Nebraska football: Coaching staff seems genuinely mystified by Gebbia departure

A weird situation for the Nebraska football team keeps getting weirder.

The Nebraska football team has had to deal with players transferring out before. Almost none of them have generated the headlines that Tristan Gebbia leaving has generated.

The story behind the backup quarterback leaving the Huskers keeps getting more fuel added to the fire. On Wednesday, that fuel was dumped on the burning embers by none other than quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco.

Matt Reynoldson put together a kind of transcript of what Verduzco said after Wednesday practice. Among his comments, the coach said he didn’t feel as though there was any indication about what was going to take place.

Verduzco added that if he had thought Gebbia was going to leave he would have said “hey coach Frost, this might take place. We’ve got to have some forward-thinking about it and a plan.”

The quarterbacks’ coach is the second person on the staff to allude to “having a better plan” had they known Gebbia might be gone. It makes you wonder if Gebbia might have been named the starter if they had an inkling losing the job meant the team losing a player.

Verduzco went on to say his charge had seemed very upbeat and professional about the whole thing on Saturday. Then Gebbia called his position coach on Sunday and gave him the news that he was going to be leaving.

When Verduzco was asked if he thought there was any indication of what had changed, the coach made it clear he didn’t have a clue. He did say he felt as though Gebbia had a different tone in his voice.

The question now has to be, what happened between Saturday night and Sunday evening? It’s entirely possible that Gebbia simply stewed on the decision for a few days and got angrier the more he thought about it.

What is known is that the staff appears to have been caught totally off-guard by the sudden departure. The remaining question is just what the Nebraska football coaching staff would have done differently had they known Tristan Gebbia leaving was a possibility.