2024 RUTGERS RECAP: Halfway There

Nebraska gets to 5-1 despite a very freshman game from its star quarterback

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics.

Though no one would call Saturday’s 14-7 win over Rutgers pretty to watch, especially on the offensive side, getting to a 5-1 record at the midway point of the season is a win for the program. Though 6-0 was on the table, a team that missed a bowl last season matching its win total from 2023 six games into Matt Rhule’s sophomore campaign is an undisputed achievement. Success isn’t judged by style points.

The Rutgers game was a mirror image for each side of the ball.

A defense that had been unfairly questioned after a below-standard performance against Illinois built on a strong day against Purdue to put up one of its best performances of the Rhule tenure vs. Rutgers, generating an Power 4-opponent best 70.6% success rate and recording a havoc play on nearly a quarter of its snaps. A few shaky cutback runs on the first drive created some nervousness against a Scarlet Knights offense that can really only run the ball, but over the remaining play, the Blackshirts were completely dominant. The highlight was a goalline stand where six Rutgers plays from inside the 5 were kept from scoring.

But an offense that had (largely) been the source of excitement and optimism early in the season hit a wall against a quality Big Ten group. The running game, no longer facing the stacked boxes of Illinois and Purdue, wasn’t an overwhelming success, and star freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola had the first game of his tenure you can reasonably call poor. That’s remarkable in and of itself, and while his play this year has been an undisputed plus, marrying in-structure play with his flashy, highlight-generating out-of-structure plays remains elusive. He’s got half of it down, at least. The second half of the season will show if he can add the other, as NU’s attack faces some elite defensive groups.

The team now gets a bye to rest and heal up and correct errors, before a likely ranked road tilt against Indiana that will have a major national spotlight on it.

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This week’s sections are:

• Anatomy Of An Ugly Game

• Coverage Changes

• Short-Yardage Success

• Personnel Diversity

• Monagai Adjustments

• Enough With The Fades

• Unsung Play Of The Week

• Turnover Margin Tracker

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Anatomy Of An Ugly Game

Many of the stats from this offensive performance were the worst from this group so far in 2024: a 31.8% success rate, 3.55 yards per play, and bad performance on first down. Most of those would have been poor compared to the 2023 offense. Off days happen, and Rutgers has a challenging defense, but this was a really off day.

But, digging into the data a bit more, the culprit was largely the passing game: NU had a 42.1% success rate on true runs and run-pass option plays (below the season average and a disappointment against a shaky Rutgers front, but not bad, either). But Nebraska had a successful play on just 5 of 28 called pass plays. On passing downs — second-and-8s or longer or third- and fourth-and-5s or longer — NU had just a 16% success rate. It was a decidedly not-stellar performance for Raiola and the passing offense. 

From just my charting, Saturday was Raiola’s worst day as a Husker, both by accuracy and decision-making. Entering this game, I had him accurate on about 81.3% of his throws and going to the correct place with the ball and on time in true dropback situations at about 67.8% of the time. Against Rutgers, I had him at dead-even 50% accuracy and 47.6% on his decision-making, both well below his worst marks so far this season. That’s without access Nebraska’s playbook or coaching points, so keep in mind that’s more a loose figure, but even by the TV-copy eye test it was clear this was a bit of a struggle for him. 

Upon review, a lot of his issues stemmed from a familiar culprit we’ve seen crop up in his play so far this season: Not taking easy, designed completions in the structure of the offense to hunt for bigger plays. This has been a recurring hiccup in his first six starts, but his arm talent and natural creativity have let him rack up impressive performances and wow moments even without really running all of the concepts. But Saturday, a sticky, talented, veteran Rutgers secondary didn’t give him as many openings to create, making some of the processing uneasiness come to the forefront. 

This was in the first quarter, on a first-and-10:

Nebraska is running a pretty basic horizontal stretch concept, with a jet motion and running back route to the flat meant to widen a zone defense to create space for two quick hook routes, a shorter one by tight end Thomas Fidone and a deeper stop by Jahmal Banks as the Z receiver. 

Either one of the curls here are the primary read; the play is designed to get the ball to Fidone or Banks. The QB has the option to throw the swing should the defense stay condensed on the curls, but that’s more of a pull-in-case-of-emergency route than the initial option.

Raiola looks at Banks very briefly, but his eyes comes off it way too quickly, and he throws straight to the swing route, a misread as the linebackers whom NU is trying to influence are immediately widening to the running back (blue arrows below). Raiola never even considers Fidone’s sit route over the ball. With the defense fast-flowing to the running back to the outside, both of the curl routes — his primary options on the play — end up being clean looks (orange arrows), Fidone for a likely good catch and run or Banks if Raiola wants to try a layered throw: 

This was less a creation-mode mistake and more of a sped-up internal clock or panic error, which is a little confusing as there’s no real pass rush to influence his thinking, either. The back does catch the pass but gets tackled for a short loss, setting up a second-and-long.

Later in the first quarter, NU has a deeper five-step pass on, a combination Sail concept to the field side, with a deep crossing route from the other side of the formation to also create a combo deep crossers look in the middle of the field:

This play represents Nebraska trying to take a shot down the field, with both the back and tight end staying in to chip protect before releasing out into short routes. 

Rutgers is in a good look to defend the downfield pass, starting in a two-high shell and dropping into a deep Cover 3 zone, with the linebackers all staying flat-footed at the snap and then gaining depth. The downfield crossers part of the play is gloved up, and the linebackers have flooded the area where you’d look to throw the Sail. 

The protection holds up well, and Raiola correctly plays out the downfield routes, but with this coverage by a good secondary the shot play is basically dead on arrival. The correct answer here is probably to check it down to the chip-help back or tight end, who both have plenty of green grass in front of them after the linebackers dropped deep:

Raiola instead throws a back-shoulder pass to the middle-depth route on the Sail in a small hole in the zone, which is completed when he makes a god-tier pass between two defenders. A pretty incredible play.

I’m less inclined to ding him for this one, as the creativity/arm talent and finding windows is clearly his superpower as a quarterback, and you don’t under any circumstances want to take that out of his game. Plus, it’s a blast to watch.

But from a process perspective, throwing into double coverage and needing an A++ layered pass to get a completion is probably a worse option than just getting through your progressions to either check-down for comparable yardage. 

This is later in the game, on the final drive before halftime:

Nebraska is running a tweaked Slant-Flat concept to the top of the screen with Banks and Fidone that also is designed as sort of a pick play to rub off the outside corner so that Fidone can get access to the sideline on a short out route after selling a hard vertical stem.

Getting Fidone the ball breaking to the outside is the primary intention of the play. Against a two-high coverage, the coaching points would dictate that if that out route’s open, the ball goes there immediately. At the snap, Raiola’s eyes go to the correct side, and the play works as designed, with Banks (orange arrow) picking his man on the slant route to spring Fidone (blue arrow) easy outside leverage for what should be a decent catch-and-run with the ability to get out of bounds and stop the clock:

The route comes as open as it will ever be, but instead of throwing it, Raiola takes his eyes off the out to go back to the other side of the concept, a baffling decision considering this is “quick game.” “Quick game” is the common parlance for passing concepts designed to get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands fast, often with no drop from the QB and only five players in protection. The goal here for the QB is to catch the ball and throw it, because you don’t have the time to do anything else, and the routes are all short and stopped, so there’s no option for a quarterback to go into creation mode. 

After blowing off the correct side and open receiver, Raiola goes back to the other side of the concept, which is a Curl-Whip look designed to be used against man coverage. This is zone from Rutgers, and Raiola is getting to it far too late anyway, so the play’s dead and he checks it down to the back for a loss. 

Nebraska was operating at fast tempo here before the half, so that could help explain the mental gaffe, but to not have taken the primary route in the concept that’s designed to get the ball when it’s that wide open is also a definite blown assignment. In another before-the-half situation, on a fourth down against Northern Iowa, NU ran this exact same play and concept from the same formation, which played out the exact same way:

It’s unclear why he’s not throwing these, but it’s been a clear issue so far.

A couple snaps later, after a sack, NU is in third-and-22:

The concept on here is a pretty basic high-low of the linebacker in middle-of-field zone coverage, with the No. 3 receiver running a five-yard hitch (blue circle below) and a deeper post route breaking in behind it (yellow arrow): If the linebacker (orange arrow) steps up on the hitch, you throw the post; if the linebacker drops with the post, you throw the hitch.

The Rutgers Mike linebacker drops way downfield immediately in a Tampa 2 coverage, making the hitch open right away:

The hitch-post analysis is the only real read on the play; every other route is just a vertical clearout. When the post-hitch is declared the ball should be out immediately, but Raiola doesn’t throw it, instead taking his eyes to a vertical route by Isaiah Neyor that is bracketed by underneath and over-the-top zone coverage, and then he ends up checking the ball down again when that doesn’t materialize.

One factor here was the clock; NU had just 16 seconds left on a third down and no timeouts. Throwing the hitch would have run out the clock, so I could see Raiola wanting a higher-upside play than just getting to halftime. And coaches on the sideline in the preceding timeout could have told Raiola something to the effect of, “This pass goes into the endzone or it’s to the sideline,” and he was just doing what he was told. I’m not privy to those conversations. But NU also just ended up pooch punting on the next play, so it’s not like they were determined to save the fourth-down opportunity? Unclear to me.