When the Nebraska football team takes the field in Nashville, Tenn. to face the Tennessee Volunteers, Big Red backers will cheer the household names. However, while it’s easy to appreciate an experienced senior on the roster, you simply don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
Players that still have connections to former head coach Bo Pelini will be playing their final minutes as members of the team. This is shortly going to become Mike Riley’s team more than ever before.
Five seniors will be missed most and not just because they got the loudest cheers.
With that in mind, here are five seniors that will be missed the most from the 2016 roster.
Terrell Newby
Newby was, in short, a surprise. It seemed like the starting spot was Devine Ozigbo’s to lose as No. 34 had spent his time dancing from east to west far too often in the backfield.
When he could gain five yards, he’d manage two or three. When he could get two or three, he’d be taken down at the line of scrimmage.
He shut all of the naysayers up this year.
Newby led all rushers with 864 yards gained on 181 attempts, good for a 4.8 yard-per-carry average. He was responsible for seven total rushing touchdowns and 72 yards per contest.
Also giving Tommy Armstrong, Jr. a target out of the backfield, he pulled in 16 catches for 138 yards and a touchdown.
In 2017, Ozigbo returns along with Mikale Wilbon, Adam Taylor and Tre Bryant.
Nebraska has yet to secure a running back commitment for the 2017 cycle as of this writing, but it’s hard to think that they won’t be in the mix to see some playing time as well.
This season, Ozigbo was good for 346 yards rushing on 90 attempts and five rushing touchdowns. Bryant showed fantastic flashes of elite speed as he contributed 172 yards on 43 carries and a score of his own.
Bryant looks to have an inside edge going into the spring as he began to get more snaps behind Newby while Ozigbo essentially vanished from the lineup. Though hobbled, he only had 14 carries for 28 yards over Nebraska’s last seven regular season games, scoring once versus Wisconsin.