Ron Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
Tad Stryker: Hardy Defense, Sluggish Offense for Nebraska
In a Big Ten West postseason elimination game that was every bit as ugly as it sounds, Nebraska packed a first-rate defense, a decent kicking game and a third-rate offense. It was enough to give Matt Rhule and the Cornhuskers their first conference win of 2023.
The Husker defense made all the difference on a night when Illinois honored recently deceased native son Dick Butkus, The Blackshirts bullied Bret Bielema’s team, held Illinois to just 21 rushing yards and produced a victory Nebraska had to have to get to .500 and keep its pathway to a bowl game open.
For Nebraska’s defense, outclassing Illinois did not seem difficult. The main problem the Blackshirts had Friday night in Champaign was carrying the dead weight of the Husker offense throughout the second half. Can it continue to do so with home games against Northwestern and Purdue and a road game at Michigan State coming up next?
Good thing there’s a bye week ahead for the defense to recuperate, because it did almost all the heavy lifting in the 20-7 win. Unfortunately, the Husker offense did all it could to pump new life into an Illinois team on life support throughout the second half, when the only scoring was a 32-yard Tristan Alvano field goal midway through the third quarter. The Illini (2-4) kept trying to throw in the towel, but the inept Husker attack kept inviting them back into the game, piling up a concerning number of pre-snap penalties and turning the ball over on three consecutive series when they should have been nailing down the outcome.
The Huskers scored their only two touchdowns in a 10-second span of the second quarter, and built a 17-0 lead before a 46-yard pass from Luke Altmyer to Pat Bryant pulled Illinois to within 10 points.
Then the second half happened, when Nebraska had a parade of opportunities to take control of the game, but could not, squandering excellent field position at every turn and leaving at least three more touchdowns on the field. Complementary football? Heinrich Haarberg and his offense turned down each and every compliment.
Thankfully for Husker Nation, the Blackshirts just kept humming and swatting away the Illini. A goal-line stand on the game’s opening drive and another fourth-down stop at midfield with three minutes left in the third quarter helped slam the door on Illinois. Almost half of the Illini’s 310 total yards came on the opening and closing drives of the game, which produced no points.
It would be an overstatement to say the Blackshirts were spectacular, but they produced two takeaways, three sacks and six tackles for loss. They got a decent pass rush at times, and the secondary held up relatively well. Their open-field tackling was more than reliable.
The Blackshirts patiently, time and time again showed the offense how to close out a team, but the offense simply was unable to comprehend what they were seeing. This likely will be a major theme throughout the rest of Rhule’s first season. It’s hard to conceive of this offense returning the favor and bailing out the defense by winning a 45-42 shootout any time soon.
Marcus Satterfield’s offense will need every minute of remedial work it can get its hands on over the next two weeks. Will a fully healed Jeff Sims reappear on the field, and if so, what changes will he bring? At this stage in his development, Haarberg is not reliable on short to midrange throws, that much was apparent.
Still, it was an accomplishment that’s been relatively rare for the Big Red in the last seven years. Of Nebraska’s nine conference road wins since 2017, three have come in Champaign, so this one felt like a must win to simply gain back a small patch of ground ceded by the Huskers over the years.
It’s true that last six sub-.500 years are not on Rhule, but he carries their weight. Did a bit of that weight just melt away? After all, Husker Nation has finally found someone who can beat Bielema. That’s at least a small step in the right direction.
Rhule was deliberately and unflinchingly optimistic about everything his team did, talking up his defense and even covering the offense with praise. It left me wondering, will Satterfield’s unit will learn to walk Rhule’s talk any time soon?
Rhule is keeping his focus on the process that brought him success at Temple and Baylor. He urged Nebraska fans to put their focus there as well.
“I hope people enjoy this ride,” he said in his postgame press conference. He called his team’s ongoing development an “innocent climb” and said, “The kids are out there giving their all. It’s not perfect, it can be a little bit frustrating, but it’s a beautiful thing to see young players fight for each other and learn how to win.”
I’m looking for beauty. I see a defense that’s figuring it out under Tony White. I see a kicking game that shows signs of life under Ed Foley. I’m squinting hard at Satterfield’s offense, finding it difficult to measure progress. I see a bunch of experienced offensive linemen who should be the team leaders, but instead are still having an incredibly tough time figuring out how to get out of their own way. At the season’s halfway point, more often than not, I get an underachieving vibe from offensive line coach Donovan Raiola.
Was the pass blocking a little better? Perhaps. But Satterfield needs to figure out how to get the ball to Thomas Fidone, who could be a real playmaker on the offense this year. Only three catches for 42 yards. I get a bad feeling about Marcus Washington’s injury. If serious, it will further curtail this handicapped offense. The true-freshman wideouts, Malachi Coleman and Jalen Lloyd, will have to grow up quickly.
Anthony Grant has receded from being a September playmaker last season to a puzzle in 2023, and Haarberg’s main accomplishment Friday night — at least in the second half — was simply avoiding throwing a pick-six.
Yet Nebraska compiled 312 total yards and 37 minutes of possession time, staved off postseason elimination, broke a three-game losing streak to Illinois and now has two weeks to figure out how to make progress toward the six-win mark. To fans accustomed to watching the Big Red lose games to mediocre competition, there’s a certain beauty in that.
- More coverage & commentary: HuskerMax game page
