2025 MICHIGAN STATE RECAP: Backstops

A change to the structure of the defense helps slow big plays, while special teams and field position allow NU to get a win without being perfect

Oct 09, 2025

This week’s sections are:

Defense Puts More On The Second Level
First Game Against Man Coverage
The Return Of Screens
The Profile Suggests The Defense Is Elite. Why Doesn’t It Feel That Way?
Sack Yardage Isn’t A Sign The Run Game Is Bad
Rex Guthrie Is Just A Starter Now
Turnover Margin (And Field Position) Tracker
Programming Note

Defense Puts More On The Second Level

If limiting big runs emerged as a key after the first four games, one of the adjustments I believe we saw coming out of the bye against Michigan State was a defensive structure that prioritized fewer bodies up front and deep and more in the 5- to 8-yard range (the “second level” of the defense).

Entering the MSU game, NU had played just 24 of its 127 standard-down snaps with 3 or more bodies on the second level of the box (18.9%). Nebraska was committed to both playing a four-down front (used on 61.7% of possible early-down snaps) and also heavily using two- and three-safety alignments (two or three safeties used on 56.5% of snaps). Defensive alignment is all about resource allocation, so if your defense is consistently putting four players up front and two or three deep, you’re not going to have many bodies to put in the middle-depth of the spine of the defense. That was at least partially an issue on the big Michigan runs — having bodies at the second level can function as sort of a backstop for the front against the run (including QB runs), cleaning up any mistakes and providing a harder surface for the offensive line to block. Theoretically, having deep safeties should cap big plays, too, but tackling from deep depth is just harder, and without a second level the ball carrier is often getting long, untouched runways straight at those safeties, which makes it even more challenging. We saw that on the long Justice Haynes run against UM, when Marques Buford missed a tackle coming downhill from a Cover 3 deep zone.

Against Michigan State, though, there were more resources allocated to that second level and fewer to the front and deep depth. Whereas only 18.9% of plays in the first four games had had three or more players on the second level in the box, that rate was over 24%. And there were several other reps with a down safety just outside the box to further reinforce the second level that don’t show up in the charting.

Moving more bodies to the second level first meant fewer players on the line, and we saw the return of the three-player fronts to the defense. While the classic 3-3-5 three-player Odd front usage was sort of overestimated by fans and media under Tony White — Nebraska used four-down fronts more akin to a 4-2-5 defense on over 60% of its plays in 2024 and 46% of its plays in 2023 — White still utilized the Odd fronts fairly consistently, at 28.2% of standard-down reps in his first season with NU and 19% last year. John Butler, though, had largely eschewed them in the first four games of 2025, running just five total snaps of standard down Odd front.1 In one of my previous posts I had said I thought the 3-3-5 structure within the defense might be dead and this was just a full-time 4-2-5 team.

I jumped the gun there. We saw the Odd front return against MSU, with nine total reps of three-player fronts, most out of the classic 3-3 stack. This meant moving JACK linebacker (typically Dasan McCullough) from the edge and putting him on the second level aligned over the tackle for most plays:

While it was only nine out of 44 standard down snaps, it did provide a slightly beefed up second level of NU on those nine plays. The snaps against MSU out of a three-player front had a blistering 88.9% success rate — either that was a real help to the general structure of the defense, or Michigan State just wasn’t prepared to see that shell. Either way, it worked.

The second way NU got more bodies on the second level was by coming out of some of the heavy safety alignments. Entering the game, NU’s safety distribution pre-snap had been about 41.1% single-high, 45.2% two-high, and 11.3% three-high. Against Michigan State, it aligned pre-snap at 65.5% single-high, 22.4% two-high, and 6.9% three-high. NU also rotated to single-high safety looks several times after displaying a different shell before the snap, and the post-snap rate of single-high safeties was actually about 75.5% of plays.

With only one player deep on over three-quarters of plays — compared to about 40% in the first four games — that second (or third) safety was now on the second level, either in the box or split out wide and able to fill on the run from an apex position.

This could have been a one-game tactic, but if it keeps up, NU using single-high safety shells on 75% of its snaps would be among the most aggressive uses in the nation and a big outlier from previous years; the Huskers under White were only at about 40% single-high usage in 2024 and 56% in 2023. This would be a huge increase on just about anything we’ve seen in recent seasons.

The trade-off for that heavy of usage is that there will fewer players deep to put a top on deep passes, but this staff seems to really trust the secondary (for good reason), so the increased use of single-high we saw could be a way Nebraska’s staff is leveraging its good secondary to bolster a front that’s given up big runs.

One final element that suggests the staff is trying to beef up the second level is the heavier use of a four defensive back personnel Saturday and late in the Michigan game. NU’s defense bases out of Nickel personnel — meaning five defensive backs on the field — and had played that way on 82.6% of its snaps in the first three games. It had played just two snaps to that point with fewer than five DBs on the field, almost all on the goalline or in short yardage. Against Michigan, though, the defense took one of its three safeties off the field and played with only four defensive backs (meaning adding an extra linebacker or defensive lineman) on 18 snaps, or 33.3% of its plays. Fourteen of those 18 reps with the extra DL/LB on the field came after the 54-yard touchdown run by UM in the third quarter, with Nebraska playing that look almost exclusively down the stretch of that game except for when it went into Dime.

We saw that usage of the four defensive back personnel continue — though lessened — against Michigan State, with it being used on seven snaps — 11.9% of defensive plays with the starters in — which is just another, I think, indication we may be seeing at least a slight shift away from the “four-down and three-deep” defense after that structure gave up some gashes.

Again, this could have just been a Michigan State adjustment to something the staff saw in their offensive scheme. It could revert back to normal next week; we’ll have to watch it. But seeming these three changes after a game in which you gave up a bunch of untouched big runs doesn’t seem coincidental.

First Game Against Man Coverage

NU had its worst day on offense of the season against Michigan State by a pretty sizeable margin, with just a 42.3% overall success rate that was 12 percentage points below the season average, and a 17.3% rate of allowing “havoc plays” (tackles for loss, sacks, pass breakups, batted passes, interceptions, or fumbles) that was double what it usually is.

At least partially at play was Michigan State’s coverage distribution.

Nebraska’s opponents entering Saturday’s game had so far had been extremely zone coverage heavy, but Michigan State was the first team to really play man coverage at even a decent amount.

Opponents had been at about 79% zone coverage to 21% man coverage on all plays in the first four games, and at about 83% zone and 17% man against Nebraska’s true pass reps. Cincinnati, Akron and Houston Christian had all been about three-quarters zone coverage, and Michigan ran zone on almost every down against the Huskers. A lot of those man-coverage reps came in the redzone or short-yardage situations, too, so on standard downs the zone rate was even higher.

MSU, though, presented a different challenge, running pure Cover 1 on about 42.3% of its total snaps and 41.9% of Nebraska’s passing plays. Anything nearing 50-50 is a pretty high rate of man coverage for a team in 2025.

The initial results against man were … not great. Nebraska’s total rate of execution against man coverage was at just a 36.4% success rate — compared to 46.7% vs. zone — but that would include any runs and run-pass option reps. Nebraska’s success rate on pure dropback passes against man coverage was even lower, at 30.7%. Five of the nine “havoc” plays against Nebraska on Saturday came against man, including three of the sacks and the interception in the third quarter.

Your success against man coverage is generally thought of as a test of your receivers’ ability to win one-on-one, as the reps are less about finding holes in coverage structures and more about being able to generate pure separation from a coverage defender. I think this is probably the best crew of receiving weapons, though, Nebraska has had in almost a decade, so it’s surprising their first real go against man went so poorly. The passing success rate vs. man had been an even 50.0% entering Michigan State, so I am willing to chalk up the poor performance to factors outside of the wideouts, for now, with Nebraska running the majority of its plays into a severe wind not really conducive to passing offense and the protection issues. But it’s something to watch.

When Michigan State wasn’t running man, they were also heavily running simulated and creeper pressures — where the defense brings four rushers but does so from non-traditional spots, often by dropping front players or muggers into coverage and blitzing second-level players — at a high rate tied to zone coverages; MSU ran 12 “sim” or “creeper” pressures on NU’s 52 offensive snaps against the starters, and all of them came in the first 43 snaps as the Spartans stopped blitzing down the stretch. Overall, Michigan State blitzed Nebraska on over a third of its plays.

That paints a general picture of a defense that was spending about half its time playing man coverage, and another big chunk of its time doing chaotic pressure disguises. Nebraska’s answer to that was:

The Return Of Screens

Nebraska had run screen passes — not a bubble route or wide throw off an RPO, but a true, designed screen pass with the linemen pulling out front — just seven times in the first four games of 2025, after running about three true screens per game last year. New offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen is known as a bit of a screen maven, so I thought the rate of screens would go up in 2025, not have its rate be halved. They were conspicuously not a big part of the offense.

But against the man- and disguise-pressure heavy attack from MSU’s defense, Nebraska would run nine true screens against MSU, two more than it had in the first four games combined. The true screens delivered a successful play on five of the nine reps and would average 11.4 yards per play, buoyed by the long 59-yard touchdown by Nyziah Hunter that put NU in the driver’s seat for good.

None of those true screens happened in the first 18 plays, meaning all nine came in the final 34 plays. Which tells me they were an adjustment by the offensive staff to the heavy-man and heavy-sim defense that MSU was presenting. It undeniably proved an effective adjustment.

Screens being useful against chaotic rush packages is self-evident: If the crazy, chaotic blitz looks are meant to confuse quarterbacks and offensive lines, then you can counteract that by giving the QB an easy, short, low-risk throw that also punishes aggressiveness and blitzing by leveraging rushing defenders’ upfield leverage against them. Pretty self explanatory there.

But screens are also good answers against man-coverage-heavy teams because you can manipulate man coverage to find out which defender is assigned to covering the screen player before the snap and can design a scheme that eliminates that coverage defender with a block, springing the screen receiver free for some space. Using pre-snap motion can help identify if it’s man coverage by providing a tell: Against zone coverage, the defenders would rotate or shift over, but against man coverage, the locked-on man coverage defender is responsible for running with the motion player. NU tied seven of its nine screen reps to some sort of motion. That can tell you who to target blocking on the screen.

We saw all of this on Hunter’s long touchdown:

NU motioned its slot receiver from Hunter’s side across the formation just before the snap.
The defender aligned over the motion man followed the motion man across the formation.
Nebraska now knew it was getting man coverage from the defense, meaning it knew the screen would be an effective call.
Now knowing it’s man coverage, tight end Luke Lindenmeyer knew the corner aligned over Hunter would be locked on to covering Hunter instead of zone dropping, so eliminating him from the play would get Hunter some space. NU ran the screen into the boundary, giving Lindenmeyer a shorter path to that outside corner than if the play had been run to the wide side of the field:

Lindenmeyer gets the corner out of the picture, Justin Evans and Elijah Pritchett are able to crack two box players, Hunter breaks a tackle, and we’re off to the races.

We also saw this manipulation of man coverage by screens on the several routes to the flat on “crack” screens by Emmett Johnson. Those were less effective, but running them against a man-coverage-heavy team allowed NU to know who was responsible for covering Johnson out of the backfield and allowed a blocker to crack or cut off that defender.

I think the natural response to the screen usage Saturday has been that it came because of the issues with the pass protection. Which could be part of it. But I also think Michigan State’s coverage structure had a lot more to do with dictating the high screen usage than the line issues. Either way, great adjustment by the staff mid-game after not really running screens at all in the first four weeks.

The Profile Suggests The Defense Is Better. Why Doesn’t It Feel That Way?

The 2025 defense is probably the strangest unit by performance I’ve ever examined since starting this newsletter. I don’t think any Husker fan who’s watched the last three seasons would tell you it’s the best of Matt Rhule’s tenure. I definitely wouldn’t.

But after five games, pretty much every important statistic says it is. The 2025 Blackshirts have a 65.4% success rate — an efficiency measure that essentially quantifies how many downs you are “winning” against the opposing unit — higher than the 2023 defense by two percentage points and the 2024 defense by five percentage points. Nebraska is also generating way more havoc plays (sacks, tackles for loss, interceptions, pass break-ups, forced fumbles, and swatted balls) than either of those two units, with a 18.0% rate of such plays (15.6% in 2023 and 16.9% in 2024). It’s also allowing a lot fewer explosives to opposing offenses (8.8% of opposing offensive snaps have resulted in an explosive in 2025 compared to 9.7% in 2023 and 10.7% in 2024). It’s better in raw yardage allowed, too, at 4.38 yards per play compared to 4.6 in 2023 and 5.6 in 2024. It’s much improved in passing situations, at a 75.9% success rate on passing downs (second downs of 8 yards or longer and third and fourth downs of 5 yards or longer), with the same success rate at 71.3% in 2023 and 72.3% in 2024. If you want more encompassing/holistic/schedule-adjusted advanced metrics, NU is 10th nationally in SP+ defensive rating and 20th in FPI defensive rating.

While this is only a five-game sample compared to full-season data for the other two seasons (and two of the five data points for 2025 are against the worst teams on Nebraska’s schedule), basically every number is telling us that this unit is at least on par with what we’ve gotten with the last two defenses, if not better, and pretty much everyone agreed those defenses were pretty good, if not elite.

So why does it not feel that way?

One, I’d say the plays where this defense has been bad and the explosives it’s allowed — which are less frequent than the past defenses — have been way worse/more hurtful/aesthetically frustrating than the past two defenses. A bad play against the 2023 or 2024 units was usually, like, a 30-yard pass, but we all just watched Michigan rip off three untouched long runs. That could make it seem like it’s getting gashed more than it really is. Even though the statistics say it isn’t. I don’t really have a stat to quantify “how bad are the explosives you’re allowing” but, anecdotally at least, it feels that way.

Two, I’d say the way this defense plays is harder to quantify/see when you’re experiencing the game. Whereas the 2023 and 2024 units were dominant against the run and more susceptible against the pass, the 2025 group is dominant against the pass and more susceptible against the run. It probably “seems” like the ‘23 and ‘24 groups were better because you were watching them stuff ball-carriers at the line over and over again. Those are more obviously “good plays.” This group isn’t doing that but is allowing almost nothing through the air. It’s a little less clear or noticeable when a defense takes away what should be a 40-yard pass with good coverage and turns it into a 3-yard scramble, for example, even if that was probably more impactful a down than a run stuff.

Three, Nebraska’s schedule of opposing offenses has been pretty solid so far, so some of the teams they faced were just pretty good and able to make plays against them that probably made the defense look worse than it is compared to the sport at large. Cincinnati is 25th in offensive SP+ and 17th in points per game and looks like it might win the Big 12. Michigan is 31st in SP+ offensive rating and is hitting home runs on everyone it plays. Michigan State entered that game averaging 31 points a game. USC looks like the best offense on Nebraska’s schedule, and Penn State might be No. 3, but you could argue Nebraska’s defense has already played the second-, fourth-, and fifth-best offenses it will face this year.

This still has to hold up over the full year. But, so far, the data would say it’s a better unit, even if no one feels that way.

Sack Yardage Isn’t A Sign The Run Game Is Bad

Here’s something that’s been floating around a lot of Husker blogs and message boards lately in some form or another recently:

“Nebraska’s run game is really bad! They only had 43 rushing yards against Michigan and 88 yards against Michigan State!”

This is what we call a bad stat. Seeing stuff like this on message boards is what annoyed me so badly I started this newsletter.

Nebraska’s rushing totals have been down the last two weeks because their quarterback lost them -49 rushing yards on sacks vs. the Wolverines and -35 rushing yards on sacks vs. MSU. Your quarterback losing you yards on sacks is undeniably a bad thing for an offense, but losing sack yardage means your pass protection is bad, not your run blocking. NU’s actual rushing game — its carries on designed runs and RPOs — produced 24 carries for 92 yards against Michigan (not good but also not bad if you look at what teams usually do against UM on the ground) and 105 yards on 18 carries vs. MSU (pretty good!). It’s nonsensical that the NCAA counts sack yardage in with rushing yardage instead of subtracting it from your team passing total, like the NFL does, so you get a pass if you were sharing this and didn’t know that. But be wary of the rushing game doomers off the box scores.

The run game has been … pretty solid! Nebraska’s pure runs have a 46.3% success rate, which is a little less efficient than last year but about eight percentage points better than in 2023. Even against MSU, Nebraska’s true runs had an 80% success rate, way better than the passing game. On a team like Nebraska that built its roster to pass and hired an Air Raid coordinator, the efficiency is going to be way more important than the rushing yards total, regardless of if people are tainting it with sack yardage. And right now you can’t really argue the run game isn’t efficient.

Rex Guthrie Is A Starter Now

Rex Guthrie, an unheralded redshirt freshman safety from Colorado, had worked in with the starting defense in all four of the previous games in place of the longtime starter Buford, playing about 100 total snaps. Guthrie was on the field a lot in the second half vs. Michigan.

It would appear one of the bye adjustments was to switch those two roles, with Guthrie starting against MSU and outsnapping Buford 60-22. Buford worked in for a couple drives and was used as NU’s Dime player, coming on the field as the sixth defensive back for NU’s 11 snaps Saturday in Dime. But on three-quarters of the drives, Guthrie was the standard-down safety.

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This could just be a symptom of the heavy single-high usage, but with Guthrie in the game, the “safety” spot in the defense played a lot closer to the line, spending an even amount of time down on the second level and deep. That had been about 65% deep and 35% down in the four games where Buford was a starter. Again, could just be a one-game thing. Or it could be they like Guthrie as a box player and feel the need to get that safety involved more near the line of scrimmage to stop the big runs

Turnover Margin (And Field Position) Tracker

After Game 1: +2 (T-11th nationally)
After Game 2: +2 (T-25th nationally)
After Game 3: +4 (T-16th nationally)
After Game 4: +4 (T-19th nationally)
After Game 5: +6 (T-8th nationally)

It’s still early in the season, but two longtime bugaboos of Nebraska’s recent play have been not only improved so far but excellent: turnover margin and field position.

After a three-takeaway day, NU is now in the top 10 for all FBS teams in turnover margin, the first time since I’ve been writing this newsletter that we could say that was true. Nebraska is 23rd nationally with nine takeaways now, plus 11th nationally with only three giveaways. This is just to say this performance has been relatively balanced on both offense and defense: It isn’t one unsustainable data point on one side of the ball buoying a good number. NU reached 13th nationally in turnover margin last year at the midway point of the season before fading down the stretch and finishing 76th. It has to prove it can keep up over a full year, but so far, NU is not only where it needs to be on turnovers but excelling at them in ways it hasn’t in almost 20 years.

One other under-discussed element of this season so far is field position: Nebraska is currently 11th nationally overall in BCF Toys field position rankings, with the 11th-best average starting yard line on offense and 20th-best average starting yard line on defense. NU was 101st, 108th, 108th, 107th, 105th, 82nd, and 118th, respectively, in the seven most recent seasons before this one in overall field position rankings. Most of the improvement has come on punts, both the quality of Nebraska’s with Archie Wilson and the effectiveness of its returns with Jacory Barney Jr. Special teams coordinator Mike Ekeler has earned his money so far after being poached from Tennessee in the offseason, turning this overnight into what so far has been one of the best punt/punt return combo units in the country. He might even need a raise.

Being good on turnovers and on field position just gives a team more margin for error. We’re seeing that this season. When NU was bottom-of-the-sport at both of those elements for most of the past 10 years, it’s only real way to win games was being so good on offense and defense that it overcame the negative turnover margins and losing field position battles. Saturday was the perfect game to illustrate how cleaning both of these elements up has benefitted Nebraska: With the offense sputtering for most of two quarters and the defense giving up a couple long, frustrating drives, NU was able to keep a lead simply by forcing MSU turnovers, keeping the Spartans backed up (69.8 yards to the endzone for average starting field position) and starting most of its own drives near midfield or better (53.5 yards to the endzone for average starting field position). Huge advantage. When these elements are good you can withstand those bad stretches from your O and D and still find ways to win games.

Programming Note

I took a new job at the end of last month and have to move to a new city in the next couple of weeks, which may slightly impact the newsletter. I had a hard Thursday morning deadline to get this post out because I am traveling to look at living places over the next couple of days, and then I’ll have to actually move cities over the next two newsletter releases.

I think I can get this done fairly seamlessly, and I’m still committed to the charting the games, getting the game posts out and answering every paying subscriber’s comments/questions over this period, but this post and the next couple posts may be a little lighter than usual, because I’m going to have a lot less time to work on them. I’ve made this newsletter the second of the three free posts for the season since it’s short, so that no one paying for a subscription feels super shortchanged. If I have another shorter post over this stretch I’ll also make that the third free post. Still: I apologize to everyone who’s paying that these are going to be a little diminished for a bit. It’s unlucky that this popped up during this time of year, because I know the game posts are why a lot of you subscribe. But life happens.

The one thing this will definitely affect is the midseason tendency posts; I usually do those after the sixth game, but that will be right in the middle of when I’m moving. I will not have time to do a game post, a tendency post, and move. I will either just skip the midseason and do a more thorough analysis after the year, or get it out the mid-season tendencies after the ninth-game bye. I’ll see if there’s a benefit to doing it or people really want it after Week 9. Either of those options is not ideal for me, but it may just be how it shakes out. I apologize to subscribers for that delay, too.

I appreciate everybody’s patience over the next couple weeks, and we should be fully back-on-track for the last third of the season once I get moved.