It was one of those days when a football team finds out a lot about itself and how it matches up, and nobody in Nebraska liked the evidence as it unfolded in a quick and decisive way in Bloomington. But 56-7 Indiana? Really?
“I did not see this coming,” coach Matt Rhule said multiple times after the game.
Join the club, coach. Neither did anyone else. Except possibly Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, who ran rings around Rhule and his staff Saturday.
Indiana isn’t seven touchdowns better, but there’s an undeniably wide gap between the Huskers and Hoosiers when it comes to skilled players on offense.
I didn’t see any first-round NFL Draft prospects on the Hoosiers’ roster, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see junior wide receiver Elijah Sarratt go in the second or third round next April. The 6-foot-2 Sarrat, and his 5-11 running mate Miles Cross, played much larger than did Nebraska wideouts Isaiah Neyor and Jahmal Banks, both of whom stand 6-4. Sarrat and Cross repeatedly got enough separation from legitimately good Husker corners Tommi Hill and Ceyair Wright to make big plays. Neyor and Banks couldn’t come close to getting separation against smaller defensive backs.
In a game where they had an opportunity to slay a couple of dragons that have haunted the program for years, the Huskers didn’t show up.
On a day when a proud senior-led Nebraska defensive unit was utterly wrecked by a balanced and well-prepared Indiana offense, on a day when the Blackshirts couldn’t make one-on-one tackles and didn’t generate a single quarterback hurry and only forced a single punt, the biggest discrepancy between the unbeaten Hoosiers and the the twice-beaten Huskers clearly was at wide receiver.
When Joel Klatt said earlier this week that Dylan Raiola needs an outside threat, he nailed it. Neyor and Banks aren’t getting open much, and Jacory Barney is being held in check. Furthermore, none of them is blocking well for each other. When Raiola checks down to an easy completion to one of his wideouts or backs, the Huskers typically get less than four yards. Conversely, when Indiana quarterbacks took the easy dump-off option, they typically got seven to nine yards a pop. Big Ten players are having a relatively easy time tackling Husker ball carriers one-on-one.
The numbers don’t lie. Banks: seven targets, two catches for 33 yards, three yards after the catch, and a dropped pass in the end zone. Neyor: Five targets, two catches for 13 yards, and 13 yards after the catch. Neyor couldn’t get open for a single downfield reception. Compare that to Cross, who caught all seven passes thrown his direction for 65 yards and a touchdown, including 34 yards YAC, and Sarrat, who gained 65 yards and scored a TD on three receptions out of four targets.
Banks and Neyor have regressed since the start of the season, both in their blocking and their ability to catch the ball. It’s up to wide receivers coach Garret McGuire to reverse that trend, and to offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield to find ways to get the ball into their hands downfield. Although Barney shows a lot of promise and Jaylen Lloyd has made incremental gains as a receiver this fall, only Barney has broken a big play since the Illinois game.
Big gains were hard to come by for Nebraska in Bloomington. In NU’s second-quarter touchdown drive, Raiola had a 24-yard pass to Thomas Fidone and followed that up with a 19-yard pass to Banks. Later in the game, Fidone had a 28-yard reception where he was caught from behind at the Indiana 5-yard line, and Lloyd made a superb leaping sideline catch for 17 yards, touching his hand down inbounds before he landed out of bounds. That was the extent of it for the Big Red, who were buried beneath an avalanche of explosive plays by their Hoosier counterparts.
No Husker running back could do better than an 11-yard gain by Emmett Johnson.
Since halftime of the Colorado game, the Huskers have seemingly forgotten everything they knew about running the football, with the exception of their fourth-quarter effort at Purdue (11 carries for 77 yards and two touchdowns). My assessment of the Husker running backs has not changed since the preseason: they are all mid-level to decent backs, but none of them is excellent. Not a home-run hitter in the bunch. Indiana held Nebraska to 70 yards on 29 carries, a paltry 2.4 yards per attempt, and that’s with Heinrich Haarburg gaining almost half that total.
Even when the Huskers trailed by multiple touchdowns and everybody in the house knew they were going to throw, even when unexpected running plays usually break for big yardage against teams primed to rush the passer, the Big Red couldn’t produce a decent running play. Frankly, it was embarrassing to watch.
Whatever Rhule found in his “deep dive” into the Nebraska running game during the bye week, it didn’t bring about any improvement.
“I don’t know that we’re going to win just dropping back and throwing every play,” Rhule said in the postgame press conference. “We’ve gotta run the ball to win it.”
If the Huskers don’t find some answers in the running game, it’s going to be a long second half of the season. Will Donovan Raiola and E.J. Barthel find a way to squeeze more production out of a veteran but mediocre offensive line and a bunch of singles hitters at running back?
Here’s where we’ll find out a lot about Rhule and his staff’s ability to develop talent. Not next Saturday in Columbus, but in the final four games.
Rhule can see November coming. He’ll have no excuse not to be ready.
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