REVISITED: 2024 Preseason Superlatives

A look back at what this newsletter got right and wrong before the season

Photo courtesy Nebraska Athletics.

In August, just before the first kickoff, I highlighted what I thought were some areas of strength and concern for Nebraska’s then-upcoming 2024 season:

I’d like to go back and look at those now. I think it’s a useful exercise in that it can remind us of what we thought before the narratives and noise took hold when the games began. Seasons are long and emotional — both of which can obliterate any sense of objectivity from where you start a journey. A quick refresher on where we started from can often provide better context.

In looking back at my predictions, there were some undeniable good calls: That Nebraska’s defensive structure had issues defending RPOs, that the special teams seemed to be barreling toward disaster.

And there were also some undeniable bad calls: At one point, I apparently blacked out and predicted Jaylen Lloyd would break Nebraska’s single-season receiving record. How innocent I was in August!

Here’s a list of what I predicted, with looks into the stats and film to see what was correct and what was misguided. Where I was wrong, I provided what I think the correct preseason prediction should have been, now that we have the full benefit of hindsight. The prompt is in big text, and my pick in the preseason is in italics.

Let’s get started:

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Starter I’m Most Confident In:

Preseason Pick: Nash Hutmacher, Nose Tackle

Hutmacher’s interior defensive line running mate Ty Robinson going from good player in 2023 to one of the most disruptive defenders in the conference in 2024 — 42 total pressures and 28 stops — overshadowed Nebraska’s NT a bit, but Hutmacher was still excellent last season. His box score counting stats took a dip from 4.5 sacks and eight tackles for loss to two sacks and four TFLs, but on film and in the advance metrics, Hutmacher remained a chaos force from a nose tackle position that’s largely asked within the structure of the defense to hold ground in the A gaps and keep blockers off everyone else. His total pressures only dipped from 23 in 2023 to 19 in 2024, and his pass-rush win rate actually improved from 5.3% in 2023 to 7.0% in 2024 — both extremely impressive numbers for a position where you’re usually having to beat blocks by the center and a guard to get at the QB. Hutmacher was still a very productive and consistent player for what his position is asked to do on a football field; it’s just hard for a NT to put up memorable plays or big counting stat numbers to express their value. He was able to do that in 2023, but the flashiness waned in ‘24 — but he was still very good.

VERDICT: Incorrect

I’d still argue Hutmacher was one of the five best players on the team last season, but he was overshadowed by the player right beside him in Robinson, who was robbed of a first-team all-conference selection. If not Robinson, other candidates for most-dependable starter would be Hutmacher, linebacker John Bullock, center Ethan Scott, or guard Justin Evans.

Starter I’m Least Confident In:

Preseason Pick: Turner Corcoran, Left Tackle

This is a tough prediction to grade after Corcoran got hurt in the season’s fourth game and took a redshirt for the remainder of the year.

I questioned Corcoran — forced to step in at LT after 2023 starter Teddy Prochazka injured his knee in fall camp — because he had a profile of one of the least-effective tackles in the country in pass protection when he’d been forced to play that position earlier in his career. Corcoran allowed an FBS tackle-worst 60 pressures in 2021 while starting at the spot, and he gave up 44 pressures in 2022, fourth-to-last nationally.

Corcoran in his limited 2024, though, was … completely fine? Per PFF, across 98 true pass protection snaps, he allowed four total pressures. Aside from one game against a decent Colorado front, the competition he faced was pretty poor, and his numbers would have undoubtably diminished against Big Ten fronts, but he did win 98% of his pass protection snaps in PFF’s grading while at tackle, much, much better than his 91.% and 93.8% rates in 2021 and 2022 that ranked dead last both years in the FBS among tackles to have at least 300 pass sets. Corcoran is returning for an extra season in 2025 to compete somewhere along the offensive line,¹ but that his 2024 numbers would just trend more to just below-average Power 4 starter than, “How is this guy still on the field?” is notable for the future.

It’s also notable that the player who stepped in to replace Corcoran — redshirt freshman Gunnar Gottula — allowed just 16 pressures in the remaining nine games across 261 pass sets, a 96.6% win rate that is more impressive than Corcoran’s figure considering it came against only Big Ten teams and Boston College in the bowl game. Gottula on film was pretty comfortably the best tackle Nebraska’s had in pass pro in several years — better than sixth-year senior Bryce Benhart — but was poor as a run blocker.

But if the overall question is, “Was the left tackle spot a major liability for Nebraska in 2024?” as I predicted it would be, the answer is no, it really wasn’t.

VERDICT: Incorrect

The least-dependable starter probably ended up being safety DeShon Singleton, who struggled in both coverage and as a run defender and tackler for pretty much all of Big Ten play, blowing key assignments that went for big completions in coverage and diving at people’s feet at ball carriers in front of him. Singleton was somebody I considered back in the preseason, but the red flags in Corcoran’s profile were more glaring.

Most Important Supporting Character:

Preseason Pick: Justin Evans, Left Guard

I was a Justin Evans stan from about the middle of the 2023 season when he was elevated into the lineup by injury, and my faith — and preseason selection — proved correct in 2024 as he became a full-time starter.

Without much media hype, Evans, just a third-year player, and center Ben Scott became one of the best isolated center-guard combos in the Big Ten, more-or-less rock-solid in pass pro all year against an insane slate of interior pass rushers and always cohesive and together in the run game.

Evans allowed just 10 total pressures per PFF in 462 pass sets all year. That was the fewest pressures allowed by any Nebraska guard to play over 200 snaps since Matt Farniok in 2020 (with eight pressures allowed in 280 snaps that year). To comp it to a 400+ snap season by a Nebraska guard, you have to go back to Jerald Foster in 2018 (10 pressures in 471 snaps). He was a little worse in the run game, and Evans isn’t a super physical player in the run game who is going to push DTs down the field. But he largely held his ground on run concepts without getting moved backward, has a great understanding of leverage and body positioning, and is a great puller who shows his athleticism. He would be a pretty sensible candidate to move to center next year.

Guard play isn’t sexy, and quarterbacks and receivers will always generate more fan and media buzz, but Evans — after putting up one of the best pass pro seasons by an NU guard in a decade as a redshirt sophomore — looks pretty comfortably to me like the best returning player on Nebraska’s offense.

VERDICT: Correct

Question I’m Watching For Early In The Season:

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

This concern was spurred by Nebraska’s struggles against run-pass option offenses late in the 2023 season. After White’s 3-3-5 scheme caught the Big Ten by surprise early in that year, opponents adapted to the disguise looks by heavily utilizing RPOs, which allowed quarterbacks to adjust the play after the snap to whatever funky stuff Nebraska was doing. NU had two of its worst success rates of the season in late games against Maryland and Wisconsin, two very RPO-heavy teams. I thought it would be difficult for the defense to maintain its productivity in 2024 without better play against RPOs.

That didn’t happen. Nebraska instead got significantly worse at defending RPOs in 2024, going from a 62.2% success rate in 2023 to a 49.6% rate in 2024. NU shut down a pair of RPO-heavy offenses in UTEP and Colorado early in the year, but those performances largely came on the strength of its defensive line outmatching those teams up front. In Big Ten play, with teams better able to neutralize NU’s front-four disruption, the cracks appeared. Nebraska’s inability to defend RPOs at the second and third levels was the culprit in some of the “uncharacteristic” performances we saw from a unit that still finished top-15 in SP+ defensive rating:

• Illinois’ offense had a 65.2% success rate against Nebraska on RPOs, running the play-type on 35.9% of their snaps;

• Indiana had a 66.7% success rate on RPOs against NU, using them on 34.1% of its snaps; and

• Southern California had a 60.0% success rate on RPOs against Nebraska, though the usage was lower at around 20%.

But, generally, if there was a game where it seemed like “the defense played badly,” the culprit was RPOs.

The post-snap optionality makes RPOs harder for everyone to defend — that’s why they’re increasingly popular at all levels of football — but the gap for Nebraska in defending them compared to other play types has to be smaller going forward. NU defended true passes and true runs more than 12 percentage points better by success rate in 2024 than it did RPOs. That gap was just 3 percentage points in 2023 when I was “worried about it.” White is gone and it’s new defensive coordinator John Butler’s problem now, but it’s still something to watch as long as Nebraska is going to play a disguise/amoeba structure defense.

VERDICT: Push

Nebraska’s RPO issues on defense were certainly a huge issue, though I think you could say the thing we should have been most worried about early in the year was how offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield’s scheme would perform. The writing was on the wall in the 2023 season and all through last offseason that retaining Satterfield after he delivered offensive production among the worst in the Power 4 conferences might become an issue. Where the focus should have gone?

Question I’m Watching For Through The Full Season:

Preseason Pick: Did Turnover Margin Become A Weapon?

Before the season I wrote:

“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. … 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.”

I’d also give this one an incomplete grade.

Nebraska did improve in turnover margin tremendously: It went from that horrific -17 that was second-to-last in all of FBS football to a -2 that tied for 73rd nationally. The offense cut down from 31 total giveaways to just 19 while playing a true freshman at quarterback in a season that played an extra 13th game instead of 12. The defense didn’t materially take the ball away more (14 takeaways in 2023 to 17 in 2024), but it did improve slightly, and the offense’s improved retention represented a major shift.

Sometimes going from, “We’re the worst in the country at this,” to, “We’re just normal/average at this,” is a necessary first step, even if it doesn’t excite anyone. Losing the turnover battle by two instead of 17 undeniably makes winning football games a lot easier.

But it’s also true turnover margin was not a weapon for Nebraska in 2024, and it almost certainly needs to be for Nebraska’s program to reach the heights it wants to. We got more evidence of that in 2024, both from Nebraska and the rest of the sport.

To use shorthand, if you look at Nebraska’s “peer-programs” who were relevant nationally for the expanded College Football Playoff or actually made the field — NU’s stated goal for next season — they all finished highly in turnover margin:

• Notre Dame was +18 in seasonlong turnover margin (tied for second nationally);

• Indiana was +15 (fifth nationally);

• Arizona State was +14 (tied for sixth nationally);

• Colorado was +12 (tied for eighth nationally);

• Iowa State was +9 (tied for 18th nationally);

• and BYU was +8 (tied for 24th).

Compared to that, Nebraska’s -2 represents an issue. If you are a team without elite, elite talent, it’s almost a prerequisite that you win the turnover battle — and by a lot — if you want to play at the top of the sport. A healthy chunk of turnovers are luck based (I’d be surprised if Indiana, Arizona State, Colorado, Iowa State, or BYU replicated those turnover margins in 2025), but you sort of undeniably also have to get that luck to get where Nebraska wants to go.

And they haven’t yet.

The easiest way to get there would be to take the ball away more. I also wrote in the preseason that Nebraska’s 2023 defense that finished top 10 in SP+ defensive rating only generated takeaways at the 103rd rate in the country. NU again finished top 15 in SP+ defensive rating but only was 67th in takeaways; this is two straight years of an elite defense that has not taken the ball away like one. Could it be variance and a big turnover-luck season is coming down the pipe? Maybe. Could Nebraska’s defensive structure or reliance on zone coverage just generate fewer turnovers? Also maybe, but that’s scarier.

VERDICT: Push

If you want to go strictly by, “Did Turnover Margin Become a Weapon?” then yes, this would be a failure. But there was also a huge improvement, and sometimes these things take more than one season to be fixed. I’m willing to give them an incomplete grade for this one.

What’s Keeping Me Up At Night:

Preseason Pick: Are We Barreling Toward A Specialist Disaster?

We were!

In the preseason post, I wrote about my skepticism over not bringing in any outside competition at either of NU’s kicking spots after Tristan Alvano was poor as a placekicker in 2023 and Brian Buschini had not delivered a good season in two unchallenged years as the starting punter.

The kicker situation is tough to grade because Alvano got hurt before conference play — though the eye test wasn’t kind to him, with some shaky extra points and a miss inside 40 yards in his starts. His backup, Iowa Western transfer walk-on John Hohl did miss multiple XPs and went just 10 of 15 on field goals. But I also think most teams’ backup kickers wouldn’t be good, so I don’t know if that’s necessarily something where we need to dole out blame.

But Buschini — who had some endearing moments in 2024, including a game against Rutgers where he got his back snapped Bane-style and limped out to hit multiple great kicks and convert a fake punt in a game where field position was huge — was still quite poor as an actual punter. His net average finished 96th nationally, and the amount of his punts that pinned an opponent inside the 20 yard line was just 71st.

And beyond those two, NU developed a third specialist problem: Its snaps on punts and placekicks were haywire all year. I didn’t have any inkling this was an issue in the preseason, but it presented itself on the opening extra point against UTEP and reared up at various points in the season. Poor snaps were directly attributable to multiple blocked kicks against Purdue, and in the season’s final game against Boston College, Nebraska elected to try a fake field goal late rather than try a kick inside the 10 after it was paranoid of another botched snap. Nebraska’s very first move this offseason was to go out and sign a new long snapper in the transfer portal, which should tell you something.

The poor performance by the specialists led to NU firing special teams coordinator Ed Foley in the offseason, replacing him with Tennessee’s Mike Ekeler earlier this week. But it was also clear this was going to be a problem in August, and Rhule was content to not act on it while relying on development, to pretty disastrous results. You could argue missing makeable kicks cost Nebraska two wins last year, against Illinois and Iowa. Hopefully a lesson was learned here, because that can’t happen moving forward.

VERDICT: Correct

What I’m Most Excited To Watch:

Preseason Pick: The Defensive Line and the Miami Freshman

It’s hard to measure personal excitement, but I think it’s hard to argue the defensive line didn’t deliver. The game against Colorado was one of the most fun moments for Nebraska football in several years, and it was largely spurred by each of Nebraska’s defensive linemen in the two deep taking a turn dropping a flying hammer elbow on a Colorado blocker. The DL also was the driving force of a near upset of eventual national champion Ohio State, helping generate 10 havoc plays against the Buckeyes, stopping 4 of 6 third or fourth down attempts by OSU of 3 yards or shorter, and holding Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson to a respective 2.9 and 2.5 yards per carry. They also held an Iowa rushing attack that featured All-Big Ten tailback Kaleb Johnson and three All-Big-Ten-pick linemen to 26 carries for 49 yards. Hutmacher stayed good, Robinson broke out in a big way as an interior disruptor and probably played his way into being an NFL draft pick, and edge rushers Princewill Umanmielen and James Williams both developed into two of the most efficient pass rushers in the Big Ten per advanced metrics. Fun group! Probably the best Nebraska defensive line unit we’ve seen since Bo Pelini was coach.

The Miami freshmen also delivered: Jacory Barney Jr. and Vincent Shavers both were regular parts of the rotation as first-year players and look to be two of NU’s most exciting pieces on their respective sides of the ball entering 2025. Willis McGahee IV also got quite a bit of run late in the season had some nice moments, and right now he’s probably the odds-on favorite to start at the JACK hybrid linebacker/edge rusher spot next year. Defensive backs Amare Sanders and Larry Tarver Jr. both took redshirts but also saw the field at times and could be factors as NU transitions to a younger secondary after next season. That group proved to be a huge part of what Nebraska is building on.

VERDICT: Correct

Irresponsible Player Prediction:

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

Listen, it was called an irresponsible prediction. I was supposed to say something wild. But I will still take accountability for whiffing this hard.

I thought Lloyd had a shot to go over NU’s 1,043 receiving yards mark based on his 3.84 yards per route run production in the final five games of 2023 — a figure that was top 10 among all FBS receivers since 2019, albeit in a small sample size — his raw speed, and that he was teaming with the most talented downfield passer Nebraska had ever had in Dylan Raiola.

It didn’t go that way: Lloyd finished with 255 receiving yards on the season and transferred to Oklahoma State in January. Raiola *just* missed him on several deep balls that could have made this look a little less stupid, but Lloyd was also not consistently able to get on the field ahead of Jahmal Banks and Isaiah Neyor, and he was even passed later in the year by Barney. Lloyd ran just three routes in the bowl game and elected to hit the portal.

In my defense, Lloyd’s underlying numbers were again outstanding, even with the deep misses — his yards per route run was 2.28, a still-elite figure that again led Nebraska’s regular starters by a wide margin. When the staff put him on the field he produced yardage, but they also only played him on just 116 passing downs. He still got open enough to be targeted 22 times in those 116 snaps. It was a little baffling that he wasn’t used more? Especially considering that Banks and Neyor weren’t what I’d call better than league-average starting receivers.

I think Lloyd will go on to be at least a productive role player for Oklahoma State, if not a good starter, and this will prove to be a mismanagement for NU. But he also certainly didn’t break the Nebraska single-season receiving yards record in 2023, LOL.

VERDICT: VERY Incorrect

The correct irresponsible prediction probably would have been to call Robinson’s breakout from a sort of wild-horse player into a force of nature. Or that Nebraska would fire its offensive coordinator after Game 9 and bring in a new one off the street. That was pretty crazy!

What Does A Successful Season Look Like?

Preseason Pick: Continued Development And A Bowl Game

I think there was a bit of uneasiness from fans with the 2024 season as we progressed through the actual games, a feeling that the year was a disappointment or failure. Especially after the rollercoaster of the hot start and subsequent losing streak. That initial 5-1 record had people thinking of conference title or playoff contention, and not reaching those in the end made the year feel like an underachievement.

But I think it’s important to remember: The majority of us before the season would have been totally fine with seven wins and a bowl game. It was, by far, the most common prediction I saw before the games kicked off.

While the context of how you reach a certain record matters — all due respect to The Brutalist,² it’s the journey, not just the destination — it’s worth pointing out that the elevated expectations for Nebraska after the first six games largely came from:

• a win over a UTEP team that finished in the bottom five in FBS via the advanced metrics;

• a win over a top-40 Colorado team, but also a win that came with Nebraska clearly having devoted very significant offseason schematic and cultural prep to winning that game;

• a win over Northern Iowa, an FCS team that went 3-9;

• a close loss to an Illinois team that finished poor in advanced metrics relative to its 10 wins; and

• a win that probably should have been a loss over a Rutgers team that also went 6-6.

That’s not really the resume of a conference title or playoff contender. If expectations shifted toward the high-end after that stretch of play, it was largely a failure of those expectations, or getting caught up in the moment rather than correctly evaluating what the team had been to that point: Fine. NU faced a thin slate in the first half of the year, and looked OK against it. When Nebraska faced actual good teams in the back half of the season, the losses made fans feel like the team was playing worse when it was really just being tested for the first time.

Before the season, almost all of us predicted an improved but still flawed and inconsistent group. We largely got that, even if it didn’t feel like that was enough at times.

VERDICT: Correct.

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Thanks, as always, for reading. Next week I will be revisiting Nebraska’s transfer portal additions relative to my list of needs from after the season.

1. His most natural position is undoubtedly at guard, but he’s rarely been able to play there because of NU’s poor tackle play. I think he’d be a draftable NFL guard if he every got to play a full healthy season there.

2. Second half of this film was a complete mess. Though I did appreciate it having an intermission and think they should bring those back.