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Essentials

WHAT	Michigan vs Nebraska
WHERE	Memorial Stadium Lincoln, NE
WHEN	7:30 Eastern
THE LINE	Michigan -3
TELEVISION	ABC (McDonough/Blackledge)
TICKETS	exist
WEATHER	cloudy, 80(!) dropping to mid 60s ~0% chance of rain ~10 mph wind

Overview

Everyone left Nebraska for dead when they opened the season (a week early!) with one of those nationally televised, season-is-starting, you'll-eat-any-ol-slop, piggy-piggy-wants-some-football games against Illinois and managed to lose it. Illinois then went out and lost to UTSA the next week. Fun!

But Nebraska seems kind of decent anyway. They stuck within a touchdown of Oklahoma. Yes, it should be noted that holding Oklahoma to 23 points looks impressive on paper but was largely a function of a very short, eight-possession game in which the final two possessions were about Oklahoma killing the clock instead of trying to score. But also teams that can execute a time-killing underdog strategy like that are necessarily decent. And then they dominated Michigan State, outgaining them nearly two-to-one, before losing on an all-time special teams pratfall.

The pratfalls seem baked into the Scott Frost experience at this point, but this is not a team that Michigan should expect to blow out of the water. They're dangerous, especially on Scott Frost Day.

[Hit THE JUMP for Everything's good until the special teams coach ruins everything]

Run Offense vs Nebraska

[Campredon]

This is an open question since the Cornhuskers have only played two teams that are anywhere near a reasonable benchmark for Michigan. Oklahoma ripped them for 5.5 yards a carry despite a long of 23; Michigan State got stoned for 2.4. That distribution is not great for Michigan since what they're running is a lot closer to what MSU does, and Nebraska consistently put MSU OL in the backfield:

Daniels absolutely dominated MSU's interior offensive line, and in some cases got help from his fellow linemen. … That's Stille driving MSU's center Nick Samac a full two yards back and totally mucking up the play in the process. MSU was completely unable to count on their star RB and his offensive line to convert on 3rd & short situations like they had in preceding weeks against Nebraska.

I've been skeptical that MSU could turn their OL around as fast as it seems they have, and the Nebraska game may be an indicator that is the case—Walker is making a lot of stuff happen for them by themselves. Even so, having DL getting off blocks and making plays in the backfield is at least an indicator they're for real.

Alex was also impressed with their linebacker level, which features guys fast enough to chop down Walker on the edge. Those same guys had trouble bottling up Oklahoma's Eric Gray (remember him?) and Kennedy Brooks, though, and there might be a window for Corum and/or Henning. Grinding it up the middle with Haskins is probably going to look a lot like it did against Wisconsin.

Maybe. Wisconsin might have the best rush D in the country outside of the Georgia/Alabama duo lording it over college football. Nebraska gave up four yards a carry to Fordham and Buffalo and 3.5 to Illinois. If Michigan State's ground game is a bit of a mirage Michigan could do some work here. They'll certainly try.

One thing this probably isn't is the week to break out a major arc read game, possibly featuring JJ McCarthy. Nebraska is likely to be much better at defending it than Michigan will be running it.

KEY MATCHUP:  MICHIGAN INTERIOR OL vs RESETTING THE LINE OF SCRIMMAGE. We've got a team that just beat up an OL that might be bad and one that had some issues trying to get more than three yards against Wisconsin. This will be a benchmark for both teams, particularly as Michigan wonders how much paving they can actually do in Big Ten play.

Pass Offense vs Nebraska

[Campredon]

In his most prominent start to date, Cade McNamara recovered from a rough start to hit some bombs against Wisconsin. It was the perfect performance to strenuously divide the Michigan fanbase into Cade and JJ camps, and evermore they will bicker until someone transfers. Now Michigan's rickety but explosive passing offense meets a Nebraska defense that gets after the quarterback and has a couple of safeties who can't tackle, per Alex. Hooray variance.

Nebraska's done well so far by keeping things in front of them and making you execute down the field. They're giving up a 63% completion rate despite playing a questionable crew of QBs, but that only adds up to 6.1 yards an attempt. Oklahoma's Spencer Rattler had to settle for 6.3. They give up a lot of little chunks—they're 11th in the Big Ten in number of 10+ yard passes given up—but they get better as the plays get longer. Contain, fight again.

Michigan, on the other hand, is dead last in 10 yard passes with 29 (because they never pass) but has 5 completions of 50+. That's tied for second behind OSU's six on many, many, many fewer attempts than anyone not named Minnesota. This will be a clash of styles.

Nebraska does have a couple of intimidating rushers. Alex:

Compounding the trouble MSU had with the interior OL is the trouble they had with the pass rush off the edges, particularly Garrett Nelson, who could've gotten a star of his own. Here's the earlier clip of Reimer in coverage, but watch #44 to the bottom of the line of scrimmage:

That was the third straight play in which Nelson initially got by Spartan LT Luke Campbell on the final MSU drive of regulation.

Michigan has not had problems keeping McNamara clean, and that is likely to stick since Wisconsin didn't generate much organic rush last week. Seth had a 74% protection metric in UFR, which is a very good number against a defense of that caliber. Nelson is likely to have scattered pass rush wins, and just that. Nebraska blitzes a lot—Alex had them at 4.5 rushers per dropback—and that'll be an issue. If McNamara's upright he will have opportunities.

KEY MATCHUP:  MCNAMARA vs SELF. He's got the <5 yard passes down and the >30 yard passes down, now to work on the middle.

Run Defense vs Nebraska

Scott Frost: gonna run some cool stuff and complain in the presser [Eric Upchurch]

As per usual, Nebraska enters with at least a shadow of the ground-and-pound option offense they used to be in their heyday. QB Adrian Martinez is the Huskers' leading rusher by almost 200 yards even if you leave copious sack yardage in; once removed he's doubling up his nearest competition with 513 yards on 62 carries—8.3 a pop. Oklahoma and Michigan State did hold him down somewhat but even there his ability to grab yards in short yardage and in the redzone was critical as Nebraska made those games competitive.

Martinez operates an offense where all the reads are live all the time and opponents who get loose with their assignments get dunked on. This is our concern, Dude: Mike Macdonald had a few years as a Georgia GA/quality control guy before moving onto the Ravens, and has not yet gone up against a offense that is 1) decently competent and 2) full of stuff the NFL doesn't run much. This concern may not amount to much since Macdonald is 34, not 74, and the Ravens might actually be the best place in the NFL to learn how to combat College Crappe since they've got Lamar Jackson and his back-to-back 1000-yard rushing seasons. But your author has a little trepidation after the Rutgers second half.

Anyway, if Michigan is choosing they should probably choose to have guys not named Martinez carry the ball. The running backs are considerably less effective, particularly against teams not named Northwestern. While 245-pound walkon Jacquez Yant is a good meme when he runs for a zillion yards against the Wildcats, he's unlikely to have a ton of success against a defense that's… [checks notes] actually quite good? And the guys outside of Yant are like Wisconsin's backs: nondescript. Markese Stepp and Rahmir Johnson haven't had productive days against anyone outside the Wildcats.

But the combination of a fully operational read offense and a fairly decent OL will be a new challenge for a team that hasn't taken on a truly mobile QB yet. (Noah Vedral does not count.) Alex:

I had only good things to say about Nebraska's run blocking, but again, contextualizing the opponent is important: Northwestern sucks. Against better competition, the OL has struggled to regularly open big holes between the tackles. Their RBs were under 4 YPC against both Oklahoma and Michigan State, which is another reason for the OL juggling.

It seems unlikely that Nebraska's going to want to do much against Hutchinson, but the problem is that if they want to they can option him off more effectively than anyone else on the schedule.

KEY MATCHUP: DTs vs GETTING OFF BLOCKS. The nature of the Nebraska offense means that linebackers and secondary members are going to frequently be removed from the box because you have to honor the option stuff. That means it'll be imperative for Michigan DTs to make some plays themselves. This was a struggle for much of the Rutgers game until late, when rampant rotation gave Chris Hinton some fresh legs.

Pass Defense vs Nebraska

[Eric Upchurch]

Adrian Martinez isn't going to get a sniff from the NFL, in all likelihood, but neither is it fair to accidentally call him "Taylor" as I and everyone else seem to do even many years deep into his career. Martinez has always been interception prone but put up respectable numbers as a sophomore (59% completions, 7.8 YPA, 10 TD, 9 INT) before a weird COVID year we're discounting around these parts, and this year he's started out on fire: 67% completions, 9.8 YPA, 6 TDs, 2 INTs. Given his receivers and OL that's impressive even if the schedule has been pretty soft, minus Oklahoma, to start.

A large part of this production has been deep shots to Roy Roundtree-esque slot Samori Toure, who's averaging a whopping 21 yards a catch as Nebraska screws with safeties in the ground game and pops their bigger slot past them with some frequency. You remember Denard-to-Roundtree stuff. You get it. Last week's improbable Mertz dimes notwithstanding, this will be a situation where Michigan is able to cope much better than most teams by plopping Dax Hill on the fast slot guy and living with the results.

Nebraska's outside guys are not as productive as Toure but freshman Zavier Betts provides them with an unusual level of athleticism on the outside—a Nebraska native, he was just outside the top 100 as a recruit. Omar Manning is a big leaper type; expect Michigan corners to get tested on back-shoulder fades, because they've got some guys to go get it… and also they come out quick.

That'll be prioritized because Nebraska's problem is going to be protection. They've already given up 18 sacks and the line reshuffle put a true freshman at left tackle. Alex:

…a trend that's pretty consistent across this season and what necessitated the OL shift is the consistently bad pass protection at tackle. On Saturday Nebraska is likely to be starting a true freshman at LT and a RS freshman at RT. Corcoran, the RT, has accumulated a horrendous PFF grade for pass protection this season and there were some glimmers of that problem in this game, even if NW's ineptitude prevented it from popping up in full force.

Take whatever happened against Wisconsin and double it, in terms of terrified QBs exiting the pocket. Aidan Hutchinson is a given against just about anyone these days; this looks like a situation where David Ojabo will have an opportunity to follow up on his 2.5 sacks against the Badgers. It is unlikely that Martinez has any time to throw even on four-man rushes,  at least not consistently.

Michigan will have to be careful about stapling the pocket together. Ojabo in particular is a speed rusher with a little early Winovich disease where he just keeps going even if he's not getting around the corner, and it's not hard to see Martinez escaping and doing some damage on scrambles. Increase prevalence of zone will help there. I'd expect a couple frustrating third down conversions.

KEY MATCHUP: DAX vs TOURE. Living with one on one coverage there and activating Michigan's safeties against all the run game frippery is probably the right move, and Nebraska's going to take their shots downfield if they can survive long enough to do so.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Last week Michigan played a team with a hideous FEI special teams ranking, and this week they've got someone even worse. The Cornhuskers are 128th of 130 D-I teams. (Hideous special teams have been a problem since Scott Frost arrived.) Like Wisconsin they're being disproportionately hurt by some big plays ceded, like that punt return where MSU's Jayden Reed just had to run straight because nobody on the coverage team thought that they might glance up to see that the directional punt was not in fact directed.

But that's not all. Nebraska has a total of 8 punt return yards, is somehow averaging 15 yards a kick return, had to switch punters because their starter was averaging 36 yards a kick, has hit just half their field goals, and has missed three extra points. The only thing they are even vaguely acceptable at is kicking off and covering.

New punter William Przystup may or may not be a solution to some their problems; he hit an 84-yarder against Northwestern but had four punts for just 29 yards a pop against MSU. 

Michigan is second nationally in these rankings. If this turns into a field position game Michigan should have a massive advantage.

KEY MATCHUP:  AHHHH YOU CONTINUE DOING EVERYTHING WELL

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if…

• Nebraska pulls out the ol' double option from further than three yards out.
• Michigan looks like they don't know how to handle the College Crappe.
• Third and shorts crop up as an issue again.

Cackle with knowing glee if…

• Martinez dropbacks result in not one but two ogres dismembering him.
• A Nebraska specialist manages to kick something off his own facemask.
• McNamara's loading up for a deep shot.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 5 (Baseline: 5; +1 for Still Wary Of Road Games Against Decent Teams, –1 for Keystone Kops Special Teams Vs Jaybaugh, +1 for Their Quarterback Is Not Miserably Incompetent, +1 for Very College Offense Against Very NFL Coordinator, –1 for Ends Gonna Eat, –1 for You Lost To Illinois?!??!)

Desperate need to win level: 9 (Baseline: 5; +1 for That One Time Scott Frost's Mom Said Something?, +1 for That One Time Scott Frost Said That His Team Won Because They Hit Harder, +1 for Honestly Scott Frost's Face Just Bothers Me, This Is A Me Problem That I'm Working On, +1 for Big Goals, +1 for Feels Good Man, –1 for Lucy Football Approaching No Just Don't)

Loss will cause me to… dude there's a hockey game tonight, football can't hurt me no mo'.

Win will cause me to… eagerly anticipate Frost claiming that Nebraska had superior windbreakers.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

Nebraska is likely to move the ball better than anyone else has to date. This is a functional offense that has a veteran QB who is not incompetent and they've got a basket of cool tricks. Then they're going to do something stupid, shoot themselves in the foot, and waste a lot of that offense. Also if they get off schedule it's hard to see them not getting obliterated on passing downs.

On the other side of the ball Michigan is likely to hit some deep shots, because that's just what happens apparently, and grind out enough of a ground game to make those deep shots pay off.

Also when there are punt exchanges Michigan should win those decisively.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• 100 yard advantage in hidden yardage for M.
• AJ Henning scores.
• Michigan, 25-20

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