Tad Stryker: Huskers Keep It Simple
Less was more for Matt Rhule — enough for his first win at Nebraska.
Less drama. Fewer turnovers. A noticeable dropoff in damaging penalties. It added up to a 35-11 victory over Northern Illinois, a team that won’t be rated anytime soon but was selected to finish in the upper half of the Mid-American Conference and has a respectable defense. It won’t impress a national audience, nor should it, but it’s a start.
Some decisions are easy. The Blackshirts are good enough to keep Nebraska in every game they have left on the schedule — especially if Nash Hutmacher can disrupt things in the middle as he did in the first half — and he has one of the best punters in the Big Ten. Rhule should lean on them all season long, keeping in mind the old adage that an offensive possession that ends in a kick is generally a good thing.
Five extra points by freshman Tristan Alvano were more than most anyone expected Saturday night in Memorial Stadium, but Brian Buschini came off a subpar effort at Boulder last week to average 43.2 net yards on his six punts. He set up a touchdown when Phelan Sanford downed a 48-yard boot at the NIU 1-yard line. You could do a lot worse.
Rhule said in his postgame press conference, “It allows us to say, even if we go three and out, we can trust our defense. We just wanted to protect the ball tonight.”
Trusting this defense will pay off in quite a few games this year. Some decisions are tougher, though. Rhule has one to make about his quarterback.
Maybe the decision’s not so tough. With Jeff Sims declared out with an ankle injury, Heinrich Haarberg, the rawboned sophomore from Kearney Catholic, seized his opportunity and ran with it.
Haarberg managed to stay out of his own way and use some good field position supplied by the Husker defense and special teams. At times, he looked very good. Maybe the thing he did the best was simply not try to do too much. He threw a pass out of bounds every now and then when nothing was available. He pulled down the ball and scrambled when he had opportunity. He found sophomore tight end Thomas Fidone, who seemed to find a spark on a gorgeous evening, catching four passes for 42 yards and a touchdown. Now, if Fidone can start getting some yards after he makes the catch, he could be a big part of whatever offense the Huskers can put together.
The Huskers did exactly what they should have done against NIU. They kept it simple. They let the Blackshirts set the tone. On offense, they leaned on their running game, threw play-action passes and took care of the football, for the most part.
So what happens when Sims gets healthy? Rhule was diplomatic after the game, saying “I know we can win with both guys.”
Haarberg, the first native Nebraskan to quarterback the Huskers to a win since Ryker Fyfe of Grand Island did it against Maryland in 2016, led an offense that gained 382 total yards and took a few humble steps toward respectability against NIU, which entered the game rated among the nation’s top 25 in total defense and 59th in rushing defense. He completed 14 of 24 passes for 158 yards with no interceptions. He was a workhorse on offense, running the ball 21 times for 98 yards and another TD and lowering his shoulder when he needed to. That’ll win you some votes from Husker Nation.
Haarberg accounted for three touchdowns and just one turnover, a fumble inside his own 10-yard line when he was sacked by a heavy rush he had almost no time to react to. That turned into a golden moment for the Blackshirts, who shoved the Huskies backward and held them to a field goal.
While most Husker fans were talking about the quarterback, Tony White’s defense allowed a measly 26 rushing yards and 149 yards of total offense, the fewest since Jared Crick, Lavonte David and Alfonzo Dennard led the Blackshirts in 2010. The Husker second- and third-teamers allowed 60 of those yards in NIU’s garbage time drive that ended in the Huskies’ only touchdown with four seconds left.
Linebacker Javin Wright got an interception to set up a fourth-quarter touchdown. Cornerback Quinton Newsome grabbed another one, but it was nullified when officials ruled he didn’t keep a foot inbounds. White got production out of his Jack linebackers. Jimari Butler and M.J. Sherman each had a sack, and Chief Borders had a pair of tackles.
The Huskers did some of the things Rhule had talked about as benchmarks. They ran the ball well in the fourth quarter, rushing 12 times for 96 yards in the final stanza. They possessed the ball for more than 36 minutes, including 20 minutes in the second half.
I-backs Gabe Ervin (14 carries for 67 yards) and Anthony Grant (seven for 46) each had a touchdown run. If they get some blocking, they could work well together, with Ervin as hammer and Grant as slasher. Ervin caught a pair of screen passes that he turned into a pair of timely first downs.
But the most important thing Rhule and his team did was keeping it simple, shrugging it off when things went sideways, staying away from crippling mistakes, and coming back to fight the next round. That mindset might come in handy this year.
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