Nebraska signee and four-star cornerback Elijah Blades will not be joining the football team this fall — and likely not ever. Now the Huskers’ focus turns to the six scholarship corners it already has while continuing to pursue multiple recruits at the position that coach Mike Riley has often referred to as “gold.”
Multiple outlets reported Monday that Blades — a standout from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California — wouldn’t be coming to Nebraska after choosing the Huskers on national signing day in February. He told HuskerOnline.com that NU coaches wanted him to join the program as a partial qualifier — meaning he could participate in practices as a freshman but not play in games while working to satisfy his academic requirements — but he elected against that option.
Arizona Western coach Tom Minnick confirmed to the website that Blades will play for his junior-college program this fall. He added that Blades was not placed there by Nebraska, which opens the door for the corner to be recruited by any school in the future.
Blades said to HuskerOnline, “I don’t think so,” when asked if there is any way he will go to Nebraska after finishing junior college. He added that his final grade-point average was 2.26.
Calls and voicemails by The World-Herald to both Blades and Minnick went unreturned Monday and Tuesday. Blades responded to a text late Monday, saying only, “I talked to a reporter already.”
Blades had been committed to Florida for more than six months before reneging Jan. 25. He finished his prep career with 10 interceptions and 206 tackles and was ranked by 247Sports as one of the top corners in the nation.
Blades spent more than 20 minutes broadcasting a Periscope session Monday afternoon, touching on topics such as how he stopped playing basketball in middle school and playing with his dog but not responding to inquiries about his football destination. He made that news public later in the evening when he tweeted out, “Give me a reporter.”
On signing day, Riley said “there’s no doubt” Blades signed with Nebraska mainly on the strength of his relationship with cornerbacks coach Donte Williams, who was hired in December.
The recent saga took on extra meaning considering Blades was Nebraska’s only cornerback in its 2017 recruiting class. The news last week of Chris Jones’ knee injury — one projected to keep Nebraska’s standout senior defender out of action for 4-6 months — adds angst at the position with the Sept. 2 season opener against Arkansas State looming.
“Next year you’ll find a long list of defensive backs on signing day,” Riley said in February. “You know we have those marks that we have to fill, those numbers that are important there. I think that it is important for us to have that in mind at the same time at those positions, but we find the guys, we have a connection, we love this guy. I don’t care what the numbers say, we’ll go get him.”
Three corners are already among NU’s 10 known commits for 2018. All hold four-star ratings: Brendan “Bookie” Radley-Hiles (IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida), Chase Williams (Corona, California) and Mario Goodrich (Lee’s Summit, Missouri).
The Huskers are in on at least three other four-star corner prospects including Houston Griffith (IMG Academy), Christian Tutt (Thomson, Georgia) and Isaac Taylor-Stuart (San Diego, California).
Of Nebraska’s six corners on scholarship, Jones and Boaz Joseph are seniors. Jones, though, has the option of redshirting this season.
