Nebraska Football vs Northwestern Injury Reports: Wildcats playing with a big absence

The Nebraska football team will be relatively healthy when they take on Northwestern on Saturday but the Wildcats have one big injury.

The injury is not one that is all that surprising. There had been worry by Northwestern media that Ben Bryant would not be able to play today.

Now the Big Ten injury reports have made Bryant being out, officially official. Bryant and tight end Jack Fitzgerald are the only players mentioned on Northwestern’s injury report and both are ruled out for the contest against the Nebraska football team.

That means that Brendan Sullivan will almost certainly get the start for the Wildcats. He started last week against Howard and led his squad to 23-20 win over the FCS squad.

Sullivan put up decent numbers in that game, completing 13-of-18 for 131 yards and two touchdowns. He also carried 15 times for 38 yards and a touchdown.

Of course, there are some tidbits in that stat line that should make Nebraska football fans very, very happy. The first being that as Northwestern’s mobile quarterback, he only averaged 2.5 YPC and he was sacked four times.

The second is that against Howard, of all teams, Northwestern amassed just 312 yards of offense. That was 20 yards less than Howard.

Nebraska football looking healthy

While the Wildcats are missing their starting quarterback, the Nebraska football team is relatively healthy, outside of the players who have already been injured for the season.

As reported earlier, that means that Jeff Sims is 100 percent healthy and ready to go, but Heinrich Haarberg has been named the starter.

Sims missed the last four Nebraska football games with a high ankle sprain. In his place, Haarberg went 3-1 before the bye. It will be interesting to see how the Nebraska football team was able to further tweak the offense to fit Haarberg’s style with the extra week of practice.