LINCOLN — No preamble, as this week’s Rewind is mostly a kickoff to Nebraska football’s spring practice, which begins Monday.
The Huskers overhauled their coaching staff — in the case of the offense, installing Dana Holgorsen before the 2024 season ended — added 15 transfers and a bunch of early-enrolled freshmen.
As of Sunday night, NU’s roster page listed 133 players — including yet-to-arrive freshmen — which is well above the 105-man limit that will be imposed so long as a federal judge approves the House vs. NCAA court settlement April 7. That means competition is coming at every position, with scholarship-caliber players likely to depart even before the April 26 spring event Nebraska coach Matt Rhule planned for the fan base.
We’ll dial into those competitive battles and departures as they happen.
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This Rewind revolves around the hidden undercurrents of spring — not the biggest storylines so much as the things to keep in mind for training camp and the season ahead. They'll matter when it matters, so to speak.
As Nebraska whittles down its playbook, pace might become its edge: In their first two seasons under Rhule and former offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield, the Huskers sometimes huddled up and almost always chewed clock and played slow.
Huddling has an advantage rooted in player communication and almost constant personnel and formation changes. But it also allows a defense to match personnel and puts too great emphasis on specific plays.
When Rhule says NU’s offense “served too many masters,” consider the sludge-like fashion with which it moved downfield in the UCLA loss. Or its ability to control the ball, but not score, against Iowa. Nebraska resembled an army of pawns marching one chess square at a time while teams like Ohio State and USC had rooks and bishops zipping all over the joint.
If Holgorsen pares down the menu, he can crank up how fast NU cooks the meal. Raiola is a quick processor; he’d like that. Such a system favors receivers who can run four, five, six plays in a row without getting confused by the play or undisciplined with pre-snap alignments and motions. Old guys like Dane Key don’t make mistakes; Nebraska doesn’t have a lot of those.
If NU thinks it possesses the athletes to put defenses on its heels, a quick pace accentuates that advantage.
While requiring a big-play defense: Here’s the part of the equation Rhule’s predecessor, Scott Frost, never figured out. If/when your offense moves fast, it runs the risk of quick three-and-outs.
Defenses that face a lot of plays — the 2022 unit faced a whopping 75.8 per game — can only bend so long before they break, so they must break the opposing offense first.
Does Nebraska have the playmaking Blackshirts to do that? Back in 2022, it did not; defensive coordinator Erik Chinander rarely had enough pieces to wreak havoc.
The 2024 defense had its moments with 30 sacks and 17 takeaways. Those figures respectively ranked seventh and 10th in the Big Ten — 44th and 67th nationally. Good, not great, although the Huskers had an impressive three interceptions returned for scores.
NU defensive coordinator John Butler and associate head coach Phil Snow have already intimated the defensive scheme will get more exotic and aggressive on third down.
“More like the National Football League,” Snow said in February. “If you watch third down — with everybody on the line of scrimmage and mugging ‘backers. We’ll advance the third-down package.”
Advanced schemes require athletes capable of getting home, for the reward comes with risk. Frost and Chinander learned that in their first year at Nebraska, 2018, when all those pressures came with a back-end of giving up big plays.
The potential/production discussion foments along the lines of scrimmage: Spring camp offers coaches a month to experiment and ponder before locking in, by August, who gets the reps that matter.
Line play factors so critically into Big Ten games and last season, even with a few injuries, Nebraska knew who was going to maul on either side of the ball. This year, NU brass can’t quite know yet. Too many injuries and open positions exist along the offensive line, and too many new guys — coaches and players — arrive along the defensive line.
You’d rather not have that uncertainty in Year 3. But Nebraska does. Rhule aims to reward production, which, in the cases of linemen, he’ll have to measure in the next five months, over two different camps.
Offensive line coach Donovan Raiola will weigh whether third-year sophomores and redshirt freshman can handle the in-season rigors of the job, while Rhule, Snow, and defensive line coaches Terry Bradden and Phil Simpson put 10-12 guys through a month of technique training and grueling scrimmage work they’re not likely to forget. That unit must further develop a callus that hardens them to the pain and, yes, violence of Big Ten defensive line play.
The most interesting man in Nebraska football: Well, it’s Holgorsen, of course, for the one-liners and the unruffled confidence he brings to the role, but Butler comes in a pretty close second, and here’s why: He got a promotion to outperform his excellent predecessor while simultaneously working with three new position coaches, an associate head coach who is Rhule’s longtime confidant, and Rhule.
Butler left the Buffalo Bills to call his own defense. He gets that chance now, but he’ll have a lot of voices in the planning room, including that of secondary coach Addison Williams. What Butler, Williams and others choose to do with that secondary — loaded with talent, experience and length — interests me most among defensive positions, because NU has options. Options mean competition. Competition means some guys are hitting the transfer portal after the season. Nebraska must choose wisely. Butler, unlike a Chinander, who had complete control, is one voice among several on D.
The unknowable thing in spring: Please don’t say we’ll be sure, by the end of April, how Nebraska’s special teams will play in August. We don’t, even if we know the guys likely to do the placekicking, punting, returning and snapping. Coordinator Mike Ekeler’s refreshing demurral to discuss any specific players should lead the discussion here.
It’s hindsight, but I now marvel at Iowa kicker Drew Stevens making a 53-yard field goal to beat Nebraska in 20-degree air that felt heavy enough to crack a helmet. You can’t just predict he’d do that; he got pulled from the NU/Iowa game one season before.
A kicker is a golfer with a wedge to an island green. A punter is a golfer with a driver, hitting to well-bunkered fairway. Only they can swing the club.
Nebraska needs to take a big jump on returns, too. Ekeler will put a lot into improving it. His track record is sterling. Don’t check the box yet. Nebraska's specialists have to do it to prove it.
On with the Rewind.
Nebraska wrestling wins weekend
Mark Manning has been here for years, with here defined as among the great college wrestling coaches.
He and the Huskers had their signature weekend in Philadelphia, leading NU to second place at the NCAA Championships.
No, the Huskers weren’t going to catch juggernaut Penn State, which won its 12th national title in the last 14 years and enjoys some significant recruiting advantages related to an Olympic Regional Training Center being located there.
But Manning won 2025 NCAA tournament coach of the year — he was carried off the mat by his wrestlers — which gives you some sense of the job he did.
Nebraska had two national champions — Ridge Lovett at 149 pounds and Millard South graduate Antrell Taylor at 157 pounds. They’re NU’s first national champions since Jordan Burroughs won his weight class in 2011.
Lovett, a fifth-year senior, developed over time, peaking as he matured. Taylor’s just a sophomore.
In fact, Nebraska loses just three seniors off this team — Lovett, Bubba Wilson and Caleb Smith. Along with Taylor, its giant junior class, with Brock Hardy, Lenny Pinto and Silas Allred, will give NU a chance at getting back to second next season — or even challenge the great Penn State.
Revenue sharing in Nebraska women’s sports
Amy Williams has surely liked each of her Nebraska women’s basketball teams, but I suspect she connected with this one, her ninth, the most. I could hear it in early-season conversations, even before Natalie Potts and Allison Weidner injured their knees, Williams’ affinity for her players’ grit and ability to navigate obstacles.
Alexis Markowski put up numbers and played vocal leader; that doesn’t always happen in sports; often, the best player, these days, balks at holding teammates accountable. Callin Hake and Logan Nissley scored some, but battled for rebounds and made unselfish passes even more. Former highly-touted recruits Kendall Moriarty and Kendall Coley willingly came off the bench. Williams had the culture just right.
Potts’ and Weidner’s injuries kept NU from being a second weekend NCAA tournament team. Without them, the Huskers nearly upset Louisville anyway.
“I look at the box score and we gave up 18 offensive rebounds,” Williams said. “They had 27 points off of our 24 turnovers. By all accounts, it should probably be a tail kickin’. But it wasn’t a tail kickin’. It was a game and we had a chance to win that game.”
There’s a lot of admiration in Williams’ statement. There’s a kernel of hard truth, that Nebraska needs just a little more athleticism — which Potts, when healthy, provides — to get over the top.
Do incoming freshmen Olivia Hamlin and Alanna Neale help that cause? Yes. They’ll likely play a lot. Hamlin dominated in Utah — averaging 28.4 points and 5.5 steals per game this season — while Neale played for the star-studded Ontario (California) Christian team that includes the No. 1 prospect in 2027, Kaleena Smith.
Can Nebraska add a key transfer portal piece? NU tends to get one guard per year — Jaz Shelley four years ago, Maddie Krull three years ago, Darian White two years ago and Alberte Rimdal last year. Could revenue sharing offer room for Nebraska to add more?
While revenue sharing will effectively even the playing field in college football — every power program will choose to invest there — the investment decisions of athletic directors could alter the women’s basketball landscape quickly. Who’s willing to pay for a top-shelf women’s program? Connecticut and South Carolina, of course. Iowa and Tennessee, too. Probably LSU, where Kim Mulkey coaches.
Michigan’s athletic director Warde Manuel said to On3 that the Wolverine women’s basketball team will get revenue sharing and, frankly, it shows in the kind of freshmen Michigan had. That’s a Final Four team in two years.
What will Nebraska do, and how does A.D. Troy Dannen handle a situation where Nebraska has the best overall program in a sport that doesn’t seem to have a big revenue-sharing marketplace?
Would Husker volleyball maintain its edge without revenue sharing?
Merritt Beason leading again
Three months after her final Husker match, former Nebraska volleyball star Merritt Beason accepted the head coaching job at her former high school in Gardendale, Alabama. If she’s a college head coach within five years, don’t be stunned, and don’t overlook her absence as a leader on the 2025 NU team. She won’t be easy to replace.
