Half ‘thud,’ half live for Huskers this weekend and more on Saturday’s spring game from Scott Frost | Football

“We’ve had a couple times up to 43 guys on our injury list with everything from a couple big ones to tweaks and sprains and bumps and bruises. We’re a little beat up, but we expected that with the type of spring that we’ve had.”

That eye-popping number would represent 31.3% of Nebraska’s 137-man spring roster. Even still, the coaching staff wanted to give some of the veteran players a chance to get out and get some work in front of a crowd that is expected to be more than 30,000 at Memorial Stadium.

“I imagine most of the veterans will play the first half now that it’s not tackle,” Frost said. “It’s going to be practice tempo and we’ll trust the referees to blow it down at their discretion. That’s going to give us an opportunity to let some of the veterans play a little bit more.”

Fans are always excited to see how players look, but it isn’t a particularly useful day from an evaluation standpoint for the coaching staff. Or at least no more so than any other day.

“About the same as every other practice, maybe less. This is kind of a showcase,” Frost said. “The only thing we’re really looking to see is how they perform when the lights are on a little bit. But we have hundreds and hundreds of reps of practice that we can evaluate and a lot of those veteran guys are going to get 30-50 reps in the first half of Saturday’s game, so that’s a small portion of what the work they’ve put in this spring. It’s important, but it’s no more important than any other practice that we’ve had.”