Friday Five: A dominant sweep, a heavyweight opener and some perspective

November always feels like a collision of sorts. It’s fun. It’s overwhelming. It’s everything all at once.

Photo by Erin Sorensen

November always feels like a collision of sorts. You have fall sports overlapping with winter sports, while the postseason for those very fall sports start to come into focus.

It’s fun. It’s overwhelming. It’s everything all at once.

For Nebraska volleyball, that means continuing to sharpen its game for the moments that matter. For wrestling, it means opening the season with eight All-Americans in the lineup. Track and field keeps producing national-impact humans, while football tries to steady itself with a freshman quarterback making his first start.

Like I said, everything all at once. Let’s get into it.

Andi Jackson delivered one of the cleanest hitting nights in program history

There’s dominant and then there is nine-for-nine dominant.

That’s where Andi Jackson landed Thursday night. Nebraska swept Illinois 25-11, 25-15, 25-14, but the number that should stick with you is simple: Jackson got kills on all nine of her swings. She didn’t hit the 10-kill minimum for record qualification, so she’s not officially tied atop the chart but she basically played perfect volleyball in the sample she had.

Nebraska hit .488 as a team. Illinois had 24 digs, total. Nebraska scored on six of its first nine swings and led 7-1, and it never looked competitive after that. Even when the Huskers rotated — Allie Szech, Campbell Flynn, Maisie Boesiger — it didn’t shift.

Nebraska has now won 43 sets in a row dating back to Sept. 16 at Creighton. The longest streak in program history is 68 in 1995. And the home winning streak is now 57. That’s four seasons worth of nobody walking out of Devaney with a win.

Nebraska wrestling opens Friday night with Army West Point and star power everywhere

Yes, Nebraska is ranked No. 2. Yes, the Huskers return six All-Americans (and added two more via the transfer portal). But the most striking thing about this opener is it looks like an event, not just a dual.

Friday night. Terence “Bud” Crawford in the building. Alumni recognized. First home dual ever vs. Army West Point. Schedule shirts. A tunnel walk.

Sounds fun, no?

AJ Ferrari — now a heavyweight — instantly becomes one of the headliners. His matchup against No. 13 Brady Colbert will tell us a lot about how quickly he adjusts to the weight and the Nebraska singlet. LJ Araujo vs. Gunner Filipowicz at 165 should be the other high-combustion pairing. Both won their weight classes last weekend.

Army is ranked No. 23 and is coming off four champions at the Princeton Open. Nebraska crushed Army the last time the two met in 2022.

Friday night should be a fun one in the Bob Devaney Sports Center.

Micaylon Moore is now in one of the most exclusive clubs

There are awards in college athletics that feel ceremonial. This isn’t one of those.

The NCAA Impact Award (formerly the Today’s Top 10 Award) is the one that goes to the student-athlete who checks literally every box — competition, academics, leadership, service — and then goes beyond all of them. Nebraska has now had 19 people win it. No school in the country has more.

Micaylon Moore — triple jump standout, Big Ten champion, team trophy raiser, Academic All-American, co-founder of Husker Healers — is now on that list.

“Micaylon has been an exemplary student-athlete and an absolute joy to have as a leader, not just in our program but at our university and in our community,” track and field coach Justin St. Clair said in a statement. “This award reflects the hard work and integrity Micaylon displays in everything he does, and all of us in the Nebraska Track and Field program are so proud of him.”

Nebraska produces national champions and Olympians. Beyond that, though, Nebraska produces the kind of people the NCAA holds up as the model.

Talk about an honor.

TJ Lateef’s first week as QB1

All eyes are on the freshman but inside the building, the tone is different according to coach Matt Rhule.

Dane Key making a full-layout catch in the end zone Thursday — without pads — is a good place to start.Former Heisman winner Eric Crouch stopping by is another.

Rhule’s framing is the most telling piece.

“I think there’s a focus around making sure that everybody does their job at a high level. It’s not just ‘We’re going to support TJ.’ We’re excited for TJ,” he said.

Rhule has started freshmen before, so he’s not overwhelmed by this scenario. He also doesn’t plan to shrink the offense.

“They haven’t dumbed it down, man,” he said. “He’s got checks, he’s got things built in, he’s got all kinds of things. It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re going to go play quarterback.’”

The injuries are real, of course. Dylan Raiola¹ and Gunnar Gottula both had surgeries Wednesday. The tackle situation is barely holding together, though Elijah Pritchett and Turner Corcoran practiced fully this week. The travel plan is complicated by the government shutdown.

But the vibe in the building this week wasn’t anxious. That’s all Rhule can ask for through the uncertainty.

Matt Rhule’s message on mental health was the most important thing said all week

Rhule closed his media availability on Thursday by talking about the death of Dallas Cowboys defender Marshawn Kneeland.

“It’s especially poignant seeing the tragic news out of Dallas today and understanding that none of us know what people are going through,” he said. “That’s why I think we all should be careful about what we say to people. I think we should be careful about what we tweet about people. I think we should be cognizant of what everyone’s going through.”

He told his team this week to take the headphones off, sit down at a table with someone and ask a real question, not the drive-by version Gen Z has normalized.

“I told our players they should take their headphones off in the cafeteria and sit down with someone and say, ‘How you doing, man? What’s going on with you?’” Rhule said. “Because somebody that we’re talking to that we’re saying, ‘What’s wrong with that guy? Man, that guy’s messed up.’ Instead of saying, ‘What’s wrong with them?’ we should all say, ‘I wonder what happened to him’ because everybody’s suffering.”

Then he talked about Adrian Robinson — a player on his Temple roster — who later died by suicide.

“I will forever for the rest of my life think about the time that I saw Adrian Robinson right before he took his own life,” Rhule said.

The regret still lives in him.

Football is the surface but humans are the thing underneath it. Rhule’s words were the reminder of exactly that.

And that’s where we’re going to end this week’s newsletter. Take Rhule’s advice and check in on someone. You don’t know the impact that might make.

1. Here’s Raiola’s post-surgery photo on Instagram. Looks like everything went well based on the reaction.