Tad Stryker: No Identity, No Chance vs. Michigan

Husker football increasingly obscure as it strays from its roots

Tad Stryker | Nov 12, 2022

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

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Five days before kickoff, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh never mentioned Nebraska in his Monday press conference. It turns out there was really no reason to do so.

The undefeated, No. 3-rated Wolverines clearly had more important things on their mind all week, and appeared to be thinking ahead Saturday when they pretty much sleepwalked through the game and had no trouble grinding up the Cornhuskers on a cold, windy day in Ann Arbor.

Both teams achieved their major goals. Michigan continued to accelerate toward its annual clash with Ohio State. Nebraska accomplished its mission days before kickoff, ensuring that Casey Thompson continued to heal from a nerve problem in his arm by leaving him off the travel roster. It was the smart move. Nebraska had no chance of beating Michigan regardless of who lined up behind center. It does have a chance against Wisconsin and Iowa with a healthy Thompson in the lineup.

Once known as “Offensive Line U,” the Cornhusker brand never seemed more irrelevant than it does now. The Huskers, who lost their seventh game of the year, will end 2022 as the BCS program with the nation’s longest bowl drought, and are known throughout the college football world as the team that can’t run the ball or stop the run. The Huskers are reaping the bitter harvest that became inevitable when Nebraska’s upper management decided that it could “win in other ways” and treated physicality and the running game like they’re optional.

Trey Palmer’s stat line against Michigan — five receptions for 12 yards and no touchdowns — testifies to the utter lunacy of trying to build a program on good skill-position players. Without reliable offensive linemen to protect a quarterback, any passing game is a risky proposition at best. College teams on the windy Great Plains that depend heavily on the pass are fated to obscurity.

Meanwhile, TV networks show old clips of Tom Osborne’s hard-running teams of the 1980s and '90s, and wonder if the Huskers will ever “get back to being Nebraska,” like Jim Delany pleaded a few years ago.

The perpetually underachieving Nebraska football program has almost nothing to offer its fans right now except the hope that a new coach can come into Lincoln and breathe life into it again, much as Bob Devaney did in 1962.

Nebraska has gained precious little ground in either the offensive or defensive line in four years, since the last time they came to Ann Arbor and got kicked around. That will be one of the main legacies of the disastrous Scott Frost era in Lincoln.

The Michigan scout team offense may have given the Wolverines more problems all week in practice than Nebraska provided with its soft offensive line and its injury problems at quarterback. The Huskers had only eight first downs, compiled only 75 yards rushing and 71 yards passing, and constantly put their defense back on the field.

Chubba Purdy got the start at quarterback and showed no more than he has in any other game this fall. Late in the second quarter, Purdy injured himself without a hand being laid on him, sliding awkwardly in the second quarter and twisting his knee or ankle. Logan Smothers came in and didn’t fare much better than Purdy. Neither would Thompson, if he’d been available. The Huskers stood no chance up front against the highly rated Wolverine defense.

Nebraska is losing momentum as it winds down the 2022 season, which — unless the Huskers rediscover a running game and commit to it against Wisconsin and Iowa — will be reduced to nothing more than a simple countdown to a Trev Alberts press conference.

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Published Nov 12, 2022

TAD STRYKER

Tad Stryker, whose earliest memories of Nebraska football take in the last years of the Bob Devaney era, has covered Nebraska collegiate and prep sports for 40 years. Before moving to Lincoln, he was a sports writer, columnist and editor for two newspapers in North Platte. He can identify with fans who listen to Husker sports from a tractor cab and those who watch from a sports bar. A history buff, Stryker has written for HuskerMax since 2008. You can reach Tad at tad.stryker@gmail.com.