The Nebraska football and Minnesota Golden Gophers teams are both without some key players. Check out who will miss Thursday’s tilt.
This year, the Big Ten has mandated that Nebraska football, Minnesota and every other conference team must issue official injury reports before each game. In fact, those injury reports need to be out to the public on the conference website and social media two hours before kickoff.
The Big Ten has said this is a way to offer transparency. However, it’s clear that the mandate makes it easier for people who are wanting to put money on either Nebraska football or Minnesota to make a more informed decision on Thursday night.
The Huskers and Gophers have the not so desirable “honor” of being the first two teams to try this particular practice out, since they’re the first Big Ten game of the 2023 season.
It’s been interesting to watch teams prepare for this new rule already. While Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule has been fairly open about injuries, such as wide receiver Marcus Washington‘s hand and leg injury, Minny coach PJ Fleck has kept things pretty close to the vest.
In fact, in his last press conference, Fleck made it clear he didn’t see a point in talking about injuries since everything would eventually be made public.
Now, those injuries are indeed public.
Nebraska football injury report for Week 1
- Nick Henrich – Out
- Jimari Buter – Out
Minnesota football injury report for Week 1
- Jameson Geers – Out
- Darnell Jefferies – Out
- Craig McDonald – Out
- Derik LeCaptain – Out
- Cody Lindenberg – Out
- Lucas Finnessy – Out
- Hayden Schwartz – Out
- Jackson Ruschmeyer – Out
- Sam Peters – Out
- Chris Autman-Bell – Questionable
- David Kemp – Questionable
Obviously, there are a lot more players missing time for the Golden Gophers than there is the Nebraska football team. Granted it doesn’t feel like Fleck’s squad is missing a ton of impact performers.
Most notable is Chris Autman-Bell, a 7th-year senior who was hurt last year and was hoping for a comeback trail this season. It will also be interesting to see what “questionable” in this context means. In the NFL, more often than not, it means the player will play, at least a little.
For Nebraska football, the injury report confirms what was hinted at earlier in the week as Nick Henrich has been ruled out. According to last week’s depth chart, that means the next man up is Javin Wright.