As the Nebraska Cornhuskers look for answers in the wide receiver room, Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda wants to be someone his teammates lean on.
One of the biggest questions just two weeks out from the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ season opener against Minnesota is how the wide receiver position will shake out. With the departure of Zavier Betts and the injuries to Marcus Washington and Malachi Coleman, the position suddenly looks thinner than it did in early July.
Even if Washington and Coleman are 100 percent back by August 31, there’s still some questions as to who will take charge. Count Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda as one who feels he’s ready to step up, be a leader and be a calming influence on his teammates in 2023.
“That’s something I’ve been working on, actually, this season,” Garcia-Castaneda said earlier this week. “It’s kind of been hitting me more and more as we got into fall camp that I am an older guy. This is going to be my fifth year of college. It’s not something, obviously, I’m used to, but it’s something I feel I do need to work on in taking a step and being a leader in that room.”
Nebraska Cornhuskers need a staunch offensive line
A couple of times this summer I pointed out a couple factors that proved pretty definitively that the Nebraska football team’s offensive line was just not good in 2022. There are even more out there. Unfortunately.
Nebraska hired Matt Rhule this offseason to bring their football program back to national prominence.@TheAthleticCFB's @mitchsherman looks at the Huskers' offensive line and why they're eager to set the tone in this new era of Nebraska football.https://t.co/3M3f8sjTAO pic.twitter.com/qzGJgHZWuB
— TruMedia (@TruMediaSports) August 17, 2023
Mitch Sherman of The Athletic recently put those stats on display. They included the fact that the line last year allowed a quarterback pressure in 37 percent of the offense’s plays. That put them 122nd nationally. They were worse than 100th in sack rate too.
They were also bad when blocking for the run. Put together, it’s not hard at all to see why an offense that was also without its starting quarterback for periods of the season was one of the worst in the B1G.
Optimism is there
That does not mean there isn’t reason to hope things are going to turn around. The Nebraska Cornhuskers have talked quite a bit about how close knit the o-line is this summer.
HuskerMax’s Dave Feit believes that there is really room for optimism this year and that Donovan Raiola’s unit could be ready to shift from a liability to an asset in 2023.