• last year
Transcript
00:00 Welcome to the Carriker Chronicles, the people show.
00:11 Checking the pulse of Husker Nation brought to you by DPS Concrete Construction.
00:15 Check them out at dpsconstruction.net.
00:17 This is my gut reaction to Nebraska's road win on Friday night in Champaign, Illinois.
00:24 I believe their stadium is also called Memorial, although it was not on fire tonight, so that
00:28 was good to see.
00:30 At least, not offensively, but Nebraska's defense played well, but I'll get to all of
00:33 that.
00:34 Okay.
00:35 Matt Ruhle's first Big Ten win, the Huskers get to three and three, their 500 going into
00:39 the bye week.
00:40 Okay.
00:41 Now, a couple of things real quick.
00:43 Matt Ruhle said, he said, "You're going to find out about our team this week, this Friday
00:47 night at Illinois."
00:48 He said, "You're going to find out about me as a coach.
00:50 You're going to find out about us."
00:51 I was like, "Man, that's a bold statement to make, because what if it doesn't go well?"
00:56 That could really blow it back in your face, but I'll tell you what.
00:59 There was a lot of ugly, but at the end of the day, Nebraska won.
01:04 Nebraska won by double digits.
01:05 I felt like we were clearly the better team, okay, and I know there was a lot of ugly throughout
01:10 this game, but I really felt like we were the better team.
01:14 We just got to get better at so many freaking little things that add up over time to big
01:19 things, and we saw that over and over throughout the game tonight.
01:21 But I digress.
01:22 I keep getting ahead of myself.
01:24 What I would like to do, actually, is I'd like to personally thank the defense for their
01:28 performance in the game tonight.
01:32 And throw the bones early on, and if you agree with me, smash that like button.
01:38 Also, shout out and rest in peace to Dick Butkus, an Illinois great, a Chicago Bears
01:44 great, a college football Hall of Famer, NFL Hall of Famer as well.
01:49 Now, here are my notes throughout the game.
01:52 Ole Miss transfer quarterback Luke Altmeier had five touchdowns, seven INTs coming into
01:57 this game, and they had a makeshift offensive line Illinois is really working with.
02:01 Now, Illinois' first offensive drive, 14 plays, 74 yards, it took 6'10" off the clock, converted
02:07 two third downs right off the bat, and I talked about how important third downs was going
02:12 to be in this game for Nebraska, for Illinois, stopping each other, converting them.
02:15 Okay, Illinois was only converting 32% of their third downs on the season coming into
02:20 tonight.
02:21 Man, I was like, "Man, we don't look great."
02:23 It almost looked a little too easy, but I tell you what, the turning point in the game
02:27 might have come early on in this drive.
02:31 Third and goal from the 6" line, boom, denied.
02:34 Fourth and goal from the 6" line, boom, denied.
02:37 The Blackshirts made a statement early on, and I don't know, I felt like that kind of
02:42 turned the tide just a little bit earlier on, because that first drive did look easy
02:46 for Illinois, and then the rest of the game, they really struggled.
02:48 I know they had the long touchdown pass later on.
02:51 Okay, now, again, I have written here, it says, "Set a great tone for the rest of the
02:58 game."
02:59 Alright, now, we completed our longest completion of the year, okay, to get out of the end zone.
03:06 Heinrich Harberger, 39-yard pass to senior wide receiver Marcus Washington, he got hurt
03:10 later in the drive.
03:11 Hopefully his knee is okay, we don't have any details at this point.
03:16 You know, I had some notes here.
03:18 We got to work on pitching the ball in the option, and we did execute it later on in
03:21 the game a couple times, but he looks like he really doesn't want to do that, Heinrich
03:24 Harberger.
03:25 We've got to be able to do that, otherwise you're playing 10 on 11, so to speak.
03:29 You might as well turn the running back into an extra blocker, but we were able to do that
03:32 later on in the game, at least just a little bit.
03:35 Now the Huskers go 86 yards, take 6 of 5 off the clock, get deep into Illinois territory.
03:40 Tristan Alvano, okay, makes, converts the field goal, his second-made field goal of
03:44 the year, puts us up 3-0.
03:46 There was a Malachi Coleman sighting, he actually got a decent amount of plays tonight, maybe
03:50 that was due to the Marcus injury.
03:51 Again, speedy recovery, maybe that's because Coleman's getting ready.
03:55 We know he's uber-talented.
03:56 I was just excited to see him out there, we'll see how he develops, grows, and improves.
04:00 Now with about 6 and a half minutes left in the second quarter, Nebraska, 14 plays, 79-yard
04:06 drive, 638 off the clock, touchdown run by Anthony Grant, puts the Huskers up 10-0.
04:13 And the Huskers recover, this was a crazy theme throughout the night.
04:17 The defense would get a turnover, the special teams would force a turnover, we'd have a
04:20 short field and then we wouldn't capitalize anywhere near enough, but I'm getting ahead
04:25 of myself again.
04:26 Alright, the Huskers recover a fumble on the ensuing Illinois kickoff return.
04:30 Alright, first play, we actually convert this, 25-yard touchdown run behind Rick Harburg,
04:35 on an option play, okay, did not need to pitch on this one, 17-0 Nebraska with 637 left until
04:42 halftime.
04:43 Now, Illinois had won the previous three meetings coming into tonight, okay, their first drive,
04:50 like I mentioned, 14 plays, but their next three drives combined was nine total plays,
04:55 three straight, three and outs, but this is where they did hit the 46-yard touchdown pass
05:00 to make it 17-7 at halftime to just keep it interesting, I guess, maybe that's what the
05:05 Huskers were doing at times tonight.
05:07 Now I did feel like we actually had some calls go our way, okay, I felt like the ball was
05:12 actually bouncing our way at least early on, at least early on, early on, okay, sometimes
05:17 you gotta make the ball bounce your way, sometimes you make it bounce the other way, things we've
05:20 gotta improve on, but at halftime, here are the stats that stood out to me.
05:24 Both teams had exactly 10 first downs apiece, we started to own the time of possession,
05:28 by the end of the game we dominated it by 15 minutes, we had the ball 15 more minutes
05:33 than Illinois, but we had the ball 17-18 to Illinois' 12-42 at halftime, third down efficiency,
05:39 Illinois at that point in time was 4-8, 50%, we were 2-7, fourth down efficiency, I think
05:44 Illinois ended up the night 1-4, okay, and we were 1-1 at halftime, total yards at that
05:50 point in time we were 196, they had 185, okay, pass yards, we had 120, they had 160, we gotta
05:57 help Harburg with his throwing motion.
05:59 When I watched him as a true freshman, he didn't throw like this, and I know rule said
06:03 it's hard to change a guy's throwing motion at this point in time, but he's still a young
06:07 guy, we gotta improve his throwing motion, it is possible, I pitched, I was a quarterback,
06:12 I know how this works, it is possible, it just takes time, during the season it might
06:16 be challenging, that is a fair point, but it's something I do think that would help
06:19 him, because he didn't throw like this as a freshman, the first time I saw him, and
06:23 he caught my eye years ago.
06:25 Now rush yards at halftime, we had 76, they had 25 yards per rush, we had 3.6, they had
06:30 1.7, at halftime neither team had any turnovers, I'm sorry, Illinois had one, but as we know
06:35 that changed as the game went along.
06:37 Final halftime thoughts, offense, pass the ball less, run the ball more, that's all I
06:41 wrote, defense, okay, less three man rushes, and what they were doing was a three man rush
06:46 with a spy, so when the quarterback would take off, one of our linebackers would chase
06:50 him down, but it was really only a three man rush, okay, and if he didn't take off, you're
06:54 kind of wasting that spy, so to speak, I wanted more four and five man rushes, Illinois' offensive
06:59 line is really not very good.
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07:22 Now, it did look like Illinois' offensive line was holding quite a bit, but let's be
07:28 real, when is that stuff ever called?
07:30 An observation of mine that refs are never going to pay attention to, unfortunately,
07:34 I have torn game jerseys from my playing day that would back up what I just said.
07:38 All right, special teams, actually, I wrote pause for effect, is actually an advantage
07:45 for Nebraska, at least, you know, the field goals that we didn't make later on, you know,
07:51 might not back that up, but early on, special teams was an advantage for us.
07:55 All right, now about five minutes into the third quarter, Illinois' turnover turns
07:59 a ball over on their side of the field, Nebraska, another made field goal from Tristan Alvano,
08:04 and I wrote at this point in time, maybe this can get him going, again, we know how things
08:07 played out down the road, Nebraska's up 20 to 7.
08:10 Now up to this point, the key plays were Blackshirts' fourth down stop on the 6-inch line, a fumble
08:15 recovery by our special teams, which led to a touchdown, a turnover forced by the Blackshirts,
08:20 and the Huskers at this point had 10 points off of turnover, plus 7 points that Illinois
08:24 didn't get, this was a 17-point swing at that point in time.
08:28 Also, Illinois just hasn't had the ball much.
08:30 Now, we had a point where we had three straight possessions later on in the game where we
08:35 started with the ball inside of Illinois' 30-yard line, basically in their red zone,
08:39 and we got, we had a missed field goal, we had turnovers, we had false starts out the
08:43 wazoo.
08:44 As the game wore along, we got sloppier and sloppier.
08:46 We should have put this game away, it shouldn't have been close.
08:49 It was like we just felt the need to keep fans engaged or something.
08:52 I'm entertained if we win by four or five touchdowns, it's okay, it's allowed, guys,
08:56 I'm just saying.
08:57 Okay, right then, Nebraska blocked an Illinois punt, again, the Huskers start with the ball
09:03 on Illinois' 22-yard line, okay, and this is where we get to the missed field goal,
09:08 Illinois has, gets stopped on fourth down at midfield here by the Blackshirts, we have
09:13 another shorter field, okay, again, you know, I can go through all these notes, basically
09:17 the bottom line is the defense played great.
09:23 Time after time after time after time.
09:25 Give the offense short field time after time, the special teams helped with this early on
09:29 in the game, we missed field goals, we had the laces out or at least to the side when
09:33 it looked like a partially bobbled snap on one of our field goals, so I don't know if
09:37 that's on Tristan, more on the holder, okay.
09:41 The offense has got to not look like a middle school offense at times, with all the false
09:46 starts, with all the fumbles, with all the balls on the ground.
09:49 When you get that many short fields, you should have like a million points and I'm rounding
09:53 down, okay.
09:55 We won the game.
09:56 We won it by double digits, we won it on the road, we won it on a short week, it's harder
10:00 to win on the road, it's harder to win on the road on a short week, okay.
10:04 And I do have a question here, do we lead the FBS in turnovers?
10:07 A fan tweeted that to me during the game, I've not had a time to double check that,
10:11 but it just seems like it could be correct, can somebody let me know in the comments below
10:14 if we do or not.
10:15 I'm just curious, I'll also double check it later on.
10:19 Alright, now Illinois' quarterback is having turnover issues of his own, he threw his eighth
10:24 interception tonight, he now leads the country, and thrown INTs, okay.
10:29 Let's see what else is relevant here.
10:31 It's basically everything I've already covered.
10:32 Nebraska ends up winning the game, as we know, okay.
10:37 Bottom line, we're 3-3.
10:38 Bottom line, just about everybody I know said we go 6-6, we'll call it a successful season.
10:45 Yeah, a lot of 7-8-9 win predictions.
10:47 Okay, and I got chastised a little bit last week for saying, "Hey, don't give up on Nebraska's
10:51 football season."
10:52 I know how much work, how much time, how much dedication.
10:55 I also know how people tend to overreact, okay.
10:58 I also know how things can change from week to week.
11:02 Like, I try not to be a prisoner of the moment, I'm a human being, I've got emotions.
11:06 I try not to overreact from one game to the next.
11:09 There are certain people who absolutely did, okay, and I know that happens sometimes.
11:13 But I just felt it was too early to give up on Nebraska's football season, and personally,
11:18 I never will, just so you know.
11:20 We had the winnable game in Illinois, we're now 3-3, we won that game.
11:23 We now have a bye week, we now have a bunch of winnable games coming up, and how dare
11:27 I list out opponents that we might be able to beat.
11:30 Because that was brought up to my attention as well, but it's part of being an analyst,
11:34 part of looking at what Nebraska might be able to do, wins and losses, going to a bowl.
11:38 Here's what I know.
11:39 Luke Gifford played a great game today.
11:41 Nash Hutmacher played a great game today.
11:43 Our defense got their swagger back today.
11:45 We dominated the rush yards.
11:47 Okay, when you compare our rush yards to their rush yards, we scored more points than they
11:50 did and got the win, that's the most important thing.
11:53 Okay, and the bye week, I think, is honestly coming at a great time.
11:57 This team's a little banged up, it's beat up, we've got injuries all over the place.
12:01 I think the bye week's coming at a great time.
12:03 I think we have winnable games coming up, I know I said it again, how dare I.
12:09 Nebraska's 3-3.
12:12 And forgive me for backtracking.
12:14 Just think if Nebraska had won that Minnesota game, how we'd feel right now.
12:17 I know, I know, I apologize.
12:19 My point is this.
12:20 We have things to get better on.
12:22 We have things to be excited and happy about.
12:24 We were halfway to our goal of going to a bowl game.
12:30 Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
12:32 Here are the questions I've got for you fine folks at home.
12:34 Are you glad, if you're one of those who didn't, you didn't give up on Nebraska's season already?
12:39 Number two, Heinrich obviously needs to work on pitching the ball, but do you think it
12:42 needs to become a priority as something that he works on during the bye week?
12:46 Pitching that ball on the option, I think it needs to be a priority.
12:50 And kind of for fun, Matt Rule, I feel like he's been slacking on the lip-licking a little
12:55 bit later.
12:56 Do we need to see a little bit more of that in the second half of the season?
12:58 We can't be slacking on nothing, details matter.
13:01 Alright, in all seriousness, check out CarrikerChronicles.com.
13:04 All your football hopes and dreams will come true.
13:06 Go Big Red!
13:07 And always remember to throw the punch!
13:09 God.