Nebraska football takes on an old foe in Week 4 of the Matt Rhule era and the Bulldogs might be one of the more interesting opponents the Huskers will face.
At first glance, the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs are thought of as a pushover type of opponent for the Nebraska football team. After all, the Huskers are currently 19-point favorites for Saturday’s tilt.
However, LaTech offers up a rather unique opponent for a Cornhuskers team that is still very much trying to find its own footing. Matt Rhule’s squad got its first win of the season against Northern Illinois. Now they’re hoping to build on that and get to .500 and hit a sort of reset button for the season.
In terms of just how good Louisiana Tech is compared to say, Northern Illinois, it’s worth pointing out that the Bulldogs are actually considered to be quite a bit better. According to PFF’s grading system, Northern Illinois is ranked 123rd in the country, while LaTech is the 68th best team. For what its worth, the Nebraska football program is 108th.
Of course, ESPN‘s Football Power Index (FPI) tells a different tale as it has Louisiana Tech ranked 115th compared to Northern Illinois’ 104th ranking and Nebraska sitting at 68th in the country.
In other words, it can be hard to get a real good read on Louisiana Tech. In order to try and get a better idea of the team the Nebraska football team will face on Saturday, there are a couple of storylines to hone in one.
How these storylines unfold will tell quite a bit about just how much of a chance the Huskers have for making Saturday’s contest a struggle or a cakewalk. The biggest, most interesting and most impactful storyline for LaTech heading into the Nebraska football game is just who will be under center.
Who will play quarterback against Nebraska football?
Boise State transfer Hank Bachmeier has had a bit of an up and down season so far for the Bulldogs. He started off his first campaign with LaTech by completing 34 of 44 passes for 333 yards and a touchdown to go with 1 interception against Florida International in his first game with his new team.
Despite those impressive numbers, his team won just 22-17 and he graded out as a rather mediocre performance thanks to a great deal of his passes being very short-range.
While Bachmeier might not be forging a Heisman campaign, he has been solid as the season has gone on. Whether or not he’ll be able to go up against the Nebraska football program is still very much up in the air.
Last week, in Louisiana Tech’s 40-37 loss to North Texas Bachmeier suffered an injury to his throwing shoulder. As of now, LaTech is not sure he’ll be able to be ready to go on Saturday. It certainly doesn’t sound like it.
If he can’t take the snaps against Nebraska football, the starting quarterback for the Bulldogs will be Jack Turner.
Turner had himself a game against the Eagles in relief of Bachmeier. He completed 9 of 13 passes for 145 yards and a touchdown. He also had three carries for 15 yards and a TD on the ground. That mobility might be the real concern for Nebraska football as Bachmeier hasn’t run much at all so far this season.
Nebraska football and Louisiana Tech have a shared storyline
One of the biggest storylines when it comes to Nebraska football this week, is just how the Huskers are going to handle the running back situation. NU is down two backs after Gabe Ervin and Rahmir Johnson were both injured against Northern Illinois and eventually lost for the season.
Louisana Tech is also dealing with several injuries to their running back corps. Those injuries have meant that the Bulldogs have had a different leading rusher every week of the season.
In Week 0 it was Charvis Thornton with a modest 48 yards on the ground. Week 1 it was actually Hank Bachmeier thanks to one carry for 26 yards. Thornton was injured in that game and had just 24 on 8 carries before exiting early.
Week 2 it was Keith Willis Jr. who had 188 yards and 2 touchdowns on just 13 carries. And last week it was Tyre Shelton who had 152 yards on 16 carries.
The rotation of lead rusher could have two different effects on Nebraska football’s plan for its game this weekend. The first is that Tony White and company aren’t going to know who they’ll face off against until kickoff.
Second, and most importantly, it appears that whoever LaTech chooses to go with, he could be a handful for Nebraska football’s Blackshirts if they aren’t ready.
Smoke looking to catch fire against Nebraska football
It’s entirely possible that the Nebraska football team can continue to have a ton of success against a team’s rushing attack. After all, worse teams than the Huskers have slowed down LaTech’s run game.
But one player that few teams have been able to stop over the course of his career is going to be looking to put together a career game against the Cornhuskers. Smoke Harris is the Bulldog’s go to player through the air, despite the fact that he has more in common with Billy Kemp IV than any big play receiver in college football.
Harris stands just 5-foot-7, but he has a bigger stature than anyone else on Louisiana Tech. He leads the team by a wide margin this year with 24 catches for 288 yards and 3 touchdowns.
His best game of the year was the season opener, when he caught 11 passes for 155 yards but he also had a good game last week against North Texas when he hauled in 4 passes for 77 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Smoke Harris is that he always gets better as the game goes along. He has only two catches for 0 yards in the first quarter this season. That means that even if Nebraska football holds him down from the beginning, it can’t afford to let up.