Husker in WI

3 TDs, 1 FG, and a safety? Still not a scoring sequence I'd bet on.

Interesting chart, I wish they had it for more than the leading rusher on each team. Rutgers is generating significantly below average yards before contact, but Monangai gets solidly above average after contact. Teams know they are running Monangai a ton and making it difficult for them. We are fairly below average on yards before contact, and Dowdell slightly below average at getting yards after contact. I know the run defense has felt a little less stingy than expected, but it's still solid by these numbers. Allowing fewer yards before and after contact than average. Rutgers grades out worse than I expected for a Schiano team, but they have not been great against the run. Get ready for Raiola to throw it 40 times!

I really didn't see anything different - he manages to get good zip on the ball some of the time, but the ball tends to take a long time to get from his hand to the receiver on out routes. He's avoiding mistakes well (something he did not do at Minnesota), but otherwise he's the same guy. Washington did well against Monangai to be honest - he had two explosive runs (28 and 40), but otherwise carried 23 times for 64 yards. He's really good, and if you give a really good RB 25 carries he's going to get his yards. Just can't let him get yards on every drive. They'll take shots if you let them, but I think our gameplan will be similar to Washington's. Focus on slowing down Monangai, secondary focus on not letting receivers get deep, and make Kaliakmanis keep hitting the short routes all the way down the field. He will probably end up with a higher completion percentage than any of us like to see, but for relatively low yards. It's really hard to shut down everything an offense wants to do, and our goals are to not give up explosives and stuff the run. We'll kind of let teams take the short pass options on RPOs, and then tighten down on those situationally or when they get near the red zone and there's just less ground for the defense to cover.

I don't think it's that big of a deal - leaping over the pile at the goal line is a reasonably effective short yardage play, and a high jumper is better equipped to get up over the pile than the RBs we have. My bigger issue is Rhule pretty much telegraphed the playcall a year ago, and there's really nothing else Nelson would be doing in the game. He tweeted this right before early signing day, then clarified in his press conference that it was in reference to Nelson and one of the roles they envisioned was a goal line I-Back, diving over the pile like Walter Payton. Even without that context, any team that puts a tiny bit of effort into scouting knows that Nelson is a really good athlete with a currently limited package of plays. He's still a string bean, so we're probably not just having him run into the line. You're watching for a leap over or a play fake with him sprinting to the flat, and it was obvious from his first step that he wasn't going out for a pass. In hindsight a case where using him as a decoy and having Raiola bootleg out, or have a quick handoff to the FB while Nelson leaping over top would be better. But I don't have a problem in general with using him in a critical goal line package - if they're selling out on defense, get the ball to your athletes.

Iowa/OSU is actually mildly interesting to me. Right now Iowa kind of looks like what I've been afraid of - they were never going to embrace offense to the degree necessary to be great, but it does look like they have the usual elite defense with the solid running game they used to have in the mid-2010s. Their throwing numbers are still really bad, but I'm curious just how good the running game is and OSU will put that to the test. OSU is going to win easily, but I will feel better about Black Friday if they're able to completely stuff the run in that victory. Normally I'd consider Iowa State a decent test, but they were only good instead of great against the run last year and they let UND and Houston run it pretty well on them this year.

Well we've lost a 4th year Junior (Prochazka) and a 5th year Senior (Corcoran) to injury, and have demoted another 5th year Senior in Mazzccua. So it was coming into the year - still some reasonable depth. 2 underclassmen, 1 of whom played quite a bit last year is still solid.

I guess to put it another way - sometimes trying to do what others have exploited in an opponent is not as effective as exploiting the weaknesses they present to you. Purdue was begging us to throw for 400 on them, and if some of those PI balls had been thrown to be catchable rather than draw PIs we might've got there. Still around 350 passing + PI yards.

Jones could have taken over for him in 2012, but they would not have overlapped.

Apparently they don't want to tweet it because it reflects poorly on Mazzccua, but Rhule was I would say brutally honest in calling Mazzccua a "backup player for us" in that answer about his availability. He even clarified he has been a back since the middle of the Colorado game, and not due to suspension. I dunno what he did or what the situation is, but he is in the doghouse to a degree that we have not seen any other player get to under Rhule.

Doesn't sound like it went down exactly like that, but yeah it does sound like that is some of it - in the presser today Rhule talked about how Purdue had given up 340+ rushing in back to back games, and how a defensive head coach in particular isn't going to let that happen 3 games in a row so we went in expecting to need to do something different. (Also those teams had running QBs). So as much as people hate it, if teams are going to completely sell out to stop the run the answer isn't "block better!", it's to exploit the weakness and throw it. Also thought it was interesting on the other side of the ball, we knew they loved outside zone and we stopped it. Partway through the game, Purdue switched to whatever Illinois was running against us and we were able to adjust to that as well. With film availability, analysts, and a whole bunch of other stuff it is just way harder to have one gameplan and always do that.

Style points - 2 of Rutgers wins are by 3 points, one of which was won mostly by the opposing teams kicker. Indiana hasn't played anybody, but they've beat all of the nobodies by a lot. And I think a bunch of MAC/Sun Belt all stars actually being decent is a little more believable for voters than Kaliakmanis being able to win them games, or Monangai being so good that he never needs to. I think both of them are 7-5ish teams, but they both got pretty easy schedules and could each win 9.

You can't hit long snappers anymore, so it opened the door for smaller guys. They're usually a bit bigger than that, but even in the NFL the pro bowl long snappers last year were listed at 229 and 240.

I am not sure how long Foster is going to make it. He seems to have recovered from his total freeze at media days, but the PR aspect of being a coach is important. Especially if you can't even think through your answer enough to say anything other than that? They've had a tough schedule, I think given Indiana's apparent improvement 1-3 is what you'd expect no matter who is coaching. But it was not a resounding win against Hawaii, and it doesn't let up for them this week @Penn State. By the time they get to play Minnesota the week after that they might just be done.

He's not, but he's taking care of the ball. It's actually pretty similar to Minnesota when they had a good couple years - not the one where also had 2 NFL receivers. Excellent RB who they will feed as much as they can, scheme that gives the QB easy reads, a big mauling OL, and a very solid defense despite not having any real stars on that side. We're the better team, but feels like we are also much more likely to make mistakes.

He was sacked once in the first quarter, but it was almost 5 seconds after the snap - Benhart got beat pretty clean but sort of kept himself in the way while facing the wrong way for a bit. They held up alright until the very end, and even then it was mostly communication issues rather than just flat out getting beat by the rushers. Same result, but I have more confidence in communication issues getting ironed out than any of the upper classmen making huge strides in play. Gottula was pretty solid, and I do expect him to improve with experience.

Felt like more of the LBs than the DL - although I don't think Jackson is ready for major reps behind Nash and he's still getting them. And I think the OL was fine until OT as well. Illinois has good edge players, and when I was rewatching it seemed like they were beating Boerkircher/Lindenmeyer/Liebentritt/Bonner more than the OL. The made some plays against the OL as well, and overtime was just stupendously bad. False start, missed a stunt, I put 2nd down more on Raiola for waiting 4 seconds and running backwards but there wasn't a great pocket to step up into, and then I have to assume 4th down was the RBs fault. Can't imagine you set up the protection for Scott to take the LB and Emmett to be one on one with a 250 lb edge. Definitely some things to improve, but it didn't look like the lines were overmatched until the OL in overtime. Defense just felt like their OC found some good wrinkles and exploited them, but it wasn't just pushing the DL around.

Indiana Opponents FEI/SP+ FIU: 121/143 Western Illinois: N/A, 328!!! UCLA: 68/77 Charlotte: 127/167 Nebraska Opponents FEI/SP+ UTEP: 128/174 Colorado: 75/66 Northern Iowa: N/A/149 Illinois: 46/43 It is honestly pretty even, we are currently 37/31 in these rankings and Indiana is 43/30. They have had the easier schedule by a decent margin though - UCLA/Colorado are similar, and both teams were handled easily. FIU, Charlotte, and UTEP are all in the same range and got throttled. Northern Iowa actually fits more into that bucket than Western Illinois, who is one of the worst ranked FCS teams. So 3 games are about a wash, but when you've only played 4 games trading Western Illinois for actual Illinois is a huge difference. We are currently 37/31, Indiana is 43/30. You're right the team can't show up expecting a cake walk, but I think if you swap the teams we'd be somewhere in the 15-20 range and not necessarily inside the top 15. And I don't really care if fans expect to just roll traditionally bad programs - it's on them when they're disappointed in a close game or a loss because they aren't paying enough attention to how good those teams are now. I don't think Indiana is as good as they appear, but they have certainly built some momentum and are much better than expected. I don't think the MAC/Sun Belt all-star team holds up through Big Ten play.

I probably underestimated Altmyer, he played a good game. I'm not sure he's quite as good as his stat line suggests, but he played really well. From White's comments this week, seems like Altmyer played well enough that White felt the need to move away from the "just stop the run" gameplan which did work in the first half - they were at 12 carries for 39 yards. Switching it up kicked off a series of adjustments between White and the Illinois OC, which their OC won. Sounded like he regretted making whatever changes they did, and it's probably a good lesson for him. The gameplan appeared to be stop the run and make Altmyer beat you, and just because he's beating you more than expected doesn't mean it should be abandoned. If he was lighting us up and they were up 24-10 at half sure, but when they are at 3 yards a carry, we are up 17-10, and Altmyer was just super efficient you can still live with that. With the benefit of hindsight, of course. Now maybe if we don't make those adjustments they really dial in the passing game and he throws for 350 instead of 215, but I think it's more likely he would have eventually started making mistakes. Also really hope Javin Wright can make it back. Bullock is playing possessed, but Thompson is playing really slow. I'd like to see more Shavers - easy for me to say when I'm not on the hook for the defenses performance, but I'd take some freshman mistakes that would come with the energy and athleticism upgrade.

It would also have ranked 103rd in YPC last year. And an average doesn't mean you get that exact amount - you'd expect roughly half of your carries to go for less than that. Actually more than half, because it's easier for a long run to skew the average up than it is for negative runs to bring it down. 10 yard runs are a lot more common than (non-sack) -10 yard runs.

Not a great look for UNLV. There was a "report" earlier this morning that Sluka just demanded more money after their good start, but it was first circulated by essentially a UNLV PR guy so seems a little dubious. Sucks for the team and Sluka, but honestly if you don't put your foot down somewhere the promises with no intent to fulfill them will continue. Contracts would be nice.

Depends on which defense shows up, the decent one we saw against UNI/Illinois or the great one we saw for a lot of last year and most of the Colorado/UTEP games. I also think USC is a likely L and they appear to be the better team by a decent bit, but I don't hate how we match up.

USC's game on November 16th might be a good one for him to attend.

I think they've had some injuries and the OL is meh, but if DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, Rome Odunze, Cole Kmet, and D'Andre Swift and a great defense is not a talented team I don't know what is. I do agree almost every QB would benefit from sitting a year or two, but Williams is in as good a situation as I can recall for a rookie QB. The NFL is tough.

We also have a version where Fidone takes that same path and glances back for the ball, but then turns upfield to block and we flip it out to the RB on a swing pass instead. It's a nice twist on the checkdown swing pass with a lead blocker that is trendy. It is truly amazing how much more creative coordinators can seem when they have talent to work with. I have to assume there was a ton of creativity last year, but it's a lot harder to notice when the results are terrible. This one has Fidone in motion, but I assume we could run it with him as the stationary wing too. We have options if teams continue to crash hard on the arrow like UTEP did - haven't even mentioned the normal 3rd option on the Arrow RPO, where the QB just takes it up the seam if the defense is in good position for both the handoff and arrow. Probably not something we want Raiola to do a lot though.

I couldn't be bothered to watch the Central Michigan game (which was only 13-6 at the half), but watching the Kansas game I am feeling more comfortable. They had a lot of things going right for them, including but not limited to: A couple really nice catches that either aren't likely to be repeatable, or in some cases really should have been picked off Jalon Daniels throwing balls straight at the defenders KU just dropping the ball on what would have been a long TD on a reverse right before half, then turning around and throwing a pick six A Illini muffed punt being knocked into the end zone, where apparently an Illini recovery is not a safety, not even a return the ball to the spot of the muff, but a touchback out to the 20 What sounded like a surprisingly lively home crowd which could have been the audio mix of the broadcast. They are not likely to get all of those same breaks, and definitely will have a disadvantage with the crowd. I know you can't draw huge conclusions from screenshots because it doesn't tell the whole story of what's happening, but in these cases I think they do. This is a TD, they flow hard and got hit by misdirection or Neal going straight up the gut as everyone was running horizontally pretty consistently. This was an INT. Now I know this doesn't show the coverage on the back end, but you have eight defenders falling over each other biting on the play action. You then have 3 one on ones deep where the receivers have a huge amount of room to find some space - and instead, he throws it to the safety. Again I understand this doesn't show everything, but barring a superhuman play by the DB you cannot throw an INT when the defense bites this hard. Luke Altmyer is just not it, and I do not understand why they keep rolling with Feagin at RB. He's big and when he gets moving he has some speed. But he shifts down like 3 gears to make even a slight cut, runs high and gets chopped down a lot, and just doesn't punish people the way a massive back should. I like Bryant and Franklin but they are more solid than great. The OL is huge but KU got around them a lot with stunts and things we do well. Defensively, hard for me to judge the pass rush because I don't know much about KU's line. They didn't get a lot of pressure, but I'm willing to believe KU's tackles are better than ours and the threat of Daniels breaking contain had them rushing more passively than they will against us. I am not a blocking expert, but really like how much horizontal movement KU did with motions and pullers, and the job Devin Neal in particular did getting north while the defense was going east or west. They seem really overaggressive (may have just been their gameplan against KU), which hopefully we can exploit. Seeing their INT numbers had me a bit worried that their DC had reinvented their secondary from a few years back, but they have played: An Eastern Illinois QB who has thrown 27 career INTs Jalon Daniels, who I think is really good but made a lot of really bad reads and throws in the game Joe Labas, who couldn't find QB playing time at Iowa and is already up to 6 INTs on the year (only 1 to Illinois) So I do think it's a solid secondary, but it is not the reincarnation of their 2022 Devon Witherspoon (1st rd)/Jartavius Martin (2nd rd)/Sydney Brown (3rd rd) secondary. I think we will have a good day offensively both running and throwing, shut down Feagin, force Altmyer into a couple mistakes, and win pretty handily. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.