Nebraska React Results Quarterback battles, Black Friday in primetime

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Nebraska Cornhuskers fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate.

Another week of the quickly passing 2022 college football season is halfway over and we hence have another round of Reacts polling results to share with you all. This week brought a bit of a surprising result in one regard, saw a significant shift from just last week on an important personnel decision, and sees an interesting split on differing opinions on a not particularly old tradition.

First up is the hot button question of the quarterback battle. With Casey Thompson still listed as “day-to-day” by coaches, Husker fans have some opinions on who should start in his place. Chubba Purdy was the initial replacement when Thompson had to exit the game against Illinois. He went on to three-for-eight passing for just 15 yards and one interception. Purdy also added five carries for -11 yards (aka sacks).

Meanwhile, Logan Smothers eventually came in and completed one pass for one yard and had two carries for six yards.

Given the option, fans want to see Logan Smothers (former four-start recruit per 247Sports) get the start against Minnesota Saturday by a whopping 62 percent. The next highest vote getter was Heinrich Haarberg (former three-star) with 16 percent of the vote. Chubba Purdy (former four-star) was third. Supposed Corn Nation fan favorite Matt Masker received just three percent of votes.

Now, keep in mind now that this question was posed before offensive coordinator Mark Whipple disclosed the following detail about Purdy during his press conference remarks this morning:

Would that have affected results? No way to know now, but the honest answer is probably because clearly playing through injury affected his game given how much fans preferred Smothers.

As for whether to hire interim head coach Mickey Joseph as the permanent head coach right now, wait until the end of the season, or not see him hired for the role at all, fans had a noteworthy shift in attitude this week following the 29-6 loss to then No. 17/18 Illinois. Just last week 38 percent of fans wanted to remove the interim tag, while 52 percent wanted to wait out for more games to judge, and just 10 percent said don’t hire him at all for the head coach role.

Fast forward one week after that loss to the Illini and a lot of people got skittish about their confidence in Joseph, 12-points to be exact. A near super majority of 64 percent of fans want to wait for more games this season to be played before making a decision on Joseph. Those wanting him hired now dropped 17-points to just 21 percent. Those not wanting him hired for the role is just 15 percent this week.

Finally, it is officially November and Black Friday is near. That 90s era tradition has been a Friday afternoon matchup for Nebraska historically, but the new Big Ten media rights deal that kicks in for 2023 will feature two Black Friday games. One will be a CBS afternoon matchup per current reporting on the deal and the other will happen to be in primetime on NBC.

There has been a potential hiccup to the new media rights plan as currently understood. The NFL has since announced a Black Friday game starting in 2023 streamed exclusively on Amazon Prime with an expected kickoff at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. For now, nothing as of yet has changed to the CBS afternoon plan or exact kick off time for that matchup other than it is still expected to be an “afternoon” matchup. For now, CBS airs a SEC matchup on Black Friday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

At any rate, despite that uncertainty of the exact time for the CBS kickoff, just 55 percent of fans want the afternoon tradition to continue. In contrast, 45 percent want the primetime matchup on NBC instead.

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