NFL cutdown day hit former Nebraska players hard, and Sunday’s roster trim turned into a long list of bad news for ex-Huskers across the league.
DeShon Singleton was among the biggest names to lose his spot, but he was hardly alone. In all, 17 former Nebraska players were cut this weekend, and when you add three more who were let go earlier in training camp, the total climbs to 20.
The cuts came from nearly every corner of the NFL and touched almost every position group. According to NTV News reporter and Nebraska insider Randy Silver, the list included Dane Key and Dasan McCullough in Denver; Henry Lutovsky, Javin Wright, John Bullock, Nash Hutmacher and Ben Scott in Tampa Bay; Singleton in Kansas City; Isaiah Neyor in Green Bay; Ceyair Wright in Cincinnati; Jahmal Banks in Tennessee; Trey Palmer and Garrett Nelson in New Orleans; Adrian Martinez in San Francisco; Samori Toure in Philadelphia; Brenden Jaimes in New York; Quinton Newsome in Arizona; Heinrich Haarberg in Carolina; Omar Brown in Miami; and Ochaun Mathis in New York.
The only bit of good news in the mix came from Emmett Johnson, who had spent the preseason with the Kansas City Chiefs and reportedly impressed enough that he may have climbed to RB2 on the depth chart. That stood out on a day when so many of his former Nebraska teammates were packing up.
For Nebraska, the bigger picture is hard to miss. If Matt Rhule and his staff are going to convince people they’ve truly turned the corner, the program has to do better at getting players drafted and helping them stick on NFL rosters when the final cuts come down.
There’s already been plenty of buzz that this year’s Husker roster is the most talented Rhule has had in Lincoln. The first test will be wins. The next one will be whether Nebraska players can make it to the league - and then stay there.
In Other News...
Nebraska Fans Suddenly Have A Matt Rhule Recruiting Concern
Nebraskas recruiting picture took a small hit when three-star wide receiver Tay Ellis backed off his commitment and returned to the market, a move he confirmed on social media. The departure was reportedly handled as a mutual decision with the coaching staff, so it does not appear to have come out of nowhere for the Huskers, but it still trims a piece from a class that has been important for Matt Rhules long-term build.
For Nebraska fans, the bigger question is whether this becomes a one-off or the start of a trend. There is no current sign that fellow commit Trae Taylor is headed for the same path, which helps keep the concern contained for now. Even so, Ellis is back in free agency and his recruitment is effectively reset, leaving Nebraska to regroup while the rest of the class watches how the board continues to shift. [Read more 🡒]
Alabama Is Suddenly In The Mix For A Georgia Flip Target
Commitments are getting tested in the usual midseason way, and Nebraska has already had one of its own answer the call. Timi Aliu, a Cornhusker pledge, made a game-day trip to Florida State but is still locked in with Nebraska, a reminder that these recruiting weekends can be noisy without always changing the board. Around the country, other prospects are lining up their own fall visits, with Marquis Fennell set for Georgia Tech and Jacobi Pasley headed to Florida as programs keep working the road.
The name drawing more attention now is UConn cornerback commit Preston Glasco, who has seen Alabama ramp up its interest and has a game-day visit to Tuscaloosa on the calendar. For Nebraska fans, the larger takeaway is familiar: committed players are still being courted, flips remain in play, and the recruiting calendar only gets more hectic as top programs keep pressing. Even the early movement from several 2028 offensive prospects in Georgia shows how quickly these visit lists can spread across the sport, with more decisions still to come. [Read more 🡒]
Matt Rhule Just Set The Standard For Nebraska Year 4
Matt Rhule is heading into his fourth season at Nebraska with the kind of long-view patience that few major programs are willing to extend anymore. His arrival came with a rebuilding assignment that athletic director Troy Dannen described as taking over a football program that was "fairly well broken," and that backdrop makes the significance of year four hard to miss, especially around a department that has watched Fred Hoiberg navigate a similarly critical fourth year on the basketball side.
Rhule has made it clear he respects what Hoiberg has had to endure, and in that sense the parallel inside Nebraska athletics is impossible to ignore. For Rhule, though, the focus is not on symbolism so much as substance, and he has pointed to one especially important area for the Cornhuskers to clean up: playing better in late-season games, where progress would say as much about the program's direction as any preseason optimism ever could. [Read more 🡒]