Friday Flakes: Who is the Best “Football Player” on Nebraska’s Roster?

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This season I am doing a weekly power ranking of Nebraska’s football players. That power ranking list is not the best football players on a team but a ranking of a weekly “what have you done for me lately” or “how important are you?” type of rationale.

While writing my most recent power ranking I asked myself the question of if I had to pick one player on the team that is the “best football player” then who would that be?

You can choose your own criteria. In my view, it isn’t who is most likely to get drafted by the NFL. Sometimes there are players drafted based off of projections going forward. A player that immediately comes to mind on Nebraska’s roster is Elijah Pritchett.

Maybe think about which player would you like to replicate or clone and then adjust him as needed depending upon the position he would need to be played. So maybe it is more of a mindset and physicality when it comes to determining who is the best “football player” on Nebraska’s roster.

After the first game there are a few players who come to mind: Luke Lindenmeyer, Jamir Conn, Jamal Rule, Anthony Colandrea, Justin Evans…the list goes on and on.

Luke Lindenmeyer had the best tight end performance in both Matt Rhule and Dana Holgorsen’s careers. Had 16 knock downs and caught two passes for first downs and looks like a future NFL tight end.

On Jamir Conn, Matt Rhule had this to say – “He’s an absolute lion. If you could put his heart into every other player you would never think twice. He just competes on everything. He ran down on kickoff. He was on the punt return team. He was on the punt team. He played a lot of snaps at safety. He’s the guy that tipped the pass on the interception…He’s my type of player.”

Jamal Rule looks like he could be the next great Nebraska running back. Some think he might be in the hunt to break Ahman Green’s freshman rushing record for Nebraska.

Anthony Colandrea looks like a gamer. He might make some big mistakes going forward but he is extremely competitive.

Justin Evans has the highest back squat on the team and received the most single digit jersey votes for an offensive lineman that Matt Rhule has ever seen. Those vote were from his teammates and Rhule even asked them not to vote for offensive linemen because of the jersey number issue.

But I think my vote will go to Janiran Bonner. I always go back to how visibly upset Dana Holgorsen was when Bonner went down with a season ending injury last year. The offensive coaches don’t even know what position Bonner plays. They have said he is his own position. He is a great blocker and kind of a gadget player. Seems like a great football player to me.

Who would you say is the best “football player” on Nebraska’s roster?

SPORTS! SPORTS! JORTS! SPORTS! SPORTS!

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