The Nebraska football team is now 3-6 thanks to a loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers that didn’t feel like it needed to happen. That might actually be the first takeaway from yesterday’s contest. While it had felt as though Mickey Joseph had successfully exorcized the ghost of Scott Frost when it came to these kinds of games, the last two weeks have shown that it’s not all on Frost.
The Huskers took a 10-0 lead in the first quarter while managing to dominate the Gophers with a defense that hadn’t looked that good since last year. Then … things fell apart. At this point, the falling apart bit feels inevitable. It is what bad teams do, after all. But why did it have to happen on Saturday? What are the takeaways for why the Nebraska football team once again let victory turn into defeat in such a profound way?
Nebraska football has a quarterback management problem
There may not be anything more annoying to come out of both this week’s and last week’s loss than the idea that Chubba Purdy is better than Logan Smothers at anything. That’s not to say that Purdy might not have the better raw talent or the better passing ability when the two are in practice.
However, we’ve now had more than enough looks at both players when they are on the field in a game. That Mickey Joseph and Mark Whipple continued to give Purdy a long leash and took so long to give Smothers a real chance is confounding. It’s an indictment of the interim head coach.
Mickey Joseph says NU should’ve gone to Logan Smothers earlier. On Purdy: “He’s not seeing the coverages. He’s not seeing the progressions that he needs to get to.
— Jimmy Watkins (@JimmyWatkins95) November 5, 2022
Keep in mind that Purdy hasn’t looked great in any game he’s played this year. The hope was that most of that had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten much playing time. However, he got plenty in the last few weeks and actually looked…worse.
According to PFF, Purdy finished yesterday with 38.1 offensive and 31.4 passing grades. Smothers meanwhile posted a 79.4 total grade and an 83.4 passing grade. But Purdy kept playing because the Huskers “needed to pass” according to Joseph and Whipple. There has to be more questions as to why Purdy was the first choice to replace Casey Thompson in two straight games and then why he was allowed to lead the Huskers to offensive ineptitude for so long.
If the Nebraska football team wants to get even one more win this season, that needs to be figured out and corrected.
Nebraska football refuses to let Anthony Grant be the bellcow
To be clear, I am not the “run the ball” guy. I understand that a good passing game can be the difference between a win and a loss. However, at the moment the Nebraska football team does not have a good passing game. At the beginning of the game it did have a good running game. And then it abandoned it.
I don’t know whether Mark Whipple hates the ground game so much that he intentionally sabotages it or he’s not imaginative enough to keep feeding it to Anthony Grant like he should but it’s one of the two. That was never more evident than against Minnesota on Saturday.
Yes, Anthony Grant ran for over 100 yards in a game for the first time since Indiana. But the way in which it squandered that performance was hinted at early on.
In the Huskers’ first drive of the game, Grant carried the ball 6 times for 60 yards. Nebraska football went up 7-0. In the team’s second possession, Grant carried another 4 times for 20 yards. In other words, the Huskers saw Grant carry the ball 10 times for 80 yards in their first two drives, which made up essentially the first 10 minutes of the game.
In is halftime interview with the Husker Radio network, head coach Mickey Joseph said Nebraska has to get back to "running the ball" in the second half.
— Sean Callahan (@Sean_Callahan) November 5, 2022
For the next three quarters, Grant had 11 carries for 35 yards. Coincidentally, the Nebraska football team was outscored 20-3 when they stopped going out of their way to hand the ball to Grant. Even when Mickey Joseph made it clear, the plan was to give Grant the ball more. The approach was both annoying and confounding.
Minnesota wanted it more than Nebraska football?
One of the things that Scott Frost was supposed to fix when he took over the Nebraska football reigns was the “culture.” Of course, he was also the one who claimed the culture was something that needed to be fixed. While plenty of people would agree that after Mike Riley, there was a need for a shift in approach and viewpoint, it appears that he never actually got to fix that culture. In fact, it appears that the negative culture returned on Saturday.
After the Huskers allowed Minnesota to break what was a 32 game losing streak when the Gophers trailed by 10 at any point, Nebraska football linebacker Caleb Tannor tried to explain how he and his teammates managed to allow Minnesota to go on a 20-3 run.
The way he explained it is not sitting well with me and it should sit well with Husker fans in general. Tannor said that he thought Minny “wanted it more.” I’m not sure how that’s possible.
First of all, the one thing that’s been consistently said about Mickey Joseph especially by the #HCMJ crowd is that he consistently gets this team playing hard. Let’s ignore that was the exact excuse people used to keep Scott Frost for a fifth season.
Nebraska defensive co-captain Caleb Tannor: “They wanted it more than us.” pic.twitter.com/W2Y41VKk0P
— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) November 5, 2022
Tannor is essentially arguing the Cornhuskers let up. Even if this was the linebacker searching for reasons for the loss and saying things he didn’t mean, it’s not a good look. If nothing else, it seems to be a sign that the Nebraska football team still needs a culture change five years after Frost claimed that was job number one.