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Nebraska coach tabs walk-on Brody Belt as team's best player
Nebraska wide receivers coach Mickey Joseph raved about Brody Belt to the media Monday, a story that has Hollywood directors scrambling for their notepads.
That's because Belt is a walk-on receiver who checks in at just 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds. But despite his diminutive stature, Belt was tabbed by Joseph as Nebraska's "best player" and says he has schemed Belt at nearly every position around the perimeter and in the backfield to maximize his touches.
"Brody’s probably the best football player on this team," Joseph said. "When you talk about football player, he’s a football player. He’s smart, he’s got a high football IQ."
But while "Rudy" fans might rejoice at a potential sequel, Huskers fans may question how their historic juggernaut is led by a zero-star receiver with who had no FBS-offers out of high school. After all, there's no shortage of talent coming into the program — six four-star recruits have come to Lincoln at the wide-receiver position alone.
So what has happened to Nebraska's elite talent at wide receiver, and how does Nebraska project for the 2022 season?
Nebraska has the longest active bowl drought in the Big Ten, with a meager 15-29 record through four years of the Frost era. But a pre-season AP ranking of 24 in 2019 suggests that his teams have underperformed their talent levels.
Injuries have stunted many of the Huskers' most promising wideouts.
Oliver Martin led the team with 11 targets in a season-opening defeat against Illinois, but was sidelined for more than a month and failed to rediscover his early-season form. Thomas Fidone, Nebraska's four-star freshman tight end, missed the entire 2021 season due to a knee injury.
Others suffered off-field issues and discontentment in Lincoln — Frost announced Thursday that Zavier Betts, a four-star recruit and the highest-rated prospect out of the Cornhusker State in more than a decade, is no longer with the team.
But for the most part, these elite recruits have become painfully mediocre on the practice field and at Memorial Stadium. Omar Manning, the second-ranked JUCO-recruit in 2020, hauled in just 380 receiving yards last season, and talented LSU transfer Trey Palmer hasn't been highlighted by a coaching staff desperate for talent.
Instead, two-star recruit Samori Toure is the team's leading returning receiver, and Belt is drawing praise over elite athletes.
Frost has adapted to take a more "win now" approach as his once comfy seat begins to char, focusing more on the transfer portal to bring in talent that's proven and experienced at the FBS level. The fifth-year Nebraska coach brought in the hard-nosed Joseph from LSU, who has given less latitude for development.
"You're playing for roster spots," Joseph said. "You're going to get it done or you're going to get it done somewhere else. Because we're not going to sit back and just try to help you develop. [Otherwise] you're not going to continue to develop."
Alante Brown, another highly-touted recruit who has featured minimally in red and black, recalls that Joseph told the wide receiver room he's "not effing around" this season. Joseph has drawn a stark contrast between his regime and past coaches at Nebraska, challenging every player on the roster and ensuring that no roster spot is safe.
For a team that has seen so much receiving talent wasted, injured or departed over the last few seasons, a stark culture change seems like the only button left to push before a critical season for Frost and for Corn Nation.
