Keys to the Game: Minnesota

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sports brief for Husker Buzz Vision, where Sean Callahan our
big Red insider alive in Minneapolis. Rosie Okay, Shawna.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Before we get to the evanted Keys to the Game,
we got to talk about Emma Johnson a little bit.
A lot of Nebraska fans and a lot of Minnesota fans.
I'm wondering how the hell this guy wound up in Nebraska.
He was mister football in the state of Minnesota. That
means numero uno. And it's not like he was up
in otter tail. The guy was in the middle of
the Twin Cities at Holy Angels Academy, which is the

(00:28):
Creighton Prep in some cases, more like the Alkoor Mount
Michael of Minneapolis Holy Angels High where he was a
star athlete in multiple sports. So how did Minnesota whiff
on this guy?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Well, you got to remember most of recruiting is based
on your junior year now, and his junior year was
twenty twenty, and their state, their football during that year.
The schools he played five games as a junior, they
didn't start their year until October mid October, and there
was no playoffs champion, So a lot of kids up here,

(01:02):
you know, lost that marketing lost that exposure of a
junior season, which is what percent of recruiting is. Unfortunately
based on your senior year. By the time that rolls around,
it's over. And Nebraska had a running back committed at
one point in that class, but his name was Ashton
Hayes and he was from Reno and never really made
sense and they fired Ryan Held and some other staff

(01:24):
members that year. They didn't have a running backs coach,
so they got a tip about Emmitt Johnson. Somebody on
Frost's staff knew a guy up here, and Ron Brown
was the interim at that moment, and actually it was
Ron Brown I think that was involved in Emmet's recruitment
at that point because Brian Applewhite wasn't even higher till January,
so it was a very short courtship. Emmitt Johnson, you know,

(01:47):
was recruited by a lot of max schools and he
was probably gonna end up at Northern Iowa if I
remember correctly, before Nebraska came in. So it just tells
you recruiting stories happened in all sorts of ways, and
I do think the hope it up here though on
how they shut it down for basically a year hurt
a lot of kids.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, and Minnesota had also gotten a commitment. And you'll
remember this guy, Zach Evans, a guy out of Texas.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
And it might have been a deal where they were
reading press clippings because Emma Johnson's offers were not from
any Power five conference schools. That Evans had offers from
Notre Dame, from Iowa, from Illinois, and they're thinking, Okay,
we're going to go beat out Big ten schools for
this guy. Northern ioware going to have Emma Johnson. It
turns out that Evans transferred for nil reasons somewhere else.

(02:32):
It's never turned out, and Johnson's playing at an all
Big ten level.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, and for Nebraska, they just kind of fell into him. It.
I mean, it was that was a year in recruiting
where Frost's focus was literally on the portal because he
was trying to kind of save his job at that point.
You know, I can still remember pregame in Ireland. I
stood next to him and he was red shirting that
first game, didn't even dress out, and he was angry.
I could tell that he wanted to be out there playing,

(02:57):
and he said, He's like, I'll be out there playing.
You watch, I'll be out there, and it's like he's
very confident even when you first got here. And I'm
just happy that he's fought because he's overcome you know, recruiting,
politics and other things. To get to this point about.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
A minute left, Sean, what do you want to see tonight?
Minnesota is good at the turnover game. Other than that,
talent wise, you look at the rosters. Nebraska should win
favored by seven. What do you want to see?

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, they don't turn it over much, so can you
find some turnovers? Establish Imma Johnson. It should be a
packed house here tonight, guys too. The EA conventions going
on statewide, which means no high school activities on Thursday
or Friday state wide. All the high school football in
Minneapolis was played on Wednesday this week, so they kind
of thought this out. So the thought of oh, there

(03:43):
won't be people here, high school's going on Ideada. I mean,
they're they're expecting a packed house for this game tonight,
so it's going to be a you got to handle
that environment as well.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, it'll be forty thousand Nebraska fans and ten thousand
Minnesota fans.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
That's kind of how it works out.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Good one.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, it'll be cool. I was up there too, And
by the way, they don't believe me. They don't serve
Ham's beer, which to me is grounds for divorce. They
don't serve Hams from the Land of sky Blue Waters.
They got Greenbelt at Minnesota Stadium, which is unfortunate. It's
not TCF Stadium anymore.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
It's something else, right, Sean back, that's right, Sean. You'll
be back tonight with your group and a terrific pregame
Huskar Online show at six