When the Nebraska football team’s defense takes the field on Saturday, they still might not know who will be under center for the Northwestern Wildcats.
Pat Fitzgerald is well known for keeping things close to the vest. However, it’s possible that’s not the entire reason that he hasn’t named a starting quarterback yet.
There’s a chance he honestly doesn’t know who is going to be the starting quarterback at this point. Whatever the reason, Matt Fortuna of The Athletic reported on Monday that Fitzgerald is unlikely to name a starting quarterback before the game against the Nebraska football team.
At the moment, it appears as though there are two candidates for the job. One spent quite a bit of time as the starting signal caller for the Wildcats last year. The other hasn’t taken a snap in a college game.
Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald strongly implies that he won’t announce a starting QB until kickoff Saturday in Dublin.
— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) August 22, 2022
Nebraska football vs. quarterback question mark
The apparent front runner for Fitzgerald’s starter appears to be junior Ryan Hillisnki. That’s mainly because he was also the starter for five games in 2021, though whether that’s a good thing or a bad one is still very up in the air.
In those five starts, Hillinski – who started his career with the South Carolina Gamecocks – completed 54 percent of his passes for 978 yards. He notched three touchdown passes and four interceptions. He finished the season with a quarterback rating of 101.7, which just happened to be the worst of any of the three QBs who took a snap for Fitzgerald’s squad last year.
Hillinski’s struggles are likely why the door seems open for redshirt freshman Brendan Sullivan to take most of the snaps against the Nebraska football team.
Sullivan doesn’t have any game-day experience, but by all accounts, he had a very good spring and has been holding his own so far in fall camp.
Sullivan was a 3-star prospect coming out of Davison High School in Michigan and was the 17th best player in the state for the 2021 class.
Perhaps the most interesting tidbit in deciding who will face off against a Nebraska football squad chomping at the bit to prove it belongs with the big boys is that neither potential starter for Northwestern is particular mobile. Sullivan was recruited as a pro-style quarterback and Hillinksi runs so little that he’s got -122 career rushing yards.
It appears that no matter who takes snaps for Northwestern this Saturday, Nebraska football’s Blackshirts will be able to pin their ears back and come after the quarterback hard.