The game i’ve been waiting for is here. While Rhule won’t admit it, let’s all be honest with ourselves, this is a clash of how to build a team/program. Coach Prime is going straight to the portal for instant additions with minimal years left in eligibility. They brought in 13 recruits for his first 2024 class, and only have 7 committed for 2025. Conversely, Coach Rhule brought in 29 commits for 2024 and currently have 18 committed for 2025. I wore #21 in middle school football because I wanted to be like Deion, but his coaching is everything I hope college football doesn’t go to. If Rhule is who we hope he is as a coach, you can’t lose this game at home, at night, in year 2 when the other coach has brought in over 100 new players to his team in just under 2 years via the portal.
And let’s also talk about the atmosphere that is coming up for Colorado to come to. The largest crowd a Coach Prime team has faced is 72,000 at UCLA and those games are not loud at all. Oregon was 59,000 and they probably were the loudest this Buffs team has faced. They will be walking into Lincoln for a night game in front of 90,000 people begging for a win to get us into the top 25. This will be one of the atmospheres people talk about for years to come and will be up there with No Sit Sunday at Pinnacle Bank Arena, the Miami game from a decade ago, and very few others. I still remember TJ Moe saying how his facemask was shaking when Mizzou played here. Dillon Gabriel talked to Will Compton about our environment where he had never seen his WRs eyes that big and we lost 49-14 that game, imagine what it can be if we win and Thunderstruck is playing after the 3rd quarter.
There are reasons for concern, and of course reasons for optimism. Let’s just get into it, and the things i’m worried about and the things I like our chances with.
WORRIED – DB/WR matchups BOTH WAYS
I am somewhat concerned here. Starting with our DBs vs Colorado’s WRs, the Buffs have a vastly superior WR group compared to what we just played against the Miners. Also, our DBs looked to have some issues from time to time sticking with them:
That’s not terrible coverage, but we still got beat. And Colorado has better playmakers on the outside than what beat us there. The answer? We can get into this more, but our line needs to be able to stop their run with 4 or 5 guys, and allow our safeties to help on guys like Hunter and Horn Jr.
Sticking with being concerned both ways… Colorado likes to play aggressive man to man defense on the edges. Their DL and LBs are average, certainly better than UTEP, but average. Here you can see Colorado’s DBs up close to the face of the NDSU WRs, one on the bottom and two up top, because Coach Sanders knows that they have to stack the box to stop any runs and he has faith in his DBs like Hunter:
I got into a healthy conversation on the message board about how Colorado struggled to stop NDSU’s passing attack as their QB was 18/22 for 277 yards and a touchdown with 0 INTs while playing this way. Someone brought up that with our WRs being better than NDSUs they know they can’t play the way the picture shows. I actually think Colorado knows this is who they are, and they are comfortable putting Hunter like this against any WR in the country. So I expect to see more of this tight coverage so that the Buffs can play 1-high safety and help stack the box to stop the run.
Raiola will be so key here getting us into the right play. Here are two plays where Raiola basically stays to script and gets us in the right play. Play 1 you can see UTEP in 1 high, as their top safety comes down to make sure he has Fidone (who stays in to block). On plays where the safety can’t help on the sides, Raiola is taking shots to our talented players:
You also can see here on this play, that there is a single safety with 8 in the box. The safety takes off more to the middle, so Raiola knows he has Neyor 1 on 1 at the bottom:
And one more 50/50 ball throw, this one to Banks (though UTEP is playing deep so nothing to do with safety reads, it was end of the half:
My point is, we won more of those 50/50 balls than we lost last Saturday, which is what we’ve been missing from our WRs in Lincoln for quite some time. CU’s DBs are better than UTEPs, can we still win those at a 50% or better clip? I think we can still make those plays, but they will be more difficult. So let’s see how those types of things go.
It’s all going to be about Raiola getting us in the right play. Rhule made mention of this, but there was a play where Raiola audibled about 3 times, and EJohnson took the ball almost to the house. Can we continue to do that against Colorado? I think we can.
I feel good… our lines vs. their lines
Let’s be real, Nebraska’s defensive line is better than NDSU’s. Way better. Throwing bias aside, Phil Steele has our defensive front as the 5th best defensive line unit in the entire country. Colorado couldn’t run the ball on NDSU, and averaged less than 3 yards per carry, and it would have been worse if not for NDSU letting Sanders scramble for 11 yards on one play. All they are going to do is try to throw the ball after the run gets stuffed (hopefully).
Last year Nebraska had 8 sacks against the Buffs and 11 tackles for loss. Our front 6 or 7 is much better this year (our linebackers are ranked 19th in the country according to Phil Steele). If we can shut down their run with only our DL and Bullock and not need to bring more pressure we should be fine, and I expect us to do that.
However, when we do get pressure, we need to make sure we are at the line bringing it. We did that last year as our ILBs Henrich and Reimer both had 2 sacks each. NDSU for some reason was bringing pressure from depth, and they were just a step late getting there. Here’s what I mean:
One of the DL gets to Sanders a half second late, and this blitzing DB from 6 yards off the ball is a half second late as well even though he does a good job going through the RB to Sanders. The result is a touchdown for the Buffaloes. Now watch what happens when your blitzer is on the LOS and runs through the QB like we did last year:
If we can get pressure without blitzing, it’s game over. But if we do bring pressure some stuff like this will be great, this is basically the same thing just not from depth. Colorado’s OL is not that good anyway, and if we can confuse them with where we are coming from, or have our guys overpower them like we just saw here, we can force throws and create some turnovers. Let’s be honest, do we think a true freshman OT that was struggling with guys that didn’t even play last year in their spring game is going to be able to stop Ty Robinson from bull rushing him? Their interior line can’t stop Hutmacher from getting penetration. They need to make it a long day for the OL and have Sanders make quick decisions.
Last on this… as we talked about in our upgraded/downgraded article yesterday, Colorado has zero TEs that matter. Really the only time they bring them in is to help block on runs or pass blocking. They aren’t scaring you there. It’s 4 WR mostly the whole game. Makes them very easy to prepare for on that front. If they choose to put some TEs in, that’s a good thing, as that is a very suspect position for them.
On the other side of the ball, NDSU ran for close to 4 yards per carry on a team that was stacking the box and playing 1 high safety like we went over earlier. While I really like NDSU schemes in the run game, our OL and RBs should be an even better version of that. I do want to throw caution here though… NDSUs leading rusher was their QB on scrambles and designed keeps/powers.
Can Raiola do that? Or is this the week there is some stuff for Haarberg like what we saw NDSU do? Something to think about.
OUR SKILL VS THEIR LBS
Their LBs can come up and fill some holes/gaps in the run game. But they are not fast at all. Our RBs could or Bonner/Barney could have a field day against them. Take a look at 43 here Trevor Woods, who was their leading tackler against the Bizzzzon:
If we can get Barney, Bonner, EJohnson, RJohnson, or even Nelson on that guy we are in for a good situation.
MAN BEATERS
Get your mind out of the gutter… this section is about something I think you’ll see a lot of from us, and that is man beating plays. As we talked about up top, Colorado is going to be in man to man a lot of the day. So much so that they chase across the formation, and on this play you can see how they start running into each other:
“Man beater routes” are crossing routes (or the 50/50 fades we threw a lot against UTEP) and you basically just have their guys start running into each other. WRs like Barney that we saw come across the LOS against UTEP, there’s no way their guy can get to the other side before him and cover if he goes out for a pass. Further, if you snap it while the guy chasing him is going through the LBs and safeties, they start running into each other. I tried finding one of Nebraska doing it, and watch 13 here for Penn State. Now they are trading off their guys, but watch him run into his own people, there could be a ton of this:
You can then have your RB wheel that we saw #43 for them have a problem with earlier, and Fidone can catch balls for more than .33 yards per completion.
SUMMARY AND PREDICTION
This game is pretty interesting from my traditionalist standpoint. I think you need to build your team from the inside out, create a foundation along the lines and bring in guys you can develop. Conversely, there is a team building from the outside in, lines are still average at best, and have had shakeups on their staff after only one year where they were ripping duties from people midseason that is coming to town. Quite frankly, a team with no OL or TEs, and worse RBs than a year ago that will go 4 wide most of the time and be pretty predictable shouldn’t be a match for us if our defense is where we think it’s going to be. It’s important to note that Sanders had only 94 yards passing on us in the 1st half last year, we were holding them in check pretty easily.
The biggest thing to remember about last year is turnovers. From the midway point of the 2nd quarter to the midway point of the 4th quarter, here are the Jeff Sims led drives (keep in mind it was 0-0 at this point):
1 play – FUMBLE
3 plays – INTERCEPTION
4 plays – punt
4 plays – long touchdown run of his to get us on the board in the 3rd quarter
4 plays – punt
3 plays – FUMBLE
3 turnovers, 2 punts, and a long touchdown run. Colorado scored 29 points during these drives to Nebraska’s one long touchdown run. That almost is too crazy to believe, but it happened. If Nebraska has one turnover or less, we should be in a great spot because I believe we will force at least one.
On the other side, their defense is still pretty much a disaster, they have a guy that has never been a coordinator before running things, and they only got marginally better than last year. But when you look at Nebraska we are better at QB, WR, and OL. And we are at least the same at RB where we started Ervin Jr and RJohnson who were our leading rushers from a year ago, and TE we started Boerkircher and Fidone who are both back. The real question is can we run without using the QB run game like Sims did last year and NDSU last Thursday? I think we can.
From the film i’ve watched, i’m not worried. They have one of the best QBs in the country in Sanders, one of the best WRs/DBs in the country in Hunter, an All Big12 WR in Horn Jr, and then not much else. Everything else is average from the coordinators down to the position group. But I think those guys i’ve mentioned will make some plays. It’s up for us as fans to create havoc and chaos with our noise, let the players do the rest. I trust who was creating and coaching the gameplans, and I sincerely hope that Colorado starts with the ball because it may be the loudest environment i’ve been at in Memorial Stadium.
Nebraska 35
Colorado 27
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Thanks for your thoughts!
Honestly, it’s a weird scenario where as a whole, their roster is pretty poor, but they have three players (including one at the most important position) what would be the best player or nearly the best player on about any roster in the country. Obviously, we can’t turn it over like we did last year and win, but it seems to me that the telling thing will be how well we can contain Horn. Hunter will get his, but we can’t let the second guy go off like NDSU did.
Curious your thoughts . . . How good is NDSU relative to a Power 4 team? I assume better than UTEP or other mediocre “mid-majors” but middle of the pack B1G?
I think NDSU is better than UTEP for sure. But they aren’t beating most B1G teams. For example, in 2022 the year they played for an FCS national title, they lost to Arizona who finished 8th in the Pac-12 and 5-7 overall. They are better than bottom feeder Power 4 schools though.
If Colorado is who they are propping themselves up to be, that game should have been won by a couple touchdowns.
Agree with comment above, we should be more well rounded but they have aces at key positions and skill players.
Most worried about our DBs having a hard time and the newness of our QB\WRs…even though they’re more talented than last year, still haven’t had a lot of time together and haven’t seen how they’ll handle a bigger game. I don’t doubt they can handle it, just unproven.
Also it seemed to me we didn’t get a ton of pressure vs UTEP. Was that just me? Maybe we were playing pretty vanilla vs them and didn’t eant\need to show much?
I can’t remember a time in recent memory I wanted a win this bad.
I thought that too and then went and rewatched it. They did a ton of quick passes, but even on their first third down of the game Sherman buried their QB on an RPO. They just didn’t have their guy hold the ball that long.