It’s been a long week for the Nebraska football team.
Coaches and players have had to answer a lot of questions about a whole heap of suspect play from their recent 24-6 loss to Minnesota. About every angle of the loss has been covered, from the team giving up nine sacks to the Gophers flat-out beating up Nebraska at the point of attack.
To their credit, Nebraska’s coaches and players have taken ownership of the beatdown in Minneapolis, and they have vowed to be better Saturday against Northwestern.
The last week in practice has doubled as a long look in the mirror for a Nebraska football team looking to bounce back from a disheartening loss. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
However, if they right the ship in such short order, it will be thanks to quite a bit of game planning and late nights from the Husker coaching staff this week. Nebraska was not only outmuscled by Minnesota, the Husker coaching staff was out-schemed from the jump.
“You can play a really bad game and be really mad about it and still know that you’re a good team,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said this week. “(Former NBA Coach) Phil Jackson used to say something to the effect of ‘successful teams are only successful when they’re doing successful things.’ We’ve got to play way better. They know that.”
The first step in that journey for Nebraska this week was to figure out what went wrong on the offensive line. Minnesota recorded a program record nine sacks of Husker quarterback Dylan Raiola a week ago, and it primarily came to guys missing protection assignments at all levels of the offensive backfield.
Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola was sacked a Minnesota school-record nine times this past Friday. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
“I think three are on the running back, some are balls that have got to get out faster,” Rhule said. “We’ve got to protect better. Backs have to step up and win the one-on-one. We’re not going to walk away from that. If you’re an offensive lineman, you can’t give up nine sacks.”
Plenty of that blame fell not only on the players, but offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen. For much of the season, he’s been praised for turning around a Nebraska offense that spoiled the freshman year of star quarterback Dylan Raiola.
Through six games, it appears all of the major wounds from last season were fixed…until they weren’t.
Nebraska offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen admitted he needs to change up his play calling to accommodate a quicker passing game for QB Dylan Raiola. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
“I got to get him in better plays that are quicker,” Holgorsen said of the nine sacks. “(I) thought we had some things figured out based on a week ago. We went through that two-week stretch where it didn’t look very good and went to Maryland and got some things corrected, and you know, we ran the ball better. We got the ball out quicker.”
The Huskers did neither last Friday in Minneapolis en route to the team’s most disappointing loss of the season. That can be said considering Nebraska still hung 27 points on No. 21 Michigan in their only other loss of the season.
Against Minnesota, however, NU managed to give up more sacks than they had points. The six Husker points are certainly a low for the season, and both Rhule and Holgorsen agree that it all comes down to how comfortable Raiola is in the pocket. Against the Gophers, he was simply never able to settle in and find a rhythm.
A lot of the past week of practice has been centered around making Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola more comfortable in the pocket. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
“When he’s comfortable back there, he’s as good as anybody in the country,” Holgorsen said. “We all know that when he’s not comfortable, he’s not. Back to work – (have to) do a better job this week of making him comfortable with the play calls and doing things to get the ball out quickly and obviously trying to establish the run a little bit better, too.”
It’s been a “back to the drawing board” type of week for Holgorsen and his offense, but the experienced offensive coordinator has been drawing up a new approach with full support from his head coach.
“I trust Dana with my life,” Rhule joked. “He’s got to get the quarterback to get the ball out. I think Dana has to go back with this staff, and they have to figure out how we can run the football. All I talk to the team about is don’t beat ourselves with penalties and missed assignments.”
The Nebraska coaching staff has harped all week on exhibiting more balance in their play calls, which could mean an uptick in carries for running back Emmett Johnson on Saturday. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
To establish a run game, NU will certainly need to do better than they did against Minnesota. They only ran the ball 16 times on purpose, with running back Emmett Johnson toting 14 of those carries. Johnson was able to scrape out 63 yards and an average of 4.5 yards per carry in the loss, making it all the more concerning that Nebraska passed as much as it did.
The lack of balanced play-calling would make more sense if Nebraska was down big early, but the opposite is what’s true. It was a 7-6 ballgame at the half, but the Huskers simply wouldn’t commit to the run during what proved to be a homecoming game for Johnson, who was from the Minneapolis area.
Instead, NU was able to get 25 passes off while being sacked on nine other attempts, which means NU plays where they took to the air more than doubled its planned rushing attempts.
“We know that it needs to look like, and it just didn’t look like it,” Holgorsen admitted. “That starts with me. I’m responsible for what the offensive production is. When I talk about balance, it’s about getting the ball around to different people. We’ve done that at a high level this year. We’ve just got to do better.”
Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola took ownership of Nebraska’s loss to Minnesota, saying he held on to the ball too long. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
For his part, Raiola also didn’t shy away from his role in the offense being stagnant against Minnesota. On multiple occasions, you could see the Husker signal caller passing up the intermediate passing game while instead looking for bigger plays down the field.
It had a huge impact in the sack totals for Minnesota, and Raiola owned up to it.
“I need to do a better job of getting us in the right protection and getting the football out,” Raiola said. “I put that on me, and I told the O-line that. There’s no hatred, nothing towards them. It’s my job to get the football out, so I put those on me and fix it.”
The X’s and O’s didn’t exactly go well for the Nebraska defense either. The Blackshirts looked the part during the first half, holding Minnesota to just seven points. However, just like in the loss to Michigan, a few major breakdowns led to major plays.
Nebraska still hasn’t been able to slow down opposing running backs in 2025, and Minnesota exploited that with some long runs in their 24-6 win over the Huskers. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
“The run that hit us last week is the same run that hit us against Michigan,” Nebraska Defensive Coordinator John Butler said. “Everybody’s running it, whether they have it in their game plan or not. That’s a process of every offensive coordinator going in and seeing the explosive plays a team has given up. They’re going to put them in the game plan. It’s our responsibility, my responsibility, to get them stopped.”
After two straight weeks on the road, Nebraska returns to the friendly confines of Memorial Stadium Saturday as they welcome in Northwestern. While it’s not the home of Texas A&M, the Huskers certainly will have a 12th man on the field with them, with the Husker faithful behind them.
With questions swirling about the team’s attention to detail and if they’re tough enough to be in the Big Ten, a home game could be just what the doctor ordered.
It was a game to forget for Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola against Minnesota. He and the Huskers look to “right the ship” against Northwestern Saturday. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images
“Sometimes you’re not a sheep, but you have sheep moments,” Butler said of the team being pushed around by Minnesota last week. “I think it’s just a matter of understanding that if (something) bad happens to you, then you know that’s over and you’ve got to move on.”
“It’s college football,” Holgorsen said. “People have games like this. It’s how you respond, so I think our team’s going to be pretty motivated to go out there and play.”
Kickoff between the Huskers and Wildcats is set for 11 a.m. CDT and will be televised nationally by FS1.
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