One of the biggest questions surrounding Anthony Colandrea is whether he will be able to come close to equaling the numbers he put up at UNLV with Nebraska. It turns out that offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen wondered that as well. However, he wasn’t just sitting back and wondering this offseason. He decided to add some passing and running plays from the UNLV playbook into the Huskers’ own plan to make Colandrea feel a bit more comfortable running NU’s attack.
Colandrea, who talked to the media for the first time in months, said that he and Colandrea have worked on integrating some of UNLV’s playbook over the spring and summer. The quarterback didn’t hold back on how excited he was when he appeared on Sports Nightly on Thursday night.
“When I first got here, it was tough just because learning a whole new system,” Colandrea said about his trepidation when he first started learning the Nebraska playbook. “But at the end of the day, we look good right now and, shoot, everyone’s comfortable. So we’re super excited.”
In talking about how he and his Husker teammates have started to gel and learn the attack, he pointed out that even without the integration of the UNLV playbook into what the Cornhuskers already do, there were “so many keys” for chunk gains last year.
Dana Holgorsen adds UNLV concepts to Nebraska football offense for Anthony Colandrea
While there were certainly times when the Nebraska offense struggled to come through, especially in the red zone, NU actually converted its share.
The Cornhuskers gained 20-plus yards on 52 different snaps, tied for 80th nationally and eighth in the Big Ten. Certainly they want more of that in 2026, especially when it comes to moving up in the conference. More showed up during the spring and at times in the Red-White scrimmage.
Of course, considering the defenses Nebraska will face this season, on the whole quite a bit better than the conference schedule a year ago, it will be harder to score “chunk plays.” That’s why Holgorsen decided to include the explosive plays Colandrea ran at UNLV.
The goal is to make the quarterback more comfortable in the offense and doing the kinds of things he did with the Running Rebels.
Of course, it’s not all about the playbook. The newest Nebraska signal-caller has repeatedly talked about the weapons around him. Colandrea has repeatedly said he’s excited about “resident deep threat” Kwazi Gilmer. He’s also plenty hyped about Jacory Barney and Nyziah Hunter and Quinn Clark as dudes he thinks can break out in 2026.
And then there’s a revamped offensive line with three transfer players and Geep Wade, the new position coach. “It’s the best five I’ve ever been around,” Colandrea said. “Those guys are elite and they’re really good at what they do.”
There are still plenty of questions as to how Anthony Colandrea’s skills (and sometimes his mistakes) will translate over to Nebraska. However, Husker fans should take it as a good sign that the coaching staff is doing everything they can to bring out the best in him and that he feels confident it will work.
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