One if by Land, Two if by Air for Nebraska Football

The Nebraska football program traditionally fields a running-based team. Most of the time.

If you go back far enough, to the first years of the Tom Osborne era, the Huskers passed the ball effectively, and fairly often, with quarterbacks David Humm and Vince Ferragamo doing most of the honors. Even their predecessors, Jerry Tagge and Van Brownson, were good passers. But back in those days, it just made more sense to give the ball to Jeff Kinney or Rick Berns a lot. Even in a pro-style offense with good passers running the offense, the Huskers ran the ball about twice as often as they passed it, and they scored more rushing touchdowns than passing.

That may change a bit this season, if the 100 Husker fans I surveyed Saturday morning in the Haymarket District before the Nebraska-UTEP season opener are correct. My question was pretty straightforward: “Will Nebraska football score more touchdowns this season by running or by passing?”

Husker fans obviously have their eye on true freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola, a five-star recruit who coach Matt Rhule this week named as the starter. A clear majority, 60 percent, said the Huskers will score more touchdowns by rushing this fall. Rushing had 40 percent of the votes.

Actually, 101 people took part in this survey. One man insisted on voting that NU will score an equal amount of touchdowns by rushing and passing this season.

It may look a bit more like the Bill Callahan or Mike Riley years, at least as far as run-pass ratios and scoring are concerned. This century, only four times — in 2006 and 2007 under Callahan and in 2015 and 2017 under Riley — have the Huskers scored more passing TDs than rushing.

In 2008 under Bo Pelini and in 2022 under Scott Frost and interim coach Mickey Joseph, the Huskers scored equal amounts by passing and rushing.

Regardless of how they score, the Huskers simply need more touchdowns — a lot more — than they’ve been scoring lately.

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