Matchups to Watch: Nebraska vs. Minnesota Football

Middle-aged Ball Coach breaks down Thursday night’s season opener

Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

1. Battle of the QBs: Athan Kaliakmanis (MN) vs. Jeff Sims (NE)

Tanner Morgan has finally graduated after having played quarterback for Minnesota since the melting of the icebergs at the end of the Pleistocene Era. [*Wait … my sources tell me that he was only there from 2017 through 2022, but it felt like an epoch or two.] Enter Athan Kaliakmanis, whose name alone has to immediately make him the most popular quarterback in all of Greece. Kaliakmanis is in his third year in the program as a Redshirt Sophomore. He was forced to play in the second half of last season after Tanner Morgan went down with an injury.

If all of this sounds familiar to Nebraska fans, that’s because Morgan was injured against Nebraska in the second quarter of last year’s game. For those who have blocked it out of their memory and/or were told by their therapists to stop dwelling on the negatives, Nebraska was leading 10-0 at the half, but still managed to lose 20-13. I had assumed at the time that it was a good thing for Nebraska that Morgan was out and Kaliakmanis would have to play in the second half, especially since Nebraska had started the game with Chubba Purdy filling in at quarterback for an also injured Casey Thompson: I was wrong. Minnesota scored on four drives that took approximately 43 plays each as I recall. [*My sources now feel the need to point out that the drives were actually 10, 6, 9, and 7 plays, respectively, but it felt like 43 plays per drive.] Minnesota finished the season strong, going 3-1 afterwards to wrap up the year, including impressive wins over Wisconsin and Syracuse (Pinstripe Bowl), though also including the Gophers’ not-so-impressive annual choke-fest against the Hawkeyes.

There are a lot of questions surrounding Kaliakmanis. His stats were not impressive as he threw a total of 3 TDs and 4 INTs with only a 54% completion rate, which is especially notable as PJ Fleck’s offense is built around high percentage completions on Slant-routes using Run-Pass Option (RPO) plays. With the HUGE offensive line that Minnesota had last year, plus Mohamed Ibrahim at RB, every defense that they played was focused on stopping the run first, so open easy passes should have regularly been there for lots of completions. When you add in the NFL-caliber WRs that he had as targets for those passes, it seems even worse.

Kaliakmanis has a very strong arm, and he’s not much of a threat as a runner, so I suspect that he will be operating a different form of the Fleck RPO offense this year that will likely be built around that arm. With their top WRs returning, as well as adding in some quality transfer receivers, the Minnesota offense could look very different this fall from the past few years of “Mo Ibrahim and a cloud of turf dust.” Other stats aside, counting the Nebraska game, Kaliakmanis finished with a 4-1 record, which is really the only stat that matters: he’s a winner.

Jeff Sims will be starting his first game for Nebraska on Thursday night. Sims transferred after last season from Georgia Tech, where he was a three-year starter. Sims is still considered a junior due to the 2020 Covid season not being counted against players’ eligibility. Sims hurt his foot in the 7th game of the 2022 season, forcing him to sit out the second half of the year. Listed at 6’4” and 220 pounds on the Nebraska roster, Sims has the body of a linebacker or an NFL running back or a gladiator, and he has the throwing arm to match. 

Consistency has been an issue as his footwork has occasionally been suspect in the pocket, but when his feet are right and he sees the field, he can throw laser beams. He is a true dual-threat quarterback, so the threat of him running will force opposing defenses to play more balanced, and that should set up another key matchup. (See below.) Sims had similar stats as Kaliakmanis in 2022 as he threw 5 TDs to 3 INTs with a 58.5% completion percentage, but it is worth noting that Sims did not have the same quality of supporting personnel around him.

Minnesota is likely to throw the ball more this year, and Rhule plans to run the ball much more often. How effective will Kaliakmanis be when the defense is looking for him to pass? How accurate will Sims be over the middle, especially in the middle-distance ranges of 10 to 25 yards? How often will Sims run the ball? I think that Satterfield will run Sims once or twice early in some sort of Zone Read look so as to keep the defense honest, but Nebraska’s lack of depth at QB will likely mean that there won’t be a lot of designed run plays for him. After the first couple of series, I would expect most of Sims’ rushing yards to come from scrambles out of broken plays, or maybe an occasional designed run play when the defense is expecting a pass on a key down. Setting aside all of the preseason focus on running the ball, Nebraska will be unable to win the game without a strong passing performance from Sims.

Conclusion? Advantage: EVEN

2. Nebraska running game vs Minnesota defensive line

Matt Rhule and Marcus Satterfield (OC) have made no secret of their desire to re-establish the Nebraska tradition of a dominating power running game. Nebraska has the stacked running back position to do that. Last season’s leading rusher, Anthony Grant, is now listed third on the depth chart behind the 2021 starter, Gabe Ervin (who suffered a knee injury), and the untapped multi-talented Rahmir Johnson, who has been praised and loved by every coach who has worked with him. Though he has struggled to gain significant playing time in the offense, it is expected that Rahmir will be the 3rd down back. All three can do pretty much anything that you could ask of a running back.

Will they have any room to run?

Nebraska produced dominating offensive lines from the 70s through the 90s, but that devolved into what has been an almost annual question ever since: will the offensive line be able to make holes for the running backs to run through? Donovan Raiola was brought in by the prior staff to revamp the offensive line. The previous philosophy was built on the newer Oregon-style zone blocking scheme that was dependent upon OL using longer arms to move the defenders wherever they were already trying to go, allowing holes to open up if the RB had time to read it correctly.

 Other than some moments with Ohio State in recent years, that style of blocking has not consistently worked against Big Ten defenses as there has almost always been a future NFL defensive lineman on the other side of the ball who could slice through and disrupt the play before there was time for a hole to open. Instead, Frost hired Raiola to go back to something older and more proven, both in the Big Ten and in Nebraska’s past: an aggressive, forward-focused zone blocking scheme. Donovan Raiola played for Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin shortly after his older brother, Dominic, had finished his illustrious career at Nebraska: both played in similar offensive blocking schemes, and both were dominating and successful. Instead of the focus being on extremely long offensive linemen moving in tandem and using freakishly long arms to react to the defensive linemen’s movements, the OL will be an old-school race to move forward as quickly as possible while staying low, trying to always push the line-of-scrimmage farther downfield. 

There is a reason why Milt Tenopir used to have no issue with offensive linemen who were considered too short to play for other teams: he placed much more value on quick feet, an ability to maintain a lower center of gravity, and the tenacity to drive a defender as far downfield (or down into the ground) as possible. The irony is painful in that since Nebraska moved away from the more aggressive blocking style, they have repeatedly been run over by Big Ten West teams in the past decade that still embrace the Tenopir style of offensive line play. Wisconsin and Iowa have thrived with variations of this style of blocking scheme, and now Bret Bielema has brought it back to Illinois. It was difficult to see much that was different last year under Raiola in the run-blocking scheme in large part because Nebraska had become a pass-first team. It also hurt that Nouredin Nouile (G) was suspended just prior to fall camp. He probably most epitomized the mentality that Raiola said that he wanted to instill. Nebraska is still struggling to build depth in the O-line, and the recent injury to the expected starter at Left Tackle, Teddy Prochazka, certainly didn’t help, but the first game of the season should showcase the players at their healthiest, so it will be worthwhile to see how control of the Line-of-Scrimmage progresses as the game wears on.

On the other side of the ball, Minnesota’s defensive line is loaded up to stop the run. Their top interior D-linemen are all returning, and they were stout against the interior run in 2022 while struggling to get a lot of penetration and disrupt plays in general. Similarly, Minnesota has returning experience on the outside against the run, but there is a lack of depth and experience at Rush End. If Rhule wants to run the ball against Minnesota, he will be forced to use one of Nebraska’s most questioned areas—offensive line—to attack Minnesota’s greatest strength—the D-line against the run.

Regardless of what Rhule wants to happen, it is hard to imagine Nebraska successfully running the ball inside. If, however, Nebraska is able to do that … well … Nebraska fans will be doing their best impressions of Wyatt Earp….

(But I wouldn’t bet on it.)

Conclusion? Advantage: Minnesota

3. Marcus Satterfield (Nebraska OC) vs Joe Rossi (Minnesota DC)

In his first interview as a Huskers coach, Marcus Satterfield pointed out that he had previously coached in Lincoln as the OC for Middle Tennessee State, and that the first offensive play that he called in that game against Nebraska was a Fullback run in deference to the Nebraska fullback tradition. Since Nebraska hasn’t used a true Fullback since Barack Obama was still in office, if Satterfield were to call a Fullback Trap to score the go-ahead touchdown against Minnesota, sales of Viagra and Cialis will plummet across the upper Great Plains as a more effective homeopathic treatment will have been found. It is unanimous among Nebraska staff, team, students, cheerleaders, general population, and even the livestock and pets across the greater Nebraska area that the team needs to re-establish a dominating running game … but Thursday night is unlikely to be the coronation of that running renaissance.

What then? What happens when Nebraska simply cannot consistently get 3-4 yards running inside?

Marcus Satterfield has a lot of fun options to consider. Perhaps most intriguing, there have been rumors and whispers that there could be some unique personnel packages with 2 and even 3 Tight Ends on the field at the same time as a Fullback and a Halfback. Thomas Fidone—who is co-listed with Nate Boerkircher as starting TE—is finally healthy and should provide a lot of matchup issues for opposing defenders with his combination of height, size, and speed. Nebraska has multiple RBs who are threats to come out of the backfield, including Janiran Bonner (co-listed as #1 FB) who is also a converted TE. 

With Bonner and Rahmir Johnson in the backfield and Fidone at TE, Nebraska could break the huddle with anything from a circa-90s inline-TE look with an I-formation backfield, or—with the exact same personnel—they could flex Fidone outside, and empty the backfield with opposing LBs trying to figure out who’s covering Fidone and Bonner, and who gets to try to keep up with Rahmir … and don’t forget that Sims can run. Nebraska’s WRs are less experienced (with the exception of Billy Kemp, Slot-WR), but there seems to be speed and talent sprinkled throughout.

The traditional recipe for a dual-threat QB with accuracy issues is to sit in a lot of zone defenses, and to mix up and disguise the looks to keep him guessing. A deeper umbrella zone look allows the defenders to keep their eyes on the QB, which helps to prevent big yards on broken plays and scrambles. That pretty much describes Minnesota’s base defense. Without a lot of notice or applause, Joe Rossi has quietly built Minnesota’s defense into a consistent quality unit, year after year. 

This year’s version will be very strong up front, especially against the run, but they struggled to put pressure on opposing QBs last year. Their corps of returning linebackers was very thin prior to the portal transfer of Ryan Seli from Western Michigan, but Cody Lindenberg was all conference honorable mention last year as a redshirt freshman. Beyond these two are young players with a lot of potential but not a lot of experience. The secondary returns 2nd team all-conference Safety, Tyler Nubin, and a solid Cornerback (Justin Walley). The other 2 starters from last year are now playing in the NFL, so, again, there will be potential and inexperience stepping in to replace them.

Rossi likes to keep things simple: keep the ball in front of the defenders and keep all eyes on the ball. Assuming that Nebraska struggles to run against them, it will also be difficult to hit big shots down the field, which means that Simms will likely have to complete a lot of key passes over the middle and along the sidelines. Mid-level passes allow the deeper defenders to come up and thump the TEs and WRs over the middle. This can lead to opportunistic turnovers, either via deflected passes that are intercepted or fumbles that are caused by hard contact. Rossi doesn’t blitz a lot, so he would give up a few passes early over the middle in exchange for a lot of hard contact and forcing a few turnovers later on.

Satterfield has shown a lot of range in running offensive variations. While Nebraska fans will be encouraged to see FBs and TEs involved in the offense, almost everything else has been kept under wraps during a mostly vanilla spring game. It would not make much sense to bring in a dual-threat QB if there aren’t plans to use him as a runner, so it is likely that there will be some Zone Read plays sprinkled throughout, and it’s likely that those will include a significant amount of Zone-Read RPO plays. Instead of the Bubble Screens that were the bane of Nebraska fans during the Frost era, these will more likely be centered on TEs and Slot-WRs running shallow Slant routes and/or Hook routes. Can Sims consistently make the right reads and deliver the ball accurately? Can the WRs and TEs catch those passes cleanly and absorb the hard hits that will be coming?

It will help Minnesota’s younger defenders that much of what Satterfield will be trying to do against them will likely look similar to what they have been seeing from their own offense in practice.

Conclusion? Advantage: Minnesota

4. Minnesota running game vs Nebraska’s New 3-3-5 Defense

After approximately 18 seasons as the Gophers’ starting RB, Mo Ibrahim’s eligibility has finally, mercifully ended. [*He apparently only played at Minnesota for 6 years, though I swear he carried the ball when Glen Mason was still coaching there.] Likewise, 3 of the 5 starting offensive linemen have finally run out of eligibility, which frees up nearly a thousand pounds of weight for the team bus as those were some very large human beings. There is no obvious heir apparent at RB as carries will be split between portal transfer Sean Tyler from Western Michigan and true freshman Darius Taylor.

Meanwhile, the heart of Nebraska’s defensive line will be anchored by Ty Robinson and Nash Hutmacher in the middle, and it will be hard to move either of them. With veteran LBs Luke Reimer and Nick Henrich behind them, free to roam and make plays, it should be very difficult to run inside against this Nebraska team.

Tony White’s last game as Defensive Coordinator at Syracuse was against *drumroll* Minnesota in the Pinstripe Bowl. The bad news is that Minnesota won, but the good news is that Minnesota’s RBs struggled mightily to run the ball, only gaining 104 yards on 27 carries. If Mo Ibrahim running behind last year’s bulldozers could only manage 71 yards on 16 carries, what can Coach White do with upgrades at key positions like Robinson, Hutmacher, Reimer, and Henrich?

Conclusion? Advantage: Coach White and Nebraska

5. Matt Rhule (Nebraska HC) vs. penalties, turnovers and unforced errors

Ever since P.J. Fleck took over in Minneapolis, the Gophers’ gameplan versus Nebraska has basically been to play hard and wait for Nebraska to make some crucial, backbreaking mistakes. It was a good strategy, and it worked for Minnesota, just as it did for almost everybody else in the Big Ten. So how much difference can there be in one offseason? Matt Rhule seems to hate mistakes the way that my wife hates seeing me sitting comfortably on the couch, but how much improvement can reasonably be expected in the first game of his tenure … on the road … against a team that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes?

Conclusion? Advantage: Probably Minnesota

Put all of the above together, and I expect a close game. It likely will come down to turnovers and penalties, and it seems like a tall order for Nebraska to win those stats after the parade of unmitigated self-immolations that they’ve had on display for nearly a decade…. But I’m an optimist, so I predict Nebraska 26, Minnesota 20.