Hot Reads: Joseph, Papuchis land in Top 50

Hot Reads: Joseph, Papuchis land in Top 50

With signing day behind us, 247Sports released its list of the Top 50 Recruiters of 2013. Nebraska defensive coordinator John Papuchis and defensive backs coach Terry Joseph both made the list. Some notes from that list:

–Eight defensive coordinators made the top-50 compared to only two offensive coordinators. Not sure what that means — maybe nothing — but it sticks out.

–In total, 12 coaches from the Big Ten made the list. Michigan led with three coaches. Nebraska, Ohio State and Penn State all had two on the list. Michigan State, Indiana and Wisconsin each had one.

–Remember Rodney Garner, the Georgia assistant who left the Bulldogs for Auburn in the lead-up to the Capital One Bowl? He landed three 5-star defensive linemen in just under two months. Not bad. Garner was one of 16 SEC coaches on the list.

–Chris Kiffin, former Nebraska GA, current Ole Miss staffer and Scout’s Recruiter of the Year, made the list.

A NEW G.A.? >>> According to Brian Christopherson of the Lincoln Journal Star, Nebraska is set to hire Kyle Brey to fill its open graduate assistant position.

A 2010 graduate of Buffalo, where he earned four letters playing fullback and tight end, Brey spent the past two seasons at Kansas as the quality control coach for the Jayhawk offense.

Kyle is also the son of Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey. Based on his playing experience (fullback and tight end), it looks like Brey would be plugged in directly to the role Vince Marrow filled at Nebraska.

Brey likely has some pretty good recruiting connections in Big Ten country. He grew up in Indiana and comes from a long line of coaches/athletic administrators. In addition to his father’s experience, Brey’s grandmother coached swimming at George Washington while his grandfather was a high school athletic director.

(Aside: I realize it’s just a title, but what does a “quality control coach” do that a regular assistant doesn’t? Are they deluged with customer (i.e. fan) complaints when, say, the Jayhawks put up 46 yards of total offense in Austin in 2011? Keep your corporate job titles out of our amateur game, pro football.)

MONEY TALKS >>> Here’s an interesting report from the Cedar Rapids Gazette: Which Big Ten teams spent the most on recruiting the past two years?

Nebraska, not surprisingly, spent the most on recruiting in fiscal year 2012. That’s the cost of doing business when you have a history of winning in a state that, lately, hasn’t been producing more than two or three sure-thing Division I recruits per year. What is surprising, however, is that Nebraska wasn’t the biggest recruiting spender in 2011.

Michigan was, followed by Illinois and then Nebraska. If you subscribe to the idea that Bo Pelini and company are making changes on the recruiting trail and/or quickly realizing they need to change some things from the early years, this might be the best support yet.

Nebraska increased its recruiting spending by $274,127 from 2011 to 2012. That’s more than Wisconsin spent in total ($212,045) on recruiting last year.