LINCOLN — As college football storylines zoom to and fro, it can be easy to get lost.
And you can argue Nebraska lost itself the past 20 years, tracing back to a whiplash of sorts pursuing this idea or that initiative, letting the sport dictate its moves rather than the other way around. The option! No, the West Coast Offense! No, the up tempo spread! No, primordial body blows with NFL-style personnel groupings!
Recruit jucos! No, Texas! No, California! No, Florida!
The shift from the Big Eight/12 to the Big Ten didn’t help the Huskers find their way back, either.
Right move? Oh, yes. A 100-year chess move by the grandmaster Tom Osborne.
The trajectory is right. The minimum wager to compete in the House era of college football is bigger than that of a baccarat table in Monte Carlo.
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Nebraska has the money. The Big Ten is the delivery vehicle.
But the momentary identity took a hit. NU was among the most physical teams in its old league. (It still would be, too.) In the Big Ten, Nebraska may well have gotten faster, but the Huskers weren’t as physical.
And as Osborne once noted when he fired Bill Callahan almost 18 years ago, football is still a “spartan” game.
So it should warm a few Husker hearts when an offensive line coach not known for hype — or regular compliments — doled out some praise for a unit that once roamed the earth like beasts 30 and 40 years ago.
"Going into the training camp, the overall unit is the best since we've been here," Donovan Raiola said. “We haven't seen too many units that we've been around that's this deep to the top group to the last guy on the roster. We're excited to go to work with them every day."
Raiola is a serious man. I suspect when he arrived working for a different coach, he saw the need for a significant change in how the Huskers were taught to block and the urgency in which they did it. He was taciturn with the press in those early years. Not much to report when there’s so much to do.
Ironically in that first year, then-coach Scott Frost paired Raiola, who teaches physical drive blocking for a run-is-fun offense, with offensive coordinator Mark Whipple, who never met a four-wideout play he didn’t like. Frost, impressed with Whipple’s confidence and work in Pittsburgh — great for winning a title in the ACC, less so for the Big Ten — enjoyed his splashy hire for three quarters of the Ireland game.
Raiola was, at the time, the greenest of Frost’s offensive hires. In some ways, he also had the largest challenge.
NU wasn’t terrible on offense in 2021 — statistically better than any offense since then — yet if you really watched the Huskers in that bizarre 3-9 season, you understood the fundamental issues in execution. Three or four times a game, it seemed, the defense would have free runners screaming toward a back or quarterback Adrian Martinez.
And when Nebraska had to jam it up somebody’s facemask, so to speak, it averaged 2.87 yards per carry on third-and-short (third-and-3 or fewer) converting 64.1 into first downs. That’s part of why Frost made changes.
But in 2022 in Whipple's offense, it averaged 1.39 yards per carry and converted 60.7%.
Raiola kept working. In 2023 and 2024, more paydirt.
Thanks to a 55-yard run, NU averaged an FBS-best 8.32 yards per carry on third-and-short in 2023, converting 77.2% of those into first downs.
In 2024 without Dylan Raiola running the option, the average went down (3.59) but conversions went up (79.6%). Only Michigan State (81.25%) converted at a higher rate. The only Power Four teams that had more third-and-short carries than the Huskers — Arizona State, Tennessee and Missouri — didn’t convert anywhere near Nebraska’s rate.
There’s an old adage that college offensive linemen need three years to learn and grow into their bodies and technique. Raiola has a catchphrase for this process.
“Watering the bamboo,” Raiola said. “You water it every day. It takes about three years for it to hit the surface. But under the surface, you’re building that foundation, the roots are stretching out. After your third year, that thing shoots up about 60 feet in two weeks.”
He’s been at it three years. Many of his linemen have been at it for four or five years. You can see why he’s confident.
The interior line is full of street tough.
Justin Evans, former champion wrestler, will be a brawler at center. He has the group’s universal respect.
Notre Dame transfer Rocco Spindler and Henry Lutovsky — arguably Greg Austin’s favorite recruit — punch their weight and then some on interior runs and gap plays that call on them to move.
And some of Raiola’s confidence relates to what Teddy Prochazka and Turner Corcoran might mean to this group. When healthy — which hasn’t been much these last few years — the two blue-chip recruits are NFL players.
Corcoran was on that trajectory back 2023 before a foot injury broke a streak of 30 straight starts. Since then, he has played in four games.
Prochazka missed all but 2½ games in 2022 and all of 2024 with knee injuries.
The duo only shared the field for a handful of games in 2023. When Corcoran got hurt, Prochazka took the left tackle job. When Prochazka got hurt before the 2024 season, Corcoran took the left tackle job back until he got hurt, which led to Gunnar Gottula, who persevered through ailments, playing the rest of the season.
Now he’s back, and probably healthier than he was late last season. If Alabama transfer Elijah Pritchett can meet every aspect of Raiola’s standard on and off the field, he might be the most talented lineman of the bunch.
That’s seven. Tyler Knaak makes eight.
“How they play together, how they’re coming together and playing together as one is huge,” offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen said. “We’ve got a good, solid, older group ... they’re big, they’re physical, they’re experienced, but the unit coming together as one is what I’ve seen in camp. They’re playing at a high level.”
And that group doesn’t include, outside of Gottula, a single second- or third-year player in the program. The luxury of paying for Spindler and Pritchett out of the portal is a few more games where Raiola can water the bamboo. That next crop — Gibson Pyle, Grant Brix, Jason Maciejczak Sam Sledge, Jake Peters and Preston Taumua among them — gets to grow together, shooting up at the right time.
“The room is healthy,” Raiola said. “You see guys like Rocco in meetings, turning around to (Pyle), and saying ‘hey,’ and (Pyle) is on the film. You see Justin taking Jake and Sam under his wing. They all work together.
“It’s a special unit. It’s a special room to be a part of, because it’s truly player led.”
The Pipeline has a second name. Big Red Bamboo. An identity for the Big Ten, too.
On with Monday's weekly Husker Rewind column.
Single-digit defense
Never question whether Nebraska sees itself as a defensive-minded team.
Seven of the 10 single-digit jerseys were awarded to defenders, including two sophomores in Riley Van Poppel and Vincent Shavers. No running backs or tight ends got them while Dylan Raiola wants to stick with 15.
Patience with punter
Special teams coordinator Mike Ekeler said a wise thing last week when he suggested Nebraska’s specialists “will look up at the end of the season” and see their body of work is good. In other words, don’t judge a single game but a whole season.
Seems apropos for punter Archie Wilson, who at 19 is on the very young end of Prokick punters starting their careers.
Iowa’s Tory Taylor, for example, won the 2023 Ray Guy Award at 26. He’s older than former Husker punter Caleb Lightbourn. So is former Rutgers punter Adam Korsak, who won 2022 Guy Award at 25.
Wilson’s press conference — which went viral after he talked and wept over missing his family in Australia — must have been some experience for him. Roughly 40 reporters in a room, fascinated with a guy who has yet to play in a college football game.
Movie scene
If writer/director Aaron Sorkin ever needed Matt Rhule to do a walk-and-talk scene, the Husker coach could handle it.
Rhule’s videos this year, which feature him walking through NU’s facilities and practice fields, running into players and staff members along the way, is the best use of Nebraska’s film crew. Rhule’s good — read: normal — telling stories off the cuff, like when he recounted how at Temple he decided to start the single-digit jersey tradition.
“You got some guy in your program, he’s been there for three years, he’s been there for four, busted his tail, run down on kickoffs, played through injuries, just represented your program the right way,” Rhule said. “And he’s finally a junior or senior, and he wants to wear a single digit. He wants to wear No. 2. He’s earned it. He wants to wear No. 3.
“Back then, some recruit comes in, it’s down to you and some other school and he’s like ‘Coach, if I can wear No. 2, I’ll commit.’ And, invariably, coaches give that guy that single digit to get him to come there. Just never felt right to me. It felt like, single digit, looks cool, the guys like it. It should be something earned.”
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