Out-Hyped and Outpointed

Score one for the master hype man.

FOX Sports talking heads spent most of their pregame show genuflecting before Deion Sanders and his Colorado football team. And in the end, Prime Time looked worthy of their football worship.

FOX promoted the Nebraska-Colorado game relentlessly for weeks, and likely will show excellent TV ratings because of it. Faced with a grand opportunity to play spoiler, the Cornhuskers instead played the stooge in the “Deion and Shedeur Sanders Show” in Boulder, just as the CU program and a hyped-up home crowd hoped they would.

Lack of mental discipline embarrassed Nebraska big time on the big stage. It’s the major reason Nebraska has doubled down on its well-documented self-destructive ways coming out of the gate in 2023, and it’s the biggest problem that Matt Rhule faces early in his tenure as coach.

The Huskers have their share of problems with a veteran yet underachieving offensive line, but you need look no further than the quarterback position to know why Colorado, which finished 1-11 last year, is a much better football team than Nebraska, at least at this point of the season. When you turn the ball over at the rate of once per quarter, as Nebraska is through two games, you’ve got virtually no chance.

There’s no denying that Shedeur Sanders is playing himself into serious Heisman Trophy contention. Even under heavy pressure from a defense that kept the Huskers in the game until late in the third quarter, he kept his composure and completed 31 of 42 passes for 393 yards and two touchdowns, while adding another touchdown run. The Huskers kept Travis Hunter quiet most of the game, but Xavier Weaver had 10 catches for 170 yards and a touchdown, and Jimmy Horn grabbed eight more for 64.

Colorado has enough offense to be a Pac-12 title contender this year, but it’s hard to believe the Buffs’ defense will hold up over the season. Their front seven is undependable, although they have one of the nation’s best defensive backs in Hunter, who plays on both sides of the ball. They didn’t shut down Nebraska’s offense as much as the jittery Huskers shut down themselves with turnovers and mental mistakes. So cue at least a week’s worth of apocalyptic social media posts from Husker fans, who saw a winnable game turn bad quickly and snowball into a 36-14 loss for Nebraska, which has dropped its last 22 games against rated opponents.

It’s an undeniably bad start to the season for quarterback Jeff Sims and the Husker offense, which has given no reason for FOX sportscasters or anyone else to take them seriously. Sims lost two fumbles and threw an interception, and is still with only one touchdown pass in two games. Gabe Irvin started and carried the ball 17 times for 74 yards, but fumbled once. Anthony Grant did not play.

Rhule and his offensive coaches need to make some changes in the Husker offensive line, which continues to be plagued by pre-snap penalties and the ongoing pass protection struggles of left tackle Turner Corcoran, who is playing out of position. The Huskers are paying a huge price for Scott Frost’s inability to recruit and develop offensive tackles. Corcoran should be a guard. Meanwhile, Husker Nation waits impatiently for a return to action by Teddy Prochazka, the young left tackle who flashed some talent early in his career but has a hard time staying healthy. Prochazka made the road trip to Boulder, but never saw the field. Yet somehow, according to a Husker Radio Network sideline reporter, he was flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty when a CU receiver entered the Husker bench area and started running his mouth. Prochazka apparently said something in return that bothered the Pac-12 game officials, who at times appeared to be caught up in the “Prime Time” hysteria that has swept the college football world.

In the NFL, quarterback and left tackle are considered the two most important positions. Nebraska is woefully weak at both, and it appears Corcoran’s pass blocking woes are affecting Sims and his concentration, or his lack thereof. Aside from breaking a 58-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw when his team trailed 13-0 early in the third quarter, Sims didn’t play even well enough to be called erratic.

The way the schedule sets up made it a bad year to be a slow-starting football team. It’s been 98 years since a first-year Husker football coach had to take his team on the road his first two games. Rhule and his team were unable to handle that responsibility.

One thing Nebraska did well was sticking with the running game. The Big Red rushed 41 times for 222 yards and what’s more, they got eight sacks on defense. Had you told me that before the game, I’d have felt pretty good about Nebraska’s chances. In fact, the Huskers spent the first quarter and a half making the FOX Sports crew look silly. They followed their “run-the-ball” script and were wearing down Colorado’s defense. Poised to take the lead, the Huskers inexplicably started to break down mentally. It was as though they lost concentration on their responsibilities and started thinking about what the national sportscasters were saying about CU.

Faced with third-and-5 from the CU 25, Nebraska came up empty when walk-on tight end Luke Lindemeier mis-timed his pre-snap motion and was hit by the shotgun snap. Freshman Tristan Alvano then hit the upright with a 45-yard field goal attempt, and the Husker offense checked out for the rest of the half, committing two turnovers to set up CU for a 13-0 halftime lead.

That’s the way it went much of the day for Nebraska’s offensive platoon, which at times, looked like it was able to control the line of scrimmage against the Buffs, but at other times looked like it didn’t even belong on the same field with a CU defense that was carved up the previous week by TCU. Nebraska had 341 yards of total offense, but 57 of those came in garbage time on the last drive of the game, with Heinrich Haarberg hitting Thomas Fidone for a 4-yard touchdown pass as the clock went to zero.

There were positives, mainly on defense, where the Huskers got good efforts by youngsters like sophomore linebacker Mikai Gbayor (six tackles) and true freshman defensive ends Cameron Lenhardt, who had two sacks, and Riley Van Poppel, who was credited with half a sack. Meanwhile on offense, no young players have stepped forward thus far. Haarberg and Fidone made the TD connection on the game’s final play, but Fidone helped set up Sims’ interception in the second quarter, when he faded badly on his sideline route and slipped, allowing the CU defender to undercut him and make the pick. Malachi Coleman saw the field for the second game in a row, but was not targeted.

Then again, upperclassmen have done very little on offense for the Huskers, either.

Sims left the game in the fourth quarter with a possible high ankle sprain. Would Nebraska be better off to go with Haarberg against Northern Illinois? There’s no doubt that Rhule has at least a small-scale quarterback controversy on his hands, which is the last thing he needs as he tries to build confidence into his veterans. Back in fall camp, Rhule made it clear that “we can win” with Haarberg at quarterback. He may get the chance to test that theory.

Also high on the list of concerns is what to do with the o-line, which has two fifth-year players (Bryce Benhart, Ethan Piper), two fourth-year players (Corcoran and Nouredin Nouili) and a highly-touted transfer center Ben Scott, who played three years at Arizona State. Theoretically, with the only holdover coach from 2022, the o-line should be the most cohesive unit on the team. There have been flashes here and there, but thus far, Donovan Raiola is not getting them to play together with consistency. It’s no hype to say it: that’s at least as puzzling as the unending parade of turnovers.

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