2024 Preseason Superlatives

Handing out awards to some players, units, and scheme ideas ahead of the season's first game

Turner Corcoran leaves the tunnel ahead of a game. His success at left tackle is a key factor for the offense this season.

Before Saturday’s season kickoff against UTEP, I wanted to discuss a few areas of strength and conce

rn, some schematic elements to watch early in and throughout the year, and make a couple irresponsible predictions. I’ve done this in the most fun way I can think of: handing out some awards!¹

Starter I’m Most Confident In:

Nash Hutmacher, Nose Tackle

Hutmacher is on the short list of best interior defensive linemen in the country and is probably the best true 0-technique nose tackle in the college sport, full-stop. 

Playing a position where his primarily responsibility was to eat up blocks to free up other d-linemen or second-level defenders to make plays, he generated surface-level numbers of 40 tackles, 8.0 tackles for loss, and 4.5 sacks, and his advanced numbers showed him ranking top 40 nationally among all interior linemen in run stops and pressures generated — well above anyone else who was playing a true 0 nose.

More than any schematic change Nebraska made to the 3-3-5, the Huskers’ defense made a drastic improvement last season because it suddenly had a player who could do this up the middle:

If NU wants to repeat its top-10 defensive performance from last season, it will need Hutmacher to cause havoc again. He might even be better: Hutmacher played last season at 330 pounds and has trimmed down this year to 310, so we should see him be even more explosive, which is scary to think about. The lighter weight may help him stay on the field for longer, too, and could let him move around to different spots in pass-rush packages. 

Nose tackles don’t get much love or always pop off the screen, but Hutmacher is NU’s best player at the position in some time and the clear best returner on the team. Nebraska will never have another player like Ndamukong Suh, but Hutmacher’s level of havoc-causing from an interior, block-eating spot is about as close as the team has come to replicating it since.

Starter I’m Least Confident In: 

Turner Corcoran, Left Tackle

NU entered preseason camp with solid offensive line depth but saw it tested right away with a season-ending knee injury to presumed starting left tackle Teddy Prochazka. Prochazka going down forces Corcoran back into playing tackle, a spot where he’s been a major, major liability as a pass protector in the past.

In two full seasons as a starter at left tackle, Corcoran allowed an FBS-worst 60 pressures in 2021 (the next-worst tackle gave up 46 pressures), and he allowed 44 pressures in 2022, fourth-worst nationally. His pass-protection win rates of 91.5% and 93.8% ranked last both years among all tackles to take at least 300 pass sets. He was injured for much of last season and only appeared in seven games, but in those 165 pass sets he allowed another 15 pressures, with a win rate that was in the bottom 10 of the FBS among those same starting tackles.

On tape, Corcoran is an athletic, effective run blocker who is at his best when asked to push and maul people forward — a true plus player in the running game. But he struggles with length and speed around the edge when pass setting, letting quicker players run the hoop on him and get to the quarterback. And with over 1,000 pass sets in his career, that’s probably not something to bet on getting better at this point in a fifth-year senior’s career.

With his skill set, a move inside to guard — where he would have a tackle to his outside shoulder and wouldn’t have to deal with lateral widening to handle speed — is probably the most effective spot for him. When he was a top-70 recruit in the 2020 class, most of the big schools courting Corcoran (and in the future, likely the NFL) reportedly viewed him as a guard. But in Nebraska’s effort to get its five best linemen on the field, some combination of ineffectiveness or injury has forced Corcoran to the LT spot for his entire career in Lincoln. With Prochazka having the first healthy offseason of his career, it looked as if Corcoran might finally be able to slide inside, but the injury will force him back to that tackle spot. The injury also means that if Corcoran is hurt himself or ineffective and needs replaced, Nebraska will be inserting either Grant Seagren or Gunnar Gottula — both second-year freshmen who haven’t really played — into the starting lineup. A healthy Prochazka would have given NU the flexibility to have Corcoran start at guard and then kick out to tackle in case of an injury, or just function as a swing sixth offensive lineman who could play any tackle or guard spot, which would have been pretty valuable. Now he’s be counted on for a ton of snaps at his worst position.

We’ve seen fifth-year breakouts at Nebraska from previously ineffective linemen, and that’s always on the table. And having one bad lineman isn’t always a huge deal — you can chip help or slide to that side to help out one liability within the unit. But improvement as a pass protector from Corcoran would represent him reaching just “below average” performance instead of “FBS-worst,” which is not typically a recipe for success on the blind side of a true freshman quarterback.

Question I’m Watching Early In The Season:

Does Tony White Have An Answer For Post-Snap Optionality?

The 3-3-5 defense is one built to surprise offenses with unexpected shifts, rushers, and coverage drops after the snap. The scheme worked pretty well for Nebraska in its first season under Tony White, as it finished sixth nationally in SP+ defensive efficiency.

But there was one concerning undercurrent as the season went along: Offenses that ran a lot of run-pass options — plays that allows offenses to decide if they’re running the ball or passing the ball after the snap based on how the defense aligns or behaves — were a lot more successful against NU than more traditional offenses.

Below is Nebraska’s success rate on defense² against teams that ran more traditional, non-RPO-based offensive schemes: 

Non-RPO Offenses

• Minnesota: 64.7%

• Northern Illinois: 79.0%

• Michigan: 35.6%

• Northwestern: 68.9%

• Michigan State: 69.1%

• Iowa: 72.3%

Aside from the Michigan buzz-sawing, NU was dominant against the more traditional offenses on its schedule, winning two-thirds of the plays against all but Minnesota and putting some real whoopings on NIU, Michigan State, and Iowa. When we remember the best defensive performances last year, they mostly came against these types of schemes.

But here’s the defense’s success rate against teams that ran a lot of RPOs:

RPO Offenses

• Colorado: 59.7%

• Louisiana Tech: 67.4%

• Illinois: 66.7%

• Purdue: 73.7%

• Maryland: 62.1%

• Wisconsin: 55.2%

Aside from the Purdue game outlier, these teams all had more success against NU. None of these offenses actually won the balance of the matchup, but Wisconsin and Colorado came closest of anyone outside of Michigan to actually beating the Blackshirts last year. Even a team like La. Tech, with a huge talent disadvantage, was able to perform better than it probably should have. Especially concerning were the two matchups late in the year against Maryland and UW, as those could represent teams figuring out some answers with optionality’s effectiveness against this defensive structure. NU responded the next week after those two performances with a good game against Iowa, but a strong defensive performance against the 2024 Hawkeyes doesn’t really count for much.

That these types of schemes had more success makes a certain logical sense: If a defense is doing funky/unexpected stuff after the snap, offensive schemes that provide multiple answers within a play are going to fare better than the, “We’re Running Wide Zone; Try To Stop Us”-style old Big Ten schemes. The question is, in Year 2, with more equity built up in the base defense and an ability to play more designer looks, can Nebraska adjust to these offenses?

One way would just be for improved play from defenders to win more one-on-one matchups: It’s hard to run any play call if you get immediate pressure in your face, and a glance RPO doesn’t work if a corner gloves up the pass route. But there are some schematic things White could consider to counteract this: Disguising more coverages or rotating more coverage shells, aligning more players in the overhang, dropping defensive linemen or likely blazers into surprise coverage gaps in the middle of the field to discourage pulling the ball, for example. 

NU will face a lot of optionality-heavy schemes early. UTEP runs an extreme go-go system that utilizes as much spread and RPO game as possible, and Colorado utilized a ton of RPOs last season, though it seems to have adopted a slightly more pro-style direction this yea. Northern Iowa, Illinois, Purdue, and Indiana all in the first seven weeks will also incorporate RPOs. 

White made a huge adjustment midseason last year, switching from a pretty classic 3-3-5 structure early in the year to embracing more of a 4-2-5 alignment as he got more familiar with Big Ten play. With so many RPO teams on the schedule early, we’ll have an answer soon on how he’s approached this in the offseason, or if he thinks it’s an issue.

Question I’m Watching For The Full Season:

Did Turnover Margin Become A Weapon?

Nebraska’s struggles with turnover margin over the last two decades are well documented (a -105 margin since 2004, with no other Power 4 conference team worse than -55), and the -17 mark last year (second-worst in the nation) was probably the key factor in NU’s several close losses down the stretch as it was attempting to make a bowl game.

Most people inside and outside the program expect the turnover margin to improve. Nebraska would probably have to be intentionally trying to give the ball away to top last year’s FBS-worst 31 lost turnovers, and every team in the past five years with 30 or more giveaways in a season has seen that total drop significantly the next year. The defense, too, has room for growth, as most top-10 efficiency units usually don’t finish 104th in takeaways. It’s a pretty safe bet the turnover margin will improve in 2024.

The question is, how much? If NU were to go from last year’s -17 to, say, -9, that would represent a major improvement, but that would also still represent turnovers being a major weight around the team’s neck. The goal for the turnover margin is for it to become a weapon in Nebraska’s favor. 

The quality of actual down-to-down football at Nebraska and places like Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota has not been that different the last seven years, but those programs have all been able to make turnovers work as benefits for them, while at NU they’ve been an anchor: Iowa was -7 last year but previously hadn’t had a negative turnover season since 2014 and was +69 in that 2022-2014 stretch. Wisconsin hasn’t had a negative turnover season period since ‘14, and is +24 since. Minnesota hasn’t been negative since P.J. Fleck’s second season in 2018 and is +14 overall since that year. Nebraska has been negative six of the last seven seasons, and hasn’t had a positive turnover margin since 2016. Since 2014, Nebraska is -54 in turnovers. If you want one reason why those three programs with similar on-field play have won so many games over this recent stretch and NU has not, it’s that: Those teams have made turnovers work as benefits, while Nebraska lets them be ruinous. 

Can NU make it a positive this year? Rhule is definitionally a ball-control coach and seems to understand he needs to fix this. There’s been a lot of talk that generating takeaways was a focal point of the defense in the offseason, but takeaways are pretty luck dependent, and I’m not sure “making it a focal point” actually helps you generate more. The offense obviously needs to be much better than 31 giveaways, but can they cut that figure in half? And can you do that with a true freshman starting at quarterback? Most teams with positive margins last season were anywhere from eight to 20 giveaways last year; can the Huskers drop into that range?

The -9 example earlier would be an improvement and probably still give this team a chance to be good, with six or seven wins. But if Nebraska can get in that +2 or +4 territory, this is a roster and schedule that could get even higher than that.

What’s Keeping Me Up At Night:

Are We Barrelling Toward A Specialist Disaster?

Does Nebraska have anyone who can kick a football? 

Placekicker Tristan Alvano went 9 for 15 on field goals last year, a rate that was tied for 117th nationally. But he was perfect on extra points, and 5 of the 6 missed field goals were attempts over 40 yards. Kicks always felt like an adventure last year, but a true freshman being basically perfect under 40 yards is also, like, fine/reasonable. As long as they’re continuing to develop and get more consistent.

There seems to be some real reasons to be anxious about that. First, Alvano had two ugly misses on short kicks in the spring game. Nebraska then added transfer kicker John Hohl from Iowa Western in the summer to compete with him.³ As camp began, Alvano wasn’t on the initial practice roster as it was announced he was recovering from a previously undisclosed groin injury. He later was said to be about “90%” healthy toward the end of camp and kicking consistently again, but his spot on the first depth chart is shared with Hohl. I don’t think anyone could tell you who’s going to run out there to attempt the first field goal or extra point Saturday.

Rhule has talked optimistically about the placekicker situation on the whole, saying the players are making their attempts in practice. But Rhule has also not been strictly honest about player camp performance to the media in the past, so I’m not sure if we can trust what he’s saying. And, regardless, making practice kicks is a lot different than lining up for one when the lights come on in front of a huge, loud crowd.

For a team that’s made its offseason mantra that it’s “chasing three” points every game, it would probably be good to have someone who could reliably get them three points when they line up for a kick. This is a team that will probably find itself in a ton of close games, and a competent kicker could be the difference between, say, eight wins and not making a bowl.

Less worrying but still questionable is the punting. Brian Buschini came to Nebraska in 2022 as an FCS Punter of the Year and was fine in his first year as a starter from a yardage perspective, with a 44.0-yard average that was 26th nationally. But he fell to 40.7 yards last season, which was in the bottom 20 in the FBS, and had multiple mishits where he looked like he didn’t cleanly make contact with the ball. People who saw the open practice also said Buschini had the shanks. That’s just one practice, but from what the public has seen … not inspiring. 

When he actually gets ahold of the ball, Buschini has a decent leg and gets the ball in the air in a way that prevents returns (20th and 25th nationally in hangtime in his two years), but he also really doesn’t ever pin anything deep and can’t be used as a weapon, the way seemingly every other Big Ten team uses their punter. And for a guy who’s reportedly not hitting the ball well to have no real veteran competition or insurance brought in feels like a missed chance; NU did add true freshman Kamdyn Koch, but he doesn’t seem like an option for 2024. For a team that needs to rapidly improve its field position to help its defense, it can’t really afford to be holding its breath every time its third-year starting punter takes the field. 

What I’m Most Excited To Watch:

The Defensive Line and the Miami Freshman

This is the best NU defensive front in a while, definitely since the Randy Gregory-Maliek Collins-Vincent Valentine group in 2014 and possibly since the Suh-Jared Crick lineup in 2009. I’m stoked to watch them detonate people.

Beyond Hutmacher, Ty Robinson is more of a boom-or-bust player than I think his reputation with fans lets on, but he’s still a great havoc-causing 3-technique and a good pass rusher from that spot.

At edge, Jimari Butler is a physical freak who advanced metrics suggest is about to blow up into a big season, and he looks like an insane bad ass wearing his new No. 1 jersey:

Rising true sophomore Princewill Umanmielen was one of the most efficient pass rushers in the conference last year as an 18-year-old, and might represent that NFL-caliber one-on-one edge rush winner Nebraska hasn’t had since Gregory. Cam Lenhardt similarly played well on the edge last year as a true freshman and has been one of the most praised players of the offseason. 

There are tons of other d-linemen I’m stoked to see play or intrigued by: James Williams came in from a JUCO and won nearly a quarter of his pass-rush reps before taking a redshirt; Elijah Jeudy was an underrated penetrator on the interior; Riley Van Poppel and Kai Wallin both had good moments in first years with the program; and Sua Lefotu and Vincent Jackson were buzzy players in offseason workouts and camp.

One of my favorite things in football is to watch an elite defensive line wreck shop. It hasn’t felt like NU has had the line play to compete with the rest of the conference since joining the Big Ten, but this staff has quickly changed that. This is a group with top-end talent and real depth that’s playing a projected pretty weak o-line schedule. We could be in for some real fireworks here.

The other thing I’m jonesing to see is the impact of NU’s five signees in the 2024 class from Miami, who have been the talk of camp. Nebraska has had various failed regional recruiting movements during my time as a fan (Calibraska, anyone?), but this Miami thing seems pretty real. Jacory Barney Jr. seems like a big play waiting to happen on offense or special teams, Vincent Shavers seems like he’ll maybe be the first linebacker off the bench, and Amare Sanders was the No. 2 outside corner in the first depth chart. Willis McGahee IV and Larry Tarver Jr. seem like redshirt candidates now, but at various points in camp were mentioned as having performed well. That’s five possible contributors, none of whom were highly ranked, from one spot.

Most Important Supporting Character:

Justin Evans, Left Guard

Evans, who previously went by Justin Evans-Jenkins, was an afterthought recruit in the 2022 class, ranked in the 1,500s. Most other schools recruited him as a defensive tackle, and many members of Nebraska’s previous staff reportedly didn’t think he deserved an offer until then-head coach Scott Frost pushed for him late in the cycle.⁴

Two years later, he may be Nebraska’s best interior offensive lineman. After a redshirt year in which he was the co-offensive scout team player of the year, Evans made five starts after Ethan Piper’s injury at guard and appeared in all 12 games. 

In 314 snaps, he allowed just three total pressures, with a team-best 98.4% pass block win rate. At 6’1, he’s more of a stout guy on the inside who relies on leverage, and he struggles to physically move longer interior defensive lineman. But he’s not a liability in the run game and has the athleticism to be a good puller. He comes from a high school wrestling background, and it shows on his tape with both his quick movements in a phone booth and body blocking/positioning as both a run and pass blocker. 

Evans is the heir apparent at center next season when Ben Scott leaves the program, but he was still able to win a tough guard competition and will start Saturday on the left side. Evans and Scott is a great interior pass-protecting duo to that side, and I think both are sneaky bets to end up on an all-Big Ten team if NU has a good season. But what Nebraska really needs is fot Evans to keep up his strong pass-pro play with Corcoran’s liabilities as a pass protector as the tackle next to him. True freshman starting quarterbacks, even the great ones, are vulnerable to sacks, so Evans being able to help shore up any weakness from Corcoran is paramount and might be one of the biggest concerns on the offense.

Irresponsible Player Prediction:

Jaylen Lloyd Will Break The Nebraska Single-Season Receiving Yardage Record

This prediction took a bit of a hit when the first depth chart was released Monday and Lloyd was with the No. 2s, but it seems like he’s getting starter treatment by the staff and will play as much as anyone, so I still think it’s possible he still gets here.

This is essentially a bet in two parts: A) that Lloyd is really good with a special skill as a deep-ball receiver, and B) that he doesn’t really need to get that many yards to break the record. 

Last season, Lloyd as a true freshman played 13 combined snaps in the first seven games of the year before starting to see the field for the final five contests. In those last five games, against Purdue, Michigan State, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Iowa, Lloyd went for 237 receiving yards on just 67 total passing snaps, with a 3.84 yards per route run rate. That’s a figure that essentially measures how often a receiver is turning their time on the field into actual receiving production, or if they’re just out there running wind sprints. 

Since 2019, only nine receivers in all of FBS have had a yards per route run figure for a season higher than Lloyd’s 3.84, and they’re guys like CeeDee Lamb, Devonta Smith, Elijah Moore, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Now you’re saying, “Wait, isn’t that inflated because he just caught several deep balls?” Yes. Definitely. I don’t think Jaylen Lloyd is one of the 10 most efficient receivers of the last six years. He’s not going to be a package guy anymore and will be asked to do harder stuff as a sophomore, and his efficiency will drop. 

But I don’t think it will fall off that dramatically, mostly because I don’t really think many college secondary players can stay in front of this guy. 

Think back to Lloyd’s long catches last year, against Purdue, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The plays against the Boilermakers and Hawkeyes are essentially Lloyd getting isolated on a corner and just running straight past them, with the safety not able to stay over the top, and the play against Wisconsin he also wins an isolation route but instead outraces cloud coverage for a score. 

UW and Iowa have good secondaries, and a lot of good corners. So does the rest of the Big Ten.

But not all of them are elite athletes. If you think about the best secondaries on NU’s schedule next year, not many have great physical talent. Ohio State and Colorado are probably the best from a pure athleticism/NFL perspective. But Iowa, Wisconsin, and Rutgers are all more zone coverage-heavy schemes that rely on their players’ smarts, physicality and technique. But those things can’t help you as much if you encounter a receiver that can just run right by you. Ask NFL defenses about Tyreek Hill or DeSean Jackson. I think a guy with Lloyd’s rare type of speed can do a lot of damage down the field, even against good Big Ten secondaries.

Lloyd also stands to benefit now that NU has added a quarterback with the most talented arm in school history. Lloyd played most of his games last year with Heinrich Haarberg, who struggled to throw down the field from both a decision-making and accuracy perspective. Chubba Purdy was an improvement, and Lloyd scored two of his touchdowns in those starts, but Dylan Raiola is a better downfield passer by an order of magnitude and seems not afraid of slinging that thing downfield. I think the staff is going to deploy Lloyd on a lot of downfield concepts that force man-on-man locks against zone coverage and put Lloyd in a footrace with defensive backs, like Mills concepts (what he scored on against Wisconsin) and things like switch verticals, which he scored on in the spring game off a long pass from Raiola.

It’s also a good bet to think Lloyd will be more involved underneath. He’s probably never going to be a big-bodied ball-winner, but he’s also going to pad his stats more this season with things like shallow cross routes, drag screens, and other man coverage-beaters where he has open access to the middle of the field to add to his yardage. Basically anything where he isn’t pressed, I think he’s going to win on.

The second part of this prediction is that Lloyd doesn’t really need to be that productive to break the school record. Decades of option- and run-based football from this program have kept the receiving yardage record pretty low, with the top mark Trey Palmer’s 1,043 yards in 2022, barely passing Stanley Morgan’s 1,004 yards in 2018. 

Over the last five full seasons, an average of 28 FBS players per year have gone over 1,043 receiving yards. So to set this mark, Lloyd would really just have to become a top-30 receiver, not necessarily some elite, all-conference, world-dominator guy. Probably a bit of a stretch, but seems doable? This wasn’t a responsible prediction, after all.

What Does A Successful Season Look Like?

Continued Development And A Bowl Game

I seem to be less concerned with a team’s win-loss record than other people, so my desire for 2024 NU is really just to see proof of continued development from this staff. Rhule wants to run a developmental program, and Year 1 was an unimpeachable success: A ton of players made huge leaps from where they were under Frost in, essentially, one offseason.

But that’s just the groundwork. NU still needs to up its talent level to get back to being a program that can consistently win eight or nine games. What I’m really looking for in 2024 is to see that continue, with elements of the program making leaps on their Year 1 leaps. That means players are improving, that means things like the turnover margin are being addressed, and that means the coaching staff is building on schemes to keep putting people in the most advantageous spots.

But I also think this is a roster that should at least definitely make a bowl. It’s one of the bigger flukes in the sport that the program hasn’t been to the postseason in seven years, as it’s had at least three teams that advanced stats say should have had more than six wins in that period. And this roster feels much more complete than any of those teams, and feels like the most solid group since the Bo Pelini era. I question how much high-end, elite talent it has, but I also don’t see any huge holes, something I can’t say about any of the last several Husker teams. I think this is a group with a pretty high floor, and the schedule seems favorable, at least in August. I’ve seen some eight- or nine-win predictions, and while that feels a little premature, if things break right I could see a big number, too.

I’ll split the difference and say my prediction is 7-5. We’ll start the journey in two days. GBR.

1. Full disclosure: I’ve blatantly ripped off most of this format and these questions from ‘The Athletic Football Show’ podcast’s NFL divisional previews, which was using some of these questions to go through each NFL team as a form of season preview. I thought it’d be fun exercise to apply to Nebraska and let me hit some final key areas before kickoff — but credit to them for coming up with it.

2. Success Rate is an efficiency metric that evaluates how often a unit gets a “successful” play. A defense was “successful” on a play based on if it prevented an offense from gaining 50% of the yards to-go on first down, 70% of the yards to-go on second down, and all of the yards to-go on third and fourth down.

3. Hohl is reportedly a “five-star” kicker but there also seem to be, like, 50 “five-star” kickers every year. So I couldn’t tell you what that means.

4. Gotta give him some credit.