Q&A with Inside Nebraska: What has changed for Matt Rhule's Cornhuskers?
On Saturday, Michigan State (2-6, 0-5 in Big Ten play) will play a football game at Spartan Stadium for the final time in 2023. It will be senior day and a military appreciation game for the Spartans, as the team takes on the surging Nebraska Cornhuskers (5-3, 3-2 in the Big Ten) at noon Eastern Time (FS1).
To get more information on the Big Ten West foe, Spartans Illustrated reached out to Zack Carpenter, publisher and owner of Inside Nebraska, which is Rivals' home for all things Cornhuskers.
After a slow start, Nebraska has won five of its past six games, including three in a row. So, what has changed since the beginning of the season, and what have head coach Matt Rhule and his staff brought to Lincoln?
Zack answers these questions and much more, and provides incredibly detailed responses and great insights into the Cornhuskers.
1. After an 0-2 and 2-3 start, Nebraska has seemed to turn things around with three-straight victories. What has changed for the Cornhuskers as of late?
Zack: There are two more important factors: See my response to Question No. 2 for the main difference/change.
The other factor: This is a team that knew its identity on both sides of the ball coming into the season. The defense established that identity very early on – during the season opener, in fact – and that allowed them to just continue building on it, add wrinkles and make a strength even stronger. The offense, though, was a lot, lot, lot slower in establishing that identity and was hamstrung even more after season-ending injuries that decimated that side of the ball. An offense built upon being methodical and using a strong running game lost:
>> No. 1 and No. 2 running backs after three games.
>> Top-three receivers as the No. 1 WR left the sport of football and left the program 19 days before the season opener, the No. 2 WR tore his ACL in Week Six, and the No. 3 WR tore his ACL in Week One. Oh, and then the starting slot WR went down in Week Eight and will miss a minimum of two games.
>> Three starters on the offensive line: The top left tackle and left guard went down with season-ending injuries, and the starting right guard is out for multiple games.
In total, nine of the 14 starting-level players on the Huskers’ offensive depth chart were either lost for the season or are currently out for multiple games.
In spite of it all, the Huskers are winning because this defense is legit (it’s not just a product of having dominated Big Ten West teams, in my opinion) and the offense has adjusted, accepting the fact that it doesn’t need to be something it’s not in order to win games. They simply have to do just enough on offense to play complementary football in support of a defense that’s humming right now. It’s like Iowa football if Iowa had the fourth- or fifth-worst offense in the Big Ten instead of the worst.
2. It's incredibly early into the Matt Rhule era, but what are the early returns thus far? What do you think the strengths are for Rhule and his staff, and what do think they could do a better job at?
Zack: The biggest mistake this staff has made that they could have done a better job of was quarterback evaluation: They took a big swing and whiffed BIG time by going after and landing former Georgia Tech quarterback Jeff Sims – a three-year starter who had the most turnovers for a player returning to college football this season (31), turned it over six times in the first two games and now has 38 career turnovers. He has only played five snaps since Week Two.
Back to that keynote difference: Nebraska didn’t survive the Michigan game. They got murdered. Obliterated, embarrassed. There’s no shame in getting blown out by 38 points to arguably the country’s best team and a national championship favorite. But this is why Matt Rhule, in his first year swimming inside the fish bowl that is Nebraska football, gained a lot of respect from that point forward: The Huskers WERE embarrassed, and they WERE ashamed to have gotten beaten down that badly. More importantly, they got pissed off.
Rhule was so angry after watching the game film to the point where he made a SUPER high-risk, high-reward decision: Instead of the regular off day with team meetings and film study on Sunday, Rhule forced the team to hold a full contact, fully live practice for two hours that night. And they practiced HARD.
Making that decision – on the very next day after getting brutalized by a Wolverines juggernaut built on continuous and methodical physicality – could have led to the bottom falling out for the rest of the season. He could have lost a lot of buy-in from the team if the Huskers had gone out and laid an egg against Illinois just five days later in a Friday night road game. Instead, the Huskers went out and did something that they had very rarely, if ever, done in the previous five-plus seasons under Scott Frost: They found a way to win, and they won a game that they almost certainly would have lost throughout those five years.
Rhule gained an immense, immense amount of respect from myself and a whole lot of others in the week after that loss to Michigan. He publicly put a TON of emphasis on the Illinois game by saying, in part:
“Everyone in Nebraska will find out about this team next Friday night. We’ll find out about me. We’ll find out about them. We’ll find out about all of us, and who we are, on Friday night. So I hope everyone watches.”
They heaped a ton of importance on that game. And then they won the game. Major tip of the cap.
By the time January hit after his hire, after seeing (not just hearing) the way Rhule and his staff operated, I felt like the Rhule hire was going to work to get Nebraska back into being a solid program with the ceiling of being a really good one. I still believe that as we sit here today.
3. Defensively, Nebraska's rush defense ranks in the top-five, allowing just 79 yards per game. How can Michigan State's offense best attack the Cornhuskers and who are the standout players on that side of the ball?
Zack: With the exception of Michigan, this Husker defense has done a tremendous job of making offenses one-dimensional and forcing them to put the ball in the air. The Wolverines ran for 249 yards, but Nebraska held its other seven opponents to less than 90 yards rushing. But Michigan State running back Nate Carter, who was coached by Husker running backs coach E.J. Barthel at UConn, is the most talented non-Michigan running back Nebraska will have faced so far this season. The Huskers’ 3-3-5 base scheme is vulnerable to an occasional explosive run if they miss gap-fill assignment. Perhaps Carter can pop one or two of those.
The Huskers’ passing defense has really improved, but I still think they’re a bit vulnerable there at times. But if Nebraska does what it has done to most opponents this year (making Michigan State one-dimensional and heavily reliant on the passing game), then I just don’t see how the Spartans move the ball at a consistent clip. Michigan State sits at 86th in the FBS with an average of 214.1 yards passing per game. If you take out the Central Michigan and Richmond games, though, that number drops to 188.5 yards passing per game, which would be 109th nationally and seventh-worst in the Power Five.
I know that eliminating those two games is kind of an unfair thing to do and that you could probably do something similar with Nebraska’s games against Northern Illinois and Louisiana Tech. But it’s just a way to illustrate my point: Offenses that have been the most successful against Nebraska’s defense have had a good passing game to turn to, but the Spartans do not.
4. Offensively, the Cornhuskers have the No. 1 rushing attack in the Big Ten at 190.1 yards per game, but rank 13th out of 14 teams in the conference in passing yards per game (132.3). Do you expect Nebraska to continue to lean on a strong ground game and tough defense to beat the Spartans, or will it look to open up the passing game? What do the Spartans need to do to contain quarterback Heinrich Haarberg and running back Emmett Johnson on the ground?
Zack: Ahh, and now we get to the section where all Michigan State fans reading this can call me a hypocrite for everything I said above about the Spartans’ passing offense. And rightfully so! Because the Huskers’ passing offense has been abysmal.
The answer to the first question can be found above.
On defending Heinrich Haarberg: I would imagine the Spartans will look to do something similar to what Purdue did if they have the personnel for it: Stack the box, dare the talented-but-developing top-four in the Huskers’ receiver rotation to beat them in one-on-one coverage, and drop a safety down into the box in the middle of the field to shadow Haarberg.
On defending Nebraska running backs: Emmett Johnson has replaced Anthony Grant as the team’s starting running back because of Grant’s ball security issues. Whenever Grant is in the game, which we can assume will be for a limited amount of carries barring an injury to Johnson, the Spartan defense needs to take as many shots as it can at stripping and ripping the ball. They likely won’t have the chance at doing the same on designed carries by Haarberg or Johnson.
Johnson has shored things up since his one fumble of the season three games ago. Haarberg, a run-first quarterback, has fumbled nine times this season (though he’s only lost three of them). To my recollection, eight of those nine came on snap miscues or when he was maneuvering around in the pocket. I can only remember him fumbling it one time this season on a designed run or when he tucked the ball and ran throughout his 17.3 carries per game (102 total) over his six starts. Still, Haarberg and the Huskers will almost certainly put the ball on the ground multiple times Saturday, and they will likely do it behind the line of scrimmage.
Nebraska has a nation-leading 24 fumbles and has lost 11 of those. The Huskers fumbled it 12 times but lost just two of them in a four-game stretch before facing Purdue. That’s due to sheer luck, but also due to most of them having come on snap miscues or bad QB-RB exchanges behind the line of scrimmage where the Huskers were in better position to jump on the ball themselves.
That string of luck came to an end against the Boilers, though, as Nebraska lost four of five fumbles, including two that led directly to Purdue’s two touchdowns. So, if you’re a Michigan State defender, go hunt for takeaways in this game and take advantage when Nebraska inevitably puts the ball on the ground via unforced errors.
5. Are there any under-the-radar players who could make an impact on Saturday? Is there one player on offense and one player on defense you can name that fits the bill here?
Zack: First, in answering the last part of Question No. 3: The main difference-makers to watch out for are defensive tackle Nash Hutmacher (No. 0), safety Isaac Gifford (No. 2) and defensive lineman Ty Robinson (No. 9). Despite how dominant this defense has been, I don’t think it’s littered with guys who will find their way onto one of the three All-Big Ten teams. In that order, though, those are the top-three candidates.
Hutmacher will absolutely be an all-conference guy at season’s end, likely on the second-team because he won’t have the stats for the first-team. But he’s been playing at a first-team caliber level this year. Hutmacher and Robinson are the keys that make the engine go up front, and Gifford is the driver. He’s been an eraser. I name one player of the game in all three phases each week (offense, defense, special teams), and Gifford could have earned Defensive Player of the Game in just about every game through eight weeks.
As for under-the-radar guys…
Offense: If it keeps trending this way, one of the Huskers’ three freshman receivers in the top-four of the rotation will have a breakout play on Saturday. Malachi Coleman (No. 15) sealed the Northwestern win with his first career touchdown on a 44-yarder. Jaylen Lloyd (No. 19) scored his first touchdown on a 73-yarder to break things open in the win over Purdue. This week, I’ve predicted it will be Jaidyn Doss (No. 85) who gets the breakout play. Also, watch out for RB/WR Josh Fleeks (No. 11). He had three really nice plays versus the Boilermakers, including a 23-yard catch on third down and a 16-yard rush that were hugely important on the same touchdown drive where they took control of that game.
Defense: Defensive end Jimari Butler (No. 10) is surging right now and played by far the best football of his career during the month of October after Husker fans had been hoping a breakout would come for the previous three years. And don’t lose cornerback Tommi Hill (No. 31). He has emerged as the team’s second-best corner behind Quinton Newsome (No. 6), who is a future NFL Draft pick and who I’ve egregiously not mentioned until now. Hill seems to be Johnny on the Spot this year for some of the biggest plays on defense and special teams. He has three interceptions in the last two games, including two last week that led to Lloyd’s 73-yard score on the very next play on one of the picks and sealed the game on the other.
6. What is your score prediction?
Zack: I feel like I can pretty much copy-paste the same description that I’ve used when predicting each of the Huskers’ last three games: I think it’s going to be a beautifully ugly, gorgeously gross, classic Big Ten West style football game – the type of game that you have to convince yourself that you love in order to get the enjoyment you want from it. It’s like beer – it’s an acquired taste.
Well, you know what’s been tasting pretty good for the Huskers lately? Wins. Any way you can get ‘em. I think Nebraska gets another one on Saturday. Make it four wins in a row, six in the past seven games, a bowl game ticket officially punched in Rhule’s first year and another step toward capturing a West division title. But it won’t be pretty: Nebraska covers the -3 spread and the under (34.5 at the time of this writing) will hit for the sixth time in the Huskers’ last nine games:
Nebraska 17, Michigan State 7
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