accountable and coachable. He really spends time inspecting his movement and the things that went wrong.

“Spend time and discipline trying to habitize the movement, just because you don’t want to have a lot of moving parts. So you try to duplicate the same thing over and over again. And he’s very critical of that sweet spot, that movement that he needs to be in that groove. So we’re working hard at it and he is, too.”

Lightbourn said the work is longer as well as more efficient. With special teams coach Bruce Read — whom Mike Riley fired after the regular-season finale at Iowa in November — the punter estimated that specialists practiced for 20-30 minutes. Now under special teams overseer Scott Booker, they are among the first to arrive and last to leave workouts, spending time conditioning when they aren’t honing their craft.

Said Lightbourn: “(Diaco) is a really intense guy, but he really cares and he wants us to be perfect. I think that’s what really matters and that’s what’s really helped us this fall.”

At 6-3, 235 pounds, Lightbourn takes pride in being an athlete instead of “just a kicker.” His weightlifting numbers — 285 pounds in the power clean and 215 in the snatch — are both personal bests. He said his punts in camp are averaging close to 48 yards, which would put him among the NCAA leaders from last year.

“You don’t really want to look at statistics, but it’s good seeing the results of the hard work. I’m just very excited to see what the season has to bring for me.”

When the outcomes aren’t ideal, punters now have to pay. Lightbourn said there was a recent occasion when he and Isaac Armstrong shanked kicks on consecutive tries. Diaco had both doing up-downs.

It’s the kind of thing that lets Lightbourn know his coaches care. Just like when Riley told him there’s nothing he’d rather see than an opponent starting a drive inside its own 10.

“It’s Coach Riley’s favorite play, he said, in football,” Lightbourn said. “So I’m really taking that seriously and taking that to heart and making him proud and helping out the team. Because that’s a huge, huge momentum swing as far as a game.”

evan.bland@owh.com, 402-525-6970, twitter.com/EvanBlandOWH

NU punter Caleb Lightbourn years ahead of last season
- Nish > Nish August 17, 2017 at 4:22pm
  
  What is interesting about the Lightbourn story is the Punters only practiced for 20-30 minutes per day. Coach Reed was one of the first coaches out the door, and we wonder why the special teams struggled last year, form a coach making 477,000.
Nish August 17, 2017 at 3:59pm

He was standing on a football field in Missouri as he spoke of Florida.

Recruiting in both states are critical to the Huskers, but it was clear during Nebraska's satellite camp tour this past June that the talent dripping out of the state of Florida had made a particular impression on Mike Riley.

You can understand why just by looking at three young Huskers that were recruited out of that state in the last two classes. Linebackers Guy Thomas and Willie Hampton may not play this year, but are both eye-catching prospects even on a field of 105 players. And redshirt freshman cornerback DiCaprio Bootle? Perhaps the fastest guy on the team. He is going to be important for Nebraska's defense this fall. He is, as Donte Williams explained on Tuesday, thought of as one of the team's three starting corners.

Bootle was first recognized by Husker staff at a satellite camp in the Miami area. And getting recognized down there isn't always easy.

"When you're from Florida, you know sometimes, football is all you know," Bootle said. "Especially a lot of friends of mine back there, that's all they know is football."

The fact Thomas and Hampton have already caught people's notice around here? "I wouldn't expect anything less from them to come in here and play hard like that," Bootle continued. "They know that they have families that are supporting them, and that they need to make happy, prove that they can play. I had no idea that they would come in here and make some noise."

When Bootle attended the satellite camp that got him noticed by Husker coaches, it was a camp full of speedy prospects. Bootle was friends with a decent number of them.

"A group of us might go out there, and be like, 'Come on, let's get this money today,'" Bootle said. "You always got to be on your P's and Q's down there because there's a lot of talent. Being able to have people say I was one of the better people there, that was an honor."

Back in June, Riley spoke of seeing prospects walk around the satellite camps in Florida who could make even a veteran coach say, Wow.'

Riley's quote that day about that state is worth repeating.

"As much as it's recruited, and some say over recruited, I don' know if that's true or not," Riley said. "There's a lot of guys that can run and good-looking athletes. I've been some (camps) before, and was impressed, but I don't know if it ever hit me quite like it did watching the two camps we did in the Miami area (this summer)."

It definitely paid off making a visit down there two summers ago. Right now, given the injury to another talent from Florida, Chris Jones, having Bootle here is already proving significant.

He was standing on a football field in Missouri as he spoke of Flor...

Brian Christopherson - Aug 15
Nish August 17, 2017 at 3:34pm

Nebraska assistant coach Donté Williams talks to defensive back Kieron Williams (26) before a practice at Hawks Championship Center in the spring.

The more we get to know Donté Williams, the better we understand why he recruits well.

He's a cap-on-backward, fast-talking bundle of energy. He's eminently likable and relates well to a wide range of folks.

As a Nebraska assistant football coach, he clearly believes in himself and the people around him.

He seems to genuinely believe in what he's selling to prospects.

In that regard, I asked Williams what crosses his mind when he hears someone say it's difficult to recruit to Nebraska.

"I'll say they just didn't work hard enough," he said earlier this week. "The fan support's amazing. The players are amazing. Anytime you have players who believe in coaches, and you have coaches who believe in the environment and atmosphere, that (place) shouldn't be hard to recruit to.

"We're going to work hard here," he added. "We're going to do everything we can to make sure you get your degree, win games and get a chance to play on Sundays. That's what we're all about."

Oh, and one other thing.

"I've said this before. Coaches don't recruit players; players recruit players. And if we go out and do what we're supposed to do defensively, offensively and as a team, that's going to recruit itself."

But you have to win games, he said. That obviously includes the biggest ones -- the ones that grab the nation's attention.

Nebraska, since about 2002, has found that winning big games is easier said than done.

Williams, though, has no time for negativity. He thinks big -- another of his strengths.

"Continue to have players graduate, continue to win football games, and we'll be a recruiting monster," he said.

Of course, this is the part of the conversation where we steer from Williams as a persuasive recruiter to Williams, the fired-up cornerbacks coach.

He has a challenging job this season, and how well he does it will go a long way toward determining Nebraska's success or failure -- on the field and perhaps in how strongly it closes out its 2018 recruiting class, currently ranked No. 25 in the 247Sports Composite.

If the Huskers exceed expectations in a big way — say to the level of Iowa in 2015 or Penn State in 2016 — their recruiting operation, which already has momentum, might indeed move toward "monster" status. In a blink. It's conceivable.

If Nebraska in fact exceeds expectations, it likely would mean three young cornerbacks -- sophomores Lamar Jackson and Eric Lee and redshirt freshman Dicaprio Bootle -- would have played well. They have one college start among them.

Of course, Williams must overcome a gut-punch injury to his group. When senior corner Chris Jones (20 career starts) went down with a knee injury in mid-July, it felt like a body blow to the entire defense. But Williams pushed forward with optimism, all the while mindful that young players can be challenging to coach, especially if they struggle.

"They go through the wringer a little bit and they get down in the dumps," the coach said.

Nebraska's young corners can't afford emotional swings. They have to forget mistakes quickly, and respond to getting burned on occasion, because they're going to get picked on in games, rest assured.

Williams makes sure his corners feel a sense of urgency. He hopes they approach their jobs like Jones does. Remember, Nebraska defensive coordinator Bob Diaco has said Jones "approaches his work with a deep professionalism."

Jones apparently is approaching rehab the same way. Even after having his meniscus repaired, he's walking without a brace -- without even a limp. The original prognosis was he would be sidelined for at least four months. But Jones immediately scoffed at that. Thing is, you hope he doesn't return too quickly.

Williams is unsure when Jones will be back in action, saying only that he hopes "it's sooner than later."

"The Chris Jones who I know, his leg could be broken in 10 different places and he's still going to try to walk regular so you don't know he's hurt," Williams said.

Meanwhile, Williams' attitude reflects an upbeat vibe that pervades Nebraska's preseason camp, which nears the end of its third week.

"The greatest thing is our twos and threes, those guys are getting a ton of reps," Williams said. "So you're not going to see a major drop-off when backups come in the game. It's not going to be catastrophic, where we're all looking around like, 'Oh, my God, this guy's out.'

"As a team, we're getting better," he said with emphasis on team. "And it's not all about the starters. Think about it: When do you ever start a season with 11 guys and finish with those 11 guys?"

I really like that Williams has high expectations -- for himself, for the players and the program.

He sounds genuinely interested in building a monster recruiting school, a top-10 program.

Yeah, in a flyover state.

"We can win," he said. "Anytime you can win, and guys are graduating, and guys are going to the NFL, you can be a monster anywhere. I think coach (Mike) Riley put the right staff together at the right time, at the right place.

"We can do great things together."

Well, are you sold?

Steven M. Sipple: Donté thinks big, regards Nebraska as potential '...
Low Country Husker August 17, 2017 at 1:00pm

compliments of Cornhusker memes
Low Country Husker August 17, 2017 at 12:42pm

16 More Days to Kickoff
- Low Country Husker > Low Country Husker August 17, 2017 at 4:55pm
  
  Exerpt from another site: Micah Parsons has told Adam Friedman of Rivals that he’s set with two visits for this season, his leaders. While he’s planning on visiting Ohio State for their game vs. Penn State on October 28th, he’ll be visiting Nebraska for the Wisconsin game first on October 7th. You know, the same game the Huskers will be wearing the 1997 throwbacks?
  
  If you think defeating Urban Meyer & the Buckeyes is just a pipe dream for Parsons, I invite you to read this from Micah himself. He thinks very, very highly of Mike Riley, John Parrella & the entire program in Lincoln:
  
  "At Nebraska I liked how everything is so close together, the facilities, the coaching staff, how coach Riley really believes in turning things around at Nebraska and bringing back championships," said Parsons. "They have one of, if not the, best facilities that I've seen on all my visits. They just really stick out to me.”
  
  Look for a big visitor list for that game, folks.
Low Country Husker August 17, 2017 at 12:27pm

If you have 4 hours to listen to a podcast, 247 breaks down every Big Ten team at this link:

http://nebraska.247sports.com/Article/247Sports-Scout-experts-previ...
- Low Country Husker > Low Country Husker August 17, 2017 at 4:59pm

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