The Nebraska football team would like to be thought of as a school that attracts the top talent in the country to play quarterback for the school. Over the last few years, quarterbacks like Patrick O'Brien and Tristan Gebbia have helped the program with that perception, and one of the Huskers' top targets for the 2018 class landing in Lincoln would help that even more. The fact that their target is someone who just earned an invite to the elite 11 finals would only help further cement that perception, if they could get him to come to the Cornhuskers.
Tanner McKee and the long road ahead
The Nebraska football team has a bit of an uphill climb to get California quarterback Tanner McKee to take a long hard look at the Huskers. At the moment, it's thought there is some mutual interest between the two parties, but schools like Stanford and BYU are looking like the schools to beat. Those are both interesting opponents in that the Huskers don't tend to square off against those teams but they are going to need to win this duel if they want McKee to even take a trip to Lincoln this summer or fall. In the meantime, the Cornhuskers will be taking a long hard look at how McKee performs when he attends the Elite 11 Finals at the end of June.
The Elite 11 as a barometer
#Elite11 Finals invite No.1
— Elite11 (@Elite11) February 5, 2017
Tanner McKee
Centennial HS (Corona, CA) pic.twitter.com/GxoCum71xU
There may be no greater challenge than trying to pinpoint just how a kid is going to do once they transition from High School to College. Certainly, one very helpful tool that the nebraska football team and other schools will use to see how a quarterback performs in the Elite 11.
As the event itself points out, 10 of the last 11 quarterbacks to have won the Heisman trophy attended the Elite 11 before they headed off to college.
College isn't the only place where these talented quarterbacks showed their wares. The top 34 of 44 passers in the NFL in 2015 were all past Elite 11 attendees. In other words, it's kind of a big deal to get to go to these events, and it's an especially big deal if you're Nebraska football target Tanner McKee, who has an invite to the Elite 11 finals.
