Nebraska’s season officially ended Friday, but the off-season has just begun. The next few weeks are sure to be as busy as ever. We start your Monday off with the Weekly Rundown column.
Sure bets
You have to feel pretty good about these things right now:
An unpredictable month ahead: Four new coaching hires, senior decisions, December recruiting and the wild, wild transfer portal. Welcome to December. All bets are off. Keep your HuskerOnline alerts on.
NU will hire a special teams coordinator: If there was ever any doubt before Friday, the Black Friday loss to Iowa was the final nail in the coffin to ensure the Huskers will be hiring a special teams coordinator for the 2022 season.
Nebraska had historically bad special teams in 2021 and keeping the same approach for next season is a non-starter.
We’ll never experience a season like 2021 again: Think about this: Nebraska had the lead on Michigan at the 7:56 mark of the fourth quarter and the 7:31 mark against Iowa in the fourth quarter.
The Hawkeyes and Wolverines will meet in Indianapolis for the Big Ten championship on Saturday. That’s how seemingly close the Big Red was to the two teams that will play for it all this week, but yet their 3-9 record indicates how far away they are.
For the sake of Husker fans, I hope nobody has to experience a year like this ever again. Never has the heart of Nebraska fans been tugged harder than in 2021. What’s remarkable is once again Memorial Stadium was full on Black Friday. In fact, one local ticket broker I spoke to said the get-in price even around an hour before kickoff was still over $150 for the Iowa game. He said it was the hottest ticket market NU had all year.
Say all you want about NU’s play this year, the fan base deserves a lot of credit for staying behind this team through thick and thin. A crowd like Friday happens nowhere else for a 3-9 team other than at Nebraska.
TE Travis Vokolek will be back: Noticeably absent from Nebraska’s Senior Day festivities was fifth-year junior tight end Travis Vokolek. It looks like the Huskers will have another potential NFL tight end to build things around in 2022, along with an up-and-comer in Thomas Fidone. Chancellor Brewington should also figure into the equation more in 2022.
Surprises
These were my surprises of the week:
QB Logan Smothers: I always knew Logan Smothers had potential, but I will say he more than exceeded my expectations for his first start against Iowa.
My only question is, once people have film on Smothers, how much easier will he be to defend? Iowa seemed to adjust in the second half by taking their linebackers out of the box to play the option.
The Big Ten title game: I’m not sure one person in August had Iowa vs. Michigan in the Big Ten title game.
To not see either Wisconsin or Ohio State in the title game is rare. This is just the second time in the 11 Big Ten championship games it hasn’t featured either the Buckeyes or the Badgers.
Senior Day: The most interesting non-senior players that walked on Friday were DT Damion Daniels, WR Wyatt Liewer, QB Adrian Martinez, OL Matt Sichterman, DL Deontre Thomas and DL Chris Walker. That’s six scholarship players that now have a decision to make about their futures.
Defensive lineman Colton Feist was also a surprise guy to see at Senior Day. He played on special teams this year, but I’m told he graduates in December and wants to keep his options open.
Lincoln Riley: I watched Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley coach the Sooners after 10 pm on Saturday night and I walked out of church on Sunday to see he’s now the head coach of USC.
Am I surprised Riley left OU? No. I’m more surprised he didn’t land in the SEC, but in all reality, going to USC offers him a cleaner path to get to the College Football Playoff. He’s got a better chance to be a CFP coach at USC than he does playing in the 16-team SEC.
When the Huskers played the Sooners earlier this year, I also felt like they weren’t built for a full season of Big Ten or SEC play. Husker fans should know as well as anyone how hard it is to move from the Big 12 to a league that features NFL linemen on both sides of the ball on just about every team.
The Sooners would probably be a 9-3 or 8-4 team in the SEC right now, which gets you nothing, other than a trip to some off-shoot bowl game. Riley’s departure should serve as a wake-up call of just how tough he felt the road they faced was going to be switching conferences.
The jury is still out
Questions still surround these things:
The splash of these new assistant coaching hires: Just what kind of splash will these coaching hires have by Frost?
Through my experience, most vocal fans on social media and message boards go straight to a coach’s recruiting track record and what they have done over their career. Is that always the best barometer? No, but it’s typically what fans will gravitate to first.
Nebraska’s total scholarship numbers: With who walked in Senior Day, by my count Nebraska now has roughly 16 open scholarships. The Huskers have always said they were going to take 12 to 13 high school recruits.
My guess today is you will see around five to seven transfer portal additions added with that 12 to 13 number.
The future of kicker and punter: What does the future of kicker and punter look like for Nebraska in 2022?
Will any of the guys that kicked or punted this season be on the field next year? The Huskers arguably experienced one of the worst kicking and punting seasons in school history.
Transfer QB approach: We assume Nebraska will be in the market for a transfer portal quarterback. How aggressively will they move on one? Recently entered UCF quarterback Dillion Gabriel picked up an NU follow this week on Twitter fwiw.
This has my attention
Moving forward, this has my attention:
QB Adrian Martinez: What will Adrian Martinez do? He had his shoulder surgery on Wednesday. Now he probably has around a six-month recovery ahead.
Does he want to return to NU? The better question is does Nebraska want him back? How marketable would he be in the transfer portal coming off a torn labrum for the second time in his young football career?
Could Martinez consider redshirting the 2022 season to fully heal and then survey his options for 2023? He technically could also play in four games in 2022 and then decide what’s best. There’s so much more to this story that will play out in the coming weeks.
8 league games vs. 9: Anyone that wonders why Big Ten and Pac-12 fans get so worked up about playing 9 vs. 8 conference games, just look at the final league standings.
The Big Ten got nine of 14 teams bowl eligible, while the Pac-12 got six of 12. Meanwhile, the SEC who plays eight league games got 13 of 14 teams bowl eligible and the ACC got 11 of 14 teams.
The extra non-conference game matters. It’s the difference between 5 and 6 wins, which means an additional month of practice time and more development for your football team.
It obviously would not have mattered for Nebraska this year, but teams like Illinois and Rutgers could easily have gotten to 6 wins. Heck, Illinois won four Big Ten games in 2021, but lost to Virginia and UTSA in the non-conference and that kept them out. Florida, Auburn, LSU, Missouri and South Carolina all got to 6 wins by winning only two or three total conference games.
Tracking Frost this week: What will the week look like for Frost? Between interviewing assistant coach candidates and in-home visits, where will things go for Frost?
Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET’s Big Red Wrap-Tuesday’s at 7 pm.
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