Tad Stryker: Nebraska Fails Physicality Test

Huskers look unprepared against 3-5 UCLA, fritter away a seventh opportunity to go bowling

Nov 2, 2024; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule talks with an official against during the fourth quarter of the Huskers' game against UCLA / Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

You think it’s tough playing football with a monkey on your back? Try packing a 500-pound gorilla instead.

On a dour gray day in Memorial Stadium, every Nebraska Cornhusker on the field appeared to be bearing one of those unwieldy simians throughout the game. From the opening kickoff, the Big Red were on their heels and playing not to lose, and they made it look every bit as dreary and unappealing as it generally is.

Saddled with the gorilla, a defense that was winning its one-on-ones against Ohio State started losing its one-on-ones to UCLA.

Saddled with the gorilla, an offense that has regressed week by week continued to look inept.

Saddled with the gorilla, and a coaching staff that’s stuck in neutral, the Huskers are overthinking every detail and playing slow.

The result? A 27-20 loss to UCLA, a team that came into the game with a 2-5 record and one of the worst rushing offenses and pass defenses in the nation.

The “moral victory” last week in Columbus, Ohio, turned out to mean nothing at all. Here’s hard evidence that the Huskers can play down to their opposition under Matt Rhule just as they did under Scott Frost. Rhule lost more capital with Husker fans in this game than he did in getting blown out by Indiana two weeks earlier. Rhule’s team was not prepared to play. If he doesn’t watch himself, Rhule, now 10-11 in Lincoln, will be on his way to developing a reputation as a good talker who, if he’s done good work establishing a winning culture off the field, can’t deliver on the field. On his best day, at least at this stage of his career, Rhule is a questionable game manager. His decision to go for a touchdown on fourth and goal at the 5-yard line, trailing 27-14 with 11:37 remaining, after needlessly burning a timeout, reeked of indecision and desperation.

And so the Huskers fell to 5-4, but much worse, 0-7 over the past two seasons in games where they could have gotten the proverbial monkey off their back and become bowl eligible. This mark of dishonor is not a Frost leftover. This is all on Rhule and his staff, who after turning in one of the worst Nebraska coaching performances in the last decade, now get to endure two weeks of increasingly intense howls for the jobs of several assistants. Those howls will be justified, because this was a ghastly effort by the Big Red, one that shrouded Memorial Stadium with oppressive silence as the Husker coaches’ perplexity showed up all over the field.

The biggest among the many problems facing the Huskers is that they’re nowhere near to developing the “body blows” persona that Rhule talked about right after he was hired. This was a game where Nebraska should have had a decisive edge in physicality. That edge was nowhere to be found, at least on the Nebraska sideline. Consider that UCLA came into the contest ranked dead last among BCS teams in rushing offense (64.6 yards per game), but outrushed Nebraska 139-113. The Huskers continue to absorb body blows at the line of scrimmage, not deal them out. That’s unacceptable this late in Rhule’s second season, especially when you consider the size, talent and experience on the defensive line, and the fact that Donovan Raiola was retained by Rhule largely for the physical style of blocking he favors. The third-year o-line coach isn’t getting it done. His players — who despite injuries at left tackle, still are among the top half of most experienced lines in college — aren’t moving their opponents off the ball with any degree of regularity.

Couple that with another shaky performance from young Dylan Raiola, and you’ve got a missed opportunity of epic proportions. The highly touted freshman grows less confident and more hesitant each week.

Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola is helped up by offensive lineman Bryce Benhart after being sacked for a 10-yard loss on 4th-and-5 by UCLA. / Kenny Larabee, KLIN

Raiola was just three-for-10 in the first half, then started the second with a pick-six that gave UCLA a 20-7 lead. He quickly followed that up with the type of play that has typified the Huskers’ current three-game losing skid — a fourth-and-two situation at the UCLA 41 where he passed up a sure toss to Emmett Johnson (who was immediately wide open in the flat) that certainly would have given the Huskers a first down. As he searched for an open receiver downfield, he rolled to his right and again, almost certainly could have run for a first down. Instead, he abruptly pulled up and at the last possible moment, Raiola flipped a badly thrown pass that sailed behind Isaiah Neyor, who got his hands on it but dropped the ball. Poor decision making, poor mechanics, poor throw, turnover on downs.

To his credit, Raiola recovered to lead a pair of touchdown drives and ended his 15-quarter touchdown pass drought when he hit Neyor for an 8-yard score in the third quarter. Possibly his best and worst moment was his determined scramble for the goal line trailing 27-14 in the fourth quarter, but a crushing blow from a UCLA defender put him out of the game.

Raiola completed 14 of 27 passes for 177 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. UCLA came into the game rated No. 118 nationwide in passing yards allowed (268 yards per game), but the Huskers could manage only 209.

The Blackshirts bore every bit as much blame as the offense. Neither platoon was ready to play from the very outset, and the only reason Nebraska was close at the end was because UCLA gifted the Huskers a touchdown with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, one of three the Bruins accumulated throughout the day.

Nov 2, 2024; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Nebraska quarterback Heinrich Haarberg runs against the UCLA Bruins during the fourth quarter at Memorial Stadium. / Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

Marcus Satterfield is outclassed weekly by defensive coordinators around the conference. He is obviously not the answer at offensive coordinator, but the scary thing about this game was that Tony White often looked just as clueless as his offensive counterpart. The Huskers got into an immediate 10-0 hole, and at that point, with 1:36 remaining in the first quarter, had been outyarded 148-2 by UCLA. The Bruins had 248 total yards at halftime, and when Ethan Garbers burned the Blackshirts with a 48-yard touchdown pass to make it 27-7 at the midpoint of the third quarter, the outcome was decided.

It was pretty much a replay of the Michigan State game last year. The Spartans entered that game 2-6, but the Huskers (also 5-3 at that time) found a way to botch their best opportunity of the season to go bowling. It feels like that just happened again, only in front of a home crowd.

Now Rhule and his staff will concentrate on recruiting in the upcoming bye week, before they prepare for a road trip to Southern Cal, and they’ll be doing it while wondering about the severity of Raiola’s injury. He attempted to re-enter the game after leaving but collapsed on the field while appearing to hold his right hip or lower back.

It’s just another load for an increasingly unsteady team to bear as it takes its eighth swing on Rhule’s watch at becoming bowl eligible.

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