I think you are right. I'm such a nub, I thought nandroid was a program that I had to download. Now I've gone through this a second time I see where I should have created the nand backup from the recovery menu. The only backup I did was at the flashrec screen before flashing fresh. I was a little confused at the time because I was following steps from here and the one click step. Well, at least my phone is working and not bricked.