Let’s take a wild guess – a 50-50 proposition, actually – and say that Nebraska wins the coin toss shortly after noon Saturday as the folks at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois, find their seats and football fans around the country flip to Fox to catch the first game of the college football season.
In Scott Frost’s three seasons, the words from whichever NU captain is trusted with the duty would have been quite predictable: “We want the ball.”
This year? Maybe, but maybe not.
Frost said recently that he’s more confident in his special teams units and would perhaps instead opt to put his veteran defense on the field first.
This group seems to embrace the idea of being dropped into the deep end of the pool.
“It’s like playing for a championship or a conference championship,” senior outside linebacker JoJo Domann said. “You understand what’s on the line. You understand you want to win the game, but also you’ve got to stick to the script and you’ve got to trust yourself. You’ve got to trust the process and all the preparation that you’ve put in and that’s what we’re doing.”
With expectations comes pressure, and there is plenty on Erik Chinander’s group against Illinois. Pressure to prove the senior-laden group got done what it needed to in camp, that the unit is capable of propelling Nebraska to a strong start and a successful season. Pressure to take another step forward from being a solid defense by the end of the 2020 season to being an upper-echelon unit in 2021.
Also, more specific to Saturday, pressure to adapt and adjust to an offense run by a new coordinator and staff that will have the element of surprise on its side.
Illinois offensive coordinator Tony Petersen spent 2020 coordinating the offense at Appalachian State after being an analyst at Missouri in 2019. Before that, three-year stints as the OC at East Carolina (2016-18), Louisiana Tech (2013-15) and Marshall (2010-12).
That’s a lot of potential stuff to sort through, not to mention any influence from other coaches and from head coach Bret Bielema who, even though he’s a defensive coach, will certainly have a say in what the offensive system looks like.
“Ultimately on defense, we’ve got to create the best environment for these kids to be successful, and then get out of the way a little bit,” Chinander said. “These kids have shown right now that, ‘Just put us in the right spots, coach, and let us go play in the game.’ I want to make sure that we’re as ready as we need to be, but I don’t want to overanalyze the kids or overanalyze the situation and make it more stressful on the kids.”
What Illinois has done against Nebraska the past two years has worked. The Illini averaged 321 rushing yards and 5.68 per carry over the last 120 minutes against the Huskers.
Defensive line coach Tony Tuioti called Saturday an exercise in “rules ball.”
“They’re going to mesh all their ideas together. We have an idea of what they’re going to do, but we won’t know until early on the first quarter if they’re going to stick with what we think they’re going to do based off of our study and our game plan,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s got to be rules ball. That’s how I teach my guys. Everything is based off your rules. If they do this, you do that. All their drills are based off of that. This game is based off of recognition and reaction.
“As long as they’re doing a great job of keying on what’s in front of them and reacting to what happens, they’re going to be OK.”
In each of the past two games, Illinois has jumped out early. Last year, that was because of a Nebraska turnover on the first offensive play of the game. In 2019, UI’s Reggie Corbin ripped off a long touchdown run on the second play and the Illini had a 14-0 lead less than six minutes in.
This time around, it’s impossible for NU to know exactly what to expect.
“There’s going to be a new wrinkle. I don’t care if it’s this game or the next game or a team we’ve played 10 times and we think we know exactly what they’re going to do,” Chinander said. “But as long as everybody knows where they’re supposed to get lined up, follows my rules and makes it about us and not them, then you’ve got a shot.”
Frost and company are expecting improvement on the offensive side of the ball, and, considering Nebraska was 12th in scoring in the Big Ten last year (23.1 per game), they’ll need it if they to eventually qualify for a bowl game or compete for the West division this year.
Until it gets rolling, though, the onus is on the Blackshirts to keep opposing offenses in check and perhaps even to go out and win a game.
That begins with an interesting challenge – and a division opponent – right out of the chute.
“It’s a very important game, obviously, conference game, so we put a lot of emphasis on it,” Chinander said. “I don’t think it’s make or break – it can’t be the whole season riding on one game – but it’s always the most important game because it’s the next one. Once we get done with this game, the next one will be the most important.
“So it’s a very, very important game. A lot of stress has been put on this game throughout the preseason and those types of things. But make-or-break, I think, is probably the wrong word.”
