LINCOLN — Three downs, three yards. As Nebraska marched inside Michigan’s 10 to open Saturday’s game, the Huskers had three tries to gain a total of three yards, extend the drive, and go for a touchdown.
NU gained zero, one and one yards on those plays. Turnover on downs. More red zone woes for a team whose coordinator, Dana Holgorsen, puts a premium on scoring touchdowns inside an opponent’s 20.
And on the third and fourth down plays of that sequence, NU tried — and failed — to muscle Michigan’s defense for those key yards.
“I thought we kind of came off the ball looking to see what they were going to do instead of coming off the ball,” coach Matt Rhule said.
This included the fourth down play when, needing roughly two yards, Holgorsen called a RPO that gave quarterback Dylan Raiola the option of handing the ball to Emmett Johnson on a short side speed sweep, running the ball himself or flipping a shovel pass to tight end Luke Lindenmeyer.
Raiola’s not prone to run, so this was, in effect, a two-option play, and Raiola chose Door No. 3 — the shovel to Lindenmeyer, who caught the ball, leaned into the pile, and came up inches short.
“They gave us an edge pressure blitz look on the little speed sweep shovel pass and we just didn’t quite come off the ball enough,” Rhule said. “We kind of just sat there and tried to catch the blitz instead of coming off the ball.”
In four games, Nebraska has made 24 trips into opponents’ red zones; that figure is tied for second in the Big Ten and sixth nationally. It is, stunningly, just five fewer trips than the Huskers made in all of 2023 — 12 games.
NU has scored touchdowns on 14 of those 24 trips — a 58.33% touchdown rate. Holgorsen wants 70%, as all four of the Big Ten’s College Football Playoff teams in 2024 — Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana — cleared that bar.
“Last year, it was in the 40s,” for Nebraska, Holgorsen said in the week leading up to the Michigan game. NU finished at 54.72% in 2024 — 14th in the Big Ten. In 2023, when the Huskers had their worst-performing offense in a half-century, was 48.28%. The Huskers haven’t hit 70% since the 2015 season, Mike Riley’s first on campus.
Red zone issues have cropped up in four games this season, including the season opener vs. Cincinnati in Arrowhead Stadium, when a first and goal inside the Cincy 1 failed to produce a touchdown. Elijah Pritchett committed a false start and the Huskers couldn’t score a touchdown in three plays afterward.
Against Akron, running Emmett Johnson coughed up a fumble inside the Zips’ 5. Later, Nebraska got stopped on downs when tight end/tush push quarterback Heinrich Haarberg’s sneak fell short of the goal line.
Five of NU’s eight trips against Houston Christian resulted in touchdowns. On one of NU’s stalled drives, seasoned wideout Dane Key didn’t run a “sudden” enough route, Holgorsen said.
“The guy grabbed (Key),” Holgorsen said. “If you get into him, the guy’s going to grab you. So, you’ve got to be more sudden to get through that.”
Nebraska made four trips into Michigan’s red zone — scoring one touchdown, in the final minutes, when Raiola hit Haarberg in the flat for a short touchdown. Two other drives, into the high red zone, were slowed by Michigan sacks of Raiola.
NU’s red zone rush game currently averages 2.78 yards per carry, tied for 82nd nationally. The Huskers haven’t been above three yards per carry, inside the opponents’ 20, since 2021.
“I always want to be able to run the football more than we did,” Rhule said when asked about the effectiveness and usage of NU’s rush attack. “I think you need to be 100-150 yards rushing to win.
“That being said, we had every chance to win that game. I don’t want to start panicking about if we are doing too much of this or too much of that. When Dylan had time, everyone was open. We scored 27 points and we would have killed for 27 points at times last year.
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Sam McKewon
Sports Editor
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