Nebraska offense ‘ready for a fistfight’ vs. physical, crafty Illinois defense

Experienced. Tough. Physical and long, especially among its “front five” on the defensive line.

Illinois’ defense, allowing just 8.7 points per game, is easily the best defense Nebraska has faced this season, to hear offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield describe it.

“It’s going to be tough to move the line of scrimmage,” Satterfield said. “So we’ve got to be ready for a fistfight on Friday night.”

No argument from center Ben Scott.

“It’s going to be a lot of man-on-man blocks,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot of will-on-will.”

Or NU running back Emmett Johnson.

“They play extremely fast,” said Johnson, who ranks second in the Big Ten at 9.54 yards per carry. “They all fly to the ball.”

Speed and aggression is one thing. Satterfield and his boss, coach Matt Rhule, also see a crafty, veteran group that can execute a variety of coverage schemes – without giving away, before the snap, what those coverages are going to be.

“It’s impossible to figure out what their coverage (is), it’s all going to happen post-snap,” Satterfield said.

Typically, Satterfield said, an offense can create a pre-snap look that forces the defense to tip its coverage hand.

“With these guys, you can’t,” Satterfield said. That could affect NU’s passing offense in a variety of ways, but perhaps most of all in its short, quick passing game, where favorable blocking matchups play a role in how effective Nebraska can be in gaining chunks of yards.

Because the Huskers prefer not to run the ball with quarterback Dylan Raiola, they want to spread out the opposing defense with short screens that either make a defense pay for packing the run box or force an adjustment that depletes the box of defenders and makes it easier to run.

Illinois’ defense, led by a quartet of fourth- and fifth-year linebackers, is making those kinds of play-by-play decisions, but it can handle an extra level of complexity and deception as it does so. The Illini has forced mistakes of opposing quarterbacks, too. The secondary already grabbed six interceptions this year, led by Xavier Scott, who has three.

NU quarterback Dylan Raiola described the Illini defensive backs as “ballhawks.” Raiola, a true freshman in his fourth career start, will be tasked with dissecting Illinois’ coverage after the snap. Raiola, who played high-level high school football in Georgia, said the challenge is “nothing new” to him, and quarterbacks coach Glenn Thomas asks Raiola to “make sure to confirm” after the snap either way.

Raiola’s ready – and aware – of the test Friday night.

“We’ve got to make sure our guys are in the right spots and my eyes are in the right spots,” Raiola said. “It’ll come down to who executes better this week and who’s more physical.”