Essentials

WHAT	#2 Michigan (4-0) vs Nebraska (2-2)
WHERE	Memorial Stadium Lincoln, NE
WHEN	3:35 Eastern
THE LINE	M –17 (Vegas) M -22 (Bill C)
TELEVISION	FOX PBP: Jason Benetti Color: Brock "Why Aren't You Robbie Hummel" Huard
TICKETS	From $34.
WEATHER	mostly sunny 15 mph win mid 90s(!?!?)

Overview

Scott Frost has been reduced to Ryan Day's speechwriter and Matt Rhule has taken over. Rhule is a fantastic hire for Nebraska. He's resurrected Temple and Baylor; he seems like a legitimately good dude; he's yoinked the starting quarterback and inserted an in-state dude named "Heinrich" who's running 20 times a game in a bid to placate the football gods still wroth at the Bill Callahan era. Good things are coming for Nebraska.

Just not, like, you know, now. This is a year zero situation if there ever was one. Rhule had to import Jeff Sims, a Georgia Tech quarterback who thinks that uniforms are fascism, man, and that throwing to the guys in the same ones you're wearing is totally reductive, yo. Can the Subaltern intercept? YES, JEFF. YES. IT APPEARS SO.

Anyway. That guy's on the bench and Nebraska is assembling a defense out of the trinitite that remained from last year's Michigan game. They're gonna give it a go. It's going to take another year or three to get up to speed.

[AFTER THE JUMP: REJOICE IN THE RESTORATION OF A COLLEGE FOOTBALL TRADITION]

Run Offense vs Nebraska

Damp and flat [Fuller]

This is similar to last week's outing in that Nebraska has clobbered everyone they've played in this department… and so has almost everyone else who's played Nebraska's opponents. The Cornhuskers have held every opponent under sixty yards rushing, which is a WOW item. They've also played the nation's #71, #118, and #131 rush offenses. The #71 is Louisiana Tech, which avoids the bottom because they put up monster numbers against Northwestern State and North Texas.

The "almost" in that department exists because Nebraska opened the season against Minnesota, which has plowed EMU, UNC, and Northwestern after playing Nebraska in week one. This appears to be a Mike Hart situation, though. Gopher true freshman Darius Taylor got one carry against the Cornhuskers and has since exploded into Yet Another Minnesota Running Back with 500 yards in his last three games at a 6.1 YPC clip. But even with that caveat, the Cornhusker's performance against the Gophers suggests that Nebraska's renaissance is at least somewhat for real. This is a team that gave up 214 yards at a 4.6 clip against Northwestern last year. They've leveled up.

One guy in particular has, and that's #0, 330-pound nose tackle Nash Hutmacher. On the podcast this afternoon Seth wondered why Michigan didn't get after a guy who went 166-0 in South Dakota high school wrestling. It is clearly because a guy named "Nash Hutmacher" was fated by destiny to play at Nebraska.

Anyway, Hutmacher is the nose in a straight-up 3-3 stack…

…which means he eats doubles all day and hopes that his yeoman work allows tricksy hobbitses to blitz into the backfield. This has worked unreasonably well given the state of the Nebraska defense last year. That said, Hutmacher was on the team last year, as were the starting ends. There is just no way that all of those guys got good enough in one offseason to hold up against Michigan's OL, particularly now that they've got two tight ends plowing people.

Michigan's main concern here will be IDing where guys are coming from. The actual blocks are going to go just fine.

KEY MATCHUP: TRICKSY HOBBITSES vs NEW GUYS. We've seen the occasional bust from Hinton and (maybe?) Nugent, mostly in the passing game; this is going to be a defense that is asking questions about who you're blocking on every snap.

Pass Offense vs Nebraska

Loveland o'clock? [Fuller]

Similar story here, as Nebraska has struggled badly to get organic pass rush. This isn't a huge surprise when two of your DL are 300+, but Blaise Gunnerson, Ty Robinson, and Hutmacher all have pass rush win rates under 5%. Their only reasonably effective rushers are linebackers Luke Reimer and John Bullock. Those guys get sent a lot… but also don't get sent a lot:

Against Colorado Nebraska had perhaps the most interesting allocation of rushers that I've charted, a nearly perfect 1/3 vs. 1/3 vs. 1/3 split in pressure. They rushed more than four players on 35.6% of snaps but also rushed fewer than four on 34% of snaps.

Nebraska is going to throw the kitchen sink at McCarthy in an effort to confuse his reads, and if they stick to the Colorado gameplan McCarthy is going to have eons to throw on a lot of snaps.

The good news for Nebraska is that they have some guys in the secondary. Alex on Quinton Newsome:

When Newsome is targeted, you typically see him within a pace or two of the receiver, even if the ball is badly overthrown …For the season, Newsome has allowed 13 catches on 23 targets for a respectable 56.5% completion percentage, while his NFL passer rating against when targeted is a stellar 74.7. Newsome is a rock-solid tackler in addition to his coverage chops, an all-around quality B1G corner.  

Nebraska is playing with their backup safeties; this has gone fine so far. Competition level caveats don't apply here after 42 Shedeur Sanders attempts faced; Sanders did get up to 9.4 YPA, but much of that was after Sims's turnover implosion put the game out of reach. Defenses let down when it's clear the offense isn't going to do anything except give the opponent a short field.

A place Michigan might attack: other corner is Malcom Hartzong, a 5'9" mighty-mite who narrowly avoided a cyan in Alex's charting. This might be a game to stick Loveland outside and back-shoulder fade down the field.

For Michigan this will also be about IDing blocks. Nobody on this Nebraska team is going to get to McCarthy if they draw a blocker, and given time McCarthy will dice this secondary. Good play so far from the safeties is one thing; trying to cover Roman Wilson is another.

KEY MATCHUP:  WELL I MEAN I JUST SAID THE THING ABOUT IDING BLOCKS vs MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE LEFT THAT FOR THIS SECTION.

Run Defense vs Nebraska

ope gonna yoink your linebacker [Fuller]

When Nebraska decided they could no longer tolerate Jeff Sims turning the ball over four times a game they turned to Heinrich Haarberg, a 6'5" in-state kid, and hit up this guy for advice:

Coach Matt Rhule and his offensive staff for the past month have received a crash course in option principles from Ron Brown. A longtime former assistant under Tom Osborne, Frank Solich and Bo Pelini, Brown works this season for Rhule as the director of player support and outreach.

This pleases the football gods. Yea, they have smitten Gabe Irvin and Rahmir Johnson, Nebraska's top two running backs, but Anthony Grant stepped into the breach. Grant isn't your average third string running  back; he was the starter last year but lost his job because he kept putting the ball on the turf. He's not Corum but he's solid:

The one-two punch of Haarberg and Grant put up 224 yards at 5.1 a clip against NIU and 312 at 6.5 against Louisiana Tech, and they are running bits of the old-timey Nebraska playbook:

Triple option is probably off the table but Haarberg runs a lot of speed option in addition to the usual suite of zone read stuff everyone runs these days, plus the "freeze option" where a mesh point is aborted into more speed option.

They toss in jet sweeps and the like; it's most of the package when you really want to avoid throwing the ball. All of this stuff avoids the center of the defense, where Michigan is strongest, and puts linebackers and defensive backs into the mix. Michigan has a couple of rusty starters just coming back from injury in the secondary and could leak some yards from time to time, particularly if edges don't get set, but if the primary edge guys are Jaylen Harrell and Mike Sainristil, well… good luck with that.

KEY MATCHUP: JAYLEN HARRELL vs SO YOU WANT TO EDGE JAYLEN HARRELL. This might be a game to just leave him on the field, because this Nebraska offense might as well be nicknamed "Jaylen Harrell's wheelhouse."

Pass Defense vs Nebraska

[Barron]

This is going to be a keep-em-honest sidelight. Haarberg is averaging 5.9 YPA after games against Northern Illinois and Louisiana Tech (plus six attempts against Colorado). PFF grades him out at 55; Alex's charting saw him pick up a decent 71% downfield success rate against NIU, but:

What I primarily noticed watching Haarberg throw the ball is how short his average depth of target was. Very little down the field … Most of what he was throwing was five yard hitches, crossing routes, screens, things of that nature. When he did throw deeper, his accuracy started deteriorate.

Nebraska lost potential targets Zavier Betts, Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda, and UGA transfer Arik Gilbert to various maladies/crimes by the end of the opener, so options are thin. Virginia transfer Billy Kemp leads Nebraska in catches with 13; he's one of those guys listed at 5'9" who does his damage at or near the line of scrimmage. Alex notes that some of those "catches" are illusory since they're touch passes on jet sweeps.

Nebraska has to focus on stuff at the line of scrimmage because Nebraska's pass blocking is rough. The entire left side of the line looks shaky per PFF; C Ben Scott and G Ethan Piper are in the mid-60s and mid-50s, respectively, and left tackle Turner Corcoran may be the biggest turnstile in all of college football:

Ye gods. We've got a literal Blutarsky GPA situation here. Nebraska has already suffered ten sacks despite running most of the time.

The Cornhuskers will be yet another team that mostly uses the pass game as a way to stretch the field horizontally; when not stuck in passing downs they're going to run, run, and then run. There will probably be some sideline fades, because hey maybe you get lucky, but any progress in the air is going to be much like BGSU and like opponents: maybe the occasional chunk, serious possibility of disaster every dropback.

KEY MATCHUP: TURNER CORCORAN vs ANYBODY. I have never seen the like of the above. Block somebody!

SPECIAL TEAMS

Year zero often shows up on special teams, and yup: freshman kicker Tristan Alvano is 1/3 on the season with misses from 45 and 41. The make was from 27. Alvano was the kickoff guy too but he put two of his 10 kickoffs out of bounds and only got touchbacks on four of the other eight; he was replaced by punter Brian Buschini, who isn't getting them much deeper but is at least keeping them in the field of play.

Buschini is eh, with a 43 yard average. 9 of his 19 punts have been returned. His net of 40 yards per punt is decidedly middling.

Kemp returns punts; he also returned them for most of his tenure at Virginia. Verdict: unless you are William and Mary, he's not a threat. Kickoffs are unclear since Nebraska's primary returner is out for the season and it appears the Cornhuskers used the La Tech game to audition a replacement. The chances Nebraska even returns a kick with Tommy Doman booming it are minimal.

KEY MATCHUP: AHHH YOU PUT IT THROUGH THE UPRIGHTS

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if...

• Michigan's handling a mobile quarterback like it's the late Carr era.
• Michigan has some hiccups early and all the running/clock rules stuff means the game is like 7-6 at halftime.
• There's still no tackle clarity.

Cackle with glee if...

• Stack blitzes are swatted away like so many gnats.
• Nebraska is in a passing down and [Insert Player] is lined up over Corcoran.
• Jeff Sims plays and throws into triple coverage.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 3 (Baseline 5; –1 for Wet And Flat Last Year, –1 for Year Zero, –1 for The Worst Tackle In College Football, +1 for Aaaargh A 3-3-5, +1 for Rhule Can Coach, –1 for Jeff Sims Or Guy Who Was Jeff Sims's Backup, –1 for Corum Back)

Desperate Need To Win Level: 9 (Baseline 5; +1 for It's All On The Table, +1 for Three Score Spread, +1 for Projecting The OSU Game, +1 for Must Defend #1 In SP+, +1 for Winning Is Nice, –1 for Nebraska Fans Are Nice And Something Good Happening To Them Would Not Be Like Losing To MSU.)

Loss will cause me to... stop joking about the "football gods," because they are very real and demand sacrifices.

Win will cause me to... aggressively eat corn!

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

Well: it'll be short. Nebraska's going to run run run and Michigan's going to be relatively balanced unless they get a two score lead, at which point they will boa constrictor out the second half.

It's tough to see this Nebraska offense move the ball much; they don't have the personnel to manufacture explosives and their offensive line is deeply unlikely to be able to deal with Kris Jenkins and friends. A bunch of QB run game will ask some questions on a couple drives, but this team isn't likely to drive the field.

Defensively Nebraska will probably gum up the Michigan ground game some; it only takes one guy to mess up for a play to end unsuccessfully and while the grading has been very good for most players most of the year, this will be a test for Nugent and Hinton that could result in some frustration. But this is not a defense that can exploit Michigan's at-times iffy pass protection from the tackles and one that will probably sit back in eight-man zones that McCarthy has already demonstrated he can eviscerate. Nebraska will hold up better than anyone to date, and given the likelihood that the number of possessions in this game is going to be 7-9 that'll give the appearance of a relatively close game on the scoreboard; it'll feel like a comprehensive victory.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid tomorrow: 

• It's still Hinton at right tackle to start, with Henderson rotating in.
• Donovan Edwards has had a come-to-Jesus conversation this week and gets it right.
• Michigan, 25-8.