Spring Preview Intro

It’s a little early to get into season predictions, heck we gotta get rid of 20-30 guys yet, and we have a couple spots we need to hit the portal in after spring ball. But I thought I would give a general synopsis of our units so far, and then do a position by position preview (starting with QB tomorrow).

If you’re anything like me, after Coach Rhule went 5-7 year 1, we brought in 5 star Raiola at QB, I was under the impression that the king of turnarounds was a year ahead of schedule. Typically it was year 3 when he got to those double-digit season wins and playing for conference titles. But Nebraska already had better talent sitting here for him, so maybe this turnaround would be accelerated? For whatever reason, it was not to be in 2024 for the magical season. However, we did make our first bowl game since 2016. A crazy stat.

After year 2, Rhule now has to replace every single coordinator he originally hired when he came here for the 2023 season. Typically not a good sign for the season coming up. But did we upgrade at OC and Special Teams Coordinator? I think so. Can Butler just keep things close to the caliber they were on defense for 2023 and 2024? Hopefully.

Offense
Let’s start with a place I’m bullish about. 5 star Raiola has a year under his belt, and I have to be honest that I think Holgo is a big improvement at OC. As much as I wanted to dismiss my South Carolina fan thanking me for us taking Satt off his hands, and as much as I wanted to believe Rhule/Satt when they said Sims is actually a good QB, it was pretty evident pretty early that both just weren’t up to the task. Now we have a guy that when he has a QB like Raiola, really makes things look great.

While we lost a few in the portal offensively, Nebraska addressed exactly what was needed on the offensive side of the ball. They grabbed an OT from Alabama to solidify the blindside for Raiola. And they grabbed a rock solid RG from Notre Dame that allows them some flexibility to try Lutovsky at tackle and Evans-Jenkins at center.

On the outside, they grabbed WRs to help bolster a receiving core that really struggled last year to get any type of separation for our blue-chip QB recruit. While you had Barney coming back, you grabbed two outside WRs that certainly are making a splash.

I do still think we need help at RB in the portal, but Emmitt Johnson will look very good in this offense.

Defense
I am pretty concerned about defense if I’m being honest. But what did people expect? Lost all 4 of our starting DL with Hutmacher, Robinson, Butler, and Sherman gone. While I think Van Poppel and Jeudy will be decent replacements, obviously they can’t do what Hutmacher and Robinson did last year. Those two did such an unbelievable job making it so our ILBs played clean all season, they just couldn’t be moved so the double team never got to Bullock or Gbayor.

Speaking of those two, those are big losses as well. But Nebraska convinced Wright to come back, went out and got a stud from Georgia Southern, and return Shavers who showed flashes of how great he can be. That’s a really good foundation before you start talking about McGahee working at ILB a bit.

I just want to be clear, I think Van Poppel will be a stud for us, he’s just not Robinson yet. I think Shavers can be Gbayor for us, can he be it year 2? We have some guys that are capable, it may just be a year early. Remember, Hutmacher wasn’t who he was until a redshirt junior.

At Jack, Nebraska spent a ton of NIL getting 3 guys here between Dawson Merritt, Nwaneri, and McCullough. Noonan is back, and of course McGahee can always shift back down there. Tons of options, but are any of them Sherman or freshman all-american Umanmielen?

I have to admit, in the defensive backfield, the portal has put me in sensory overload because I have no idea who all of these guys are. We seem to have options, but do we have answers? I’m going to try and focus on it a bit more at the last practice I go to. So I don’t have a ton for you right now.

Special Teams
Back is Coach Ekeler, and while I won’t blame a ton on Foley due to the long snapper issues and other things, the bottom line is we were really bad there. Ekeler should give us someone not scared to ask for time in practice working on this phase, and a ton of experience to help us get better.

The 105
One last thing on this, it’s so fascinating to me what is getting ready to happen. Gone are the days where Nebraska could just have 3 walk-on long snappers and have them battle it out for when they are RS Juniors and ready to help us. Gone are the days where we can just have Alex Henery walk-on and wait his turn. Gone are the days to have Sam Foltz wait around until he’s ready to play. What used to make Nebraska so special is you could find guys like that, let alone position players, that were willing to wait their turn. Now with the portal and roster caps, one of the things that gave Nebraska an advantage is gone. Frustrating, but when it’s turned into more of a business than ever, it was essentially inevitable.

Tomorrow we will go over the QB room and what has impressed me with what Rhule was able to do from last year.