Last week we reviewed the first quarter on the 2022 Husker schedule. This week we’ll look at the second-quarter opponents: Oklahoma, Indiana and Rutgers.
Game # 4: Oklahoma Sooners
- Conference: Big 12
- Game Date: Saturday, September 17th
- Game Time: 11:30 a.m. CDT
- Venue: Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, NE
- Conference Ranking: Picked to finish first in the 10-team league
- Head Coach: Brent Venables, first year
- 2021 Record: 12-2
- Bowl Game: Beat Oregon in the Alamo Bowl (Bob Stoops was the interim head coach after Lincoln Riley bolted for USC.)
- Last Year’s Game: 23-16 Sooner win
- Sooner Transfers Lost: 14
- Transfers Gained: 11
- HuskerMax: Game page
Sadly, this annual rivalry (NU vs OU) was cast aside in 1996 when Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor and Texas A&M decided to leave the Southwest Conference to help form the Big 12 Conference. The Texas-Oklahoma shootout remained, but the OU-NU rivalry was limited to a two-years-on and two-years-off format. When Nebraska wisely moved from the Big 12 to the Big Ten in 2011, the NU-OU rivalry sadly went bye-bye.
But last year after a 10-year hiatus, OU and NU met in Norman, Oklahoma with the Sooners taking advantage of several Husker miscues to win 23-16. Before last season, the Huskers and Sooners hadn’t met in a football game since the 2010 season when OU and Nebraska played for the Big 12 Championship. OU won 23-20.
First-year head coach Brent Venables will be coming to Lincoln in September for the first time as the Sooner head coach. Venables is no stranger to Nebraska, having been defensive coordinator under Bob Stoops at Oklahoma from 1999-2011. In 2012 when Stoops hired his brother Mike to share defensive coordinator duties with Venables, Venables took Dabo Swinney’s offer to be the DC for Clemson. Venables earned his stripes quickly as he helped Clemson win national championships in 2016 and 2018. He won the 2016 Broyles Award, which is given each year to the best college football assistant in the country.
In the off-season, the Sooners made a lot of changes – more than Nebraska by a long shot. Gone are OU head coach Lincoln Riley and the Sooners’ DC, Alex Grinch. Venables brought with him Todd Bates from Clemson’s defensive staff. Only two of Riley’s 2021 staff remain on Venables’ new staff. Those are Joe Jon Finley (TE) and former Sooner QB Cale Gundy (AHC/WR). So the majority of Venables’ staff is new – at least to Oklahoma.
Gone from last year’s Sooner team are QBs Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams. Luckily for Oklahoma, Venables got an experienced QB in the off-season in Dillon Gabriel, a transfer from Central Florida.
Nebraska will likely be favored in its first three games, but don’t look for that to happen when the Sooners come to Lincoln.
The question is whether Venables can get all the new coaches and players to unite by the time his Sooners roll into Lincoln in September. Sounds like the same task that lies before Scott Frost and his staff.
Game #5: Indiana Hoosiers (Homecoming)
- Conference: Big Ten
- Home: Bloomington, IN
- Game Venue: Memorial Stadium, Lincoln
- Game Date: Saturday, Oct. 1
- Game Time: TBA
- Preseason Ranking: 6th out of 7 in the Big Ten East
- Head Coach: Tom Allen, sixth year
- 2021 Record: 2-10
- Last Year’s Game: DNP
- Hoosier Transfers Lost: 19
- Transfers Gained: 10
- HuskerMax: Game page
The Huskers should be favored in this game. From the looks of Indiana’s 2-10 record last year, that probably makes sense. Head coach Tom Allen is in his sixth year with the Hoosiers. He took over at the end of the 2016 season for Kevin Wilson, who left abruptly, leaving Allen to coach Indiana in the Foster Farms Bowl. Indiana ended up losing that game to Utah 26-23.
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In the five years since then, the Hoosiers have gone 5-7, 5-7, 8-5, 6-2 and 2-10. Indiana has a brutal schedule this fall, including a nonconference game with Cincinnati followed by conference games with Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan State and Purdue. The Hoosiers are getting done to them this year what was done to the Huskers last year. Because of their shaky records, both Allen and Frost will be in the hot seat this fall. Both teams will be desperate to win this game.
Game #6: Rutgers Scarlet Knights
- Home: New Brunswick, NJ
- Conference: Big Ten
- Game Date: Friday, Oct. 7
- Game Time: 6 p.m. CDT
- Venue: New Brunswick, NJ
- Head Coach: Greg Schiano, third year (second stint)
- Last Year’s Record: 5-8
- Last Year’s Game: DNP
- Last Year’s Bowl Game: Lost to Wake Forest 38-10 in the Gator Bowl
- Transfers Lost: 14
- Transfers Gained: 6
- HuskerMax: Game page
In his second stint as Rutgers’ head football coach, Greg Schiano‘s Scarlet Knights haven’t had much success, going 3-6 in 2020 and 5-8 last year. In his first stint as head coach (2001-2011) Rutgers had five losing seasons vs. six winning ones. He left Rutgers for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the 2011 season. When Schiano left Tampa Bay two years later, he had compiled a 11-21 record.
After a one-year hiatus from coaching, he ended up at Ohio State as the AHC/DC (2016-2018). In 2020 he came back to Rutgers for his second term as head coach. In his two tours at Rutgers, he has a 76-81 record. As bad as that is, Schiano’s record is still way ahead of Frost’s four-year 15-29 record at Nebraska.
Husker fans are familiar with Noah Vedral, a Wahoo, Nebraska native. He followed Scott Frost to UCF and later to Nebraska (2018) and has started 20 games at quarterback for Rutgers over the past two seasons. Last year, Vedral had the best year passing (1,823 yards) for Rutgers since 2015 and completed 181 of 303 passes for a 59.4% completion rate.
When Nebraska and Rutgers last met (Dec. 18, 2020 at Piscataway, NJ), Vedral was injured and did not play. The Huskers, despite a huge advantage in total offense (620 yards to 252), managed to win by just seven points, 28-21.
Rutgers has another player with local area connections. Willie Tyler III, an O-lineman, played at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
This will be another game in which Nebraska should be favored to win. Rutgers’ schedule is brutal, including games with Iowa, Ohio State, Penn State, Minnesota, Michigan and Michigan State. The Scarlet Knights will have a rough time finding wins this fall. It’s a good bet that Rutgers thinks Nebraska is beatable – especially at home in New Jersey.
But if the Huskers can beat Rutgers and win the other games in which they are favored, Nebraska could leave Piscataway with a 5-1 record.
Next up, we’ll preview Purdue, Illinois and Minnesota, which will be the third quarter of the Huskers’ 2022 season.
How ’Bout Them Huskers
This week, grandson Will and I got to interview former Husker O-lineman Cole Pensick. Cole played for the Huskers from 2009-2013. He took part in two of the most iconic plays in Husker football history: the Hail Mary pass that beat Northwestern and the 99-yard touchdown pass thrown by QB Tommy Armstrong and caught by Quincy Enunwa against Georgia in the Gator Bowl. Both plays occurred during the 2013 season. Cole talks about what led to those memorable plays.
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