The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: A 2024 Nebraska midseason review
Taking a look at where the Huskers have been good, where they need to get better, and the sustainability of anything we've seen so far.
Nebraska has weapons on offense. Four of them—quarterback Dylan Raiola and receivers Isaiah Neyor, Jahmal Banks and Jacory Barney Jr.—weren’t on the team a year ago. The Huskers’ leading rusher, Dante Dowdell, transferred in from Oregon. Those are just the newcomers, but you could argue, and some have, that players like Thomas Fidone II, receivers Jaylen Lloyd and Janiran Bonner, running back Emmett Johnson and quarterback/running back/receiver/H-back Heinrich Haarberg could do for more touches.
When asked about that Monday,1 specifically Haarberg’s role, Rhule started his answer with “If we could just get to 180 yards rushing between the tackles…”.
Not to make too much of one line, but when a coach puts a measurable out there, I’m going to pay attention. That number came from somewhere. It has been considered and cited for its value towards what Nebraska is trying to do, and, as we all use this natural break in the schedule to conduct our midterm review of the team, it underscores an area for improvement most fans didn’t need underscored—the run game.
Besides the run game, what else is on the “fix it” list after six games? What’s not? Perhaps most relevant, what can and can’t be fixed halfway through a season?
To an inform any answer to that last question, I did a quick bucket test of the past three seasons for FBS teams, dropping first-half-of-the-season numbers into one bucket, second-half another to see the strength of correlation between categories. Anyone can identify that the Huskers need to be better than 3.9 yards per carry (89th), but what if the past three seasons indicate teams basically are what they are when it comes to rushing offense after six games?
That was the purpose of the test, and I wasn’t really surprised by any of the results. The strongest first-half-to-second-half correlation for any statistical category would only be considered moderate. Given the variety of schedules across college football, that makes sense. Power conference schools typically have a tougher road over the back half of the season, some G5 schools might have an easier road. Injuries are more of factor later in the year. Weather comes into play. It’s almost impossible to account for all of the variables.
That said, having established a working correlation ceiling, you can still get an idea of what facets of the game are more stable than volatile. On the more stable side of the ledger: offensive Expected Points Added,2 down-to-down efficiency (success rate) on offense and defense, and passing efficiency.
On the weaker side: explosiveness and turnovers. If you’re a fan of a team that’s sitting pretty halfway through a season but got there thanks to a lot of big plays and takeaways, I’d be concerned if either of those things can continue. Such a team is sitting at the table of the gods of randomness and those gods, unpredictable as they are, might ask a team to leave at any moment.3
That’s a long but hopefully useful preamble to say that not only are we going to identify some of Nebraska’s good, bad and ugly traits halfway through the 2024 season, we’re also going to get an idea of how likely they are to linger over the final six games.
The Good: Balanced offense, all-around defense, the turnover battle.
Let’s start with a couple of charts that set the stage. First, here’s Nebraska’s weekly rating in ESPN’s SP+, a predictive measure that’s opponent-adjusted. These ratings can be read as “Nebraska is __ points better/worse than the average FBS team.”
One power rating does not a half-season make, but I trust SP+ more than most and I think this is a fair representation of the year-to-year trend for NU. This rating would make 2024 Nebraska about an 11.5-point favorite on a neutral field4 over 2023 Nebraska, which was 3-3 after six games.
Why are this year’s Huskers better? I’m going to start on defense. I don’t know if there’s any lingering concern from the Illinois game after two strong outings from the Blackshirts, but the worry after the first loss of the season was that defense wasn’t as good as its billing after a strong 2023. Digging into the numbers a bit, that concern might’ve been based mostly on where NU finished last season, which is different from where it was halfway through 2023.
There are a few departures on that chart that I’ll get to as we go but using the broadest measure (EPA/play) this year’s Blackshirts are ahead of where last year’s unit was after six games and even over the last six. A lot of this should be sustainable over the remaining games. Categories like EPA and success rate are typically “portable” to late-October and November. A defense that’s good at keeping teams off schedule doesn’t typically become bad at it in-season.
That’s good news, but the best news might be the Blackshirts’ biggest improvement is simply in keeping points off the board. Last year’s defense was dead average after six games at 3.61 points per trip inside the 40. This year the Huskers rank sixth nationally at 2.26, a number that got a good boost from the Rutgers game. Over the past three seasons, points-per-trip has been one of the more volatile defensive categories so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this one slip a bit, particularly given the schedule.
Last year at this point, four of the six offenses Nebraska was yet to face ranked in the bottom 30 of EPA/play with an average ranking of 100. This year, the average ranking of the remaining offenses is 54th with Ohio State (3rd), Indiana (6th) and USC (44th) as the top three on the schedule. Those are all road games.
If the Blackshirts are to stay stingy on their half of the field, it might require a continued assist from the offense. The defense has benefitted from the 12th-best starting field position to this point, an advantage it didn’t have a year ago.
The offense is about 25 spots better in the national rankings in EPA/play than it was a year ago (see chart in next section). You can chalk most of those gains up to having a functional passing game thanks to a wunderkind behind center and an upgraded receiving corps. Nebraska’s passing success rate ranks 37th this week, and that’s one of the most stable categories I found over the past three years. Absent injuries, this should be able to continue.
The Huskers’ offensive improvement hasn’t been massive, but it is impressive the more I look at it. The shortcut to more points would’ve been more big plays, but NU has done it with increased efficiency which is more stable footing for the rest of the season. Nebraska has made its gains despite having slightly worse field position and greater difficulty finishing drives.
The field position average would be even worse without the Huskers’ 10 takeaways, currently 15th nationally. Fixing last year’s turnover problem was an emphasis all offseason, but I remain skeptical how much of this can actually be coached. Defensively, Nebraska has recovered three of opponents’ six fumbles—right at the expected number—and turned 30 passes defended into seven interceptions, which is also pretty normal turnover behavior. Not a lot of luck required so far in the takeaways department.
Offensively, Nebraska has been a little more fortunate. Dylan Raiola’s three interceptions on 21 passes defended models more like 4.2.5 The Huskers have fumbled four times, losing just one. You’d expect that to be two, so the offense is 2.2 giveaways better than expected. The story here is really the fumbles. Nebraska had six, four lost, in its first two games last year. The move from a ton of QB run game to virtually none makes a big difference in the fumbles department. So does playing with a lead, which remains the best way to reduce interceptions. The Huskers rank 19th in ESPN’s game control metric, an advantage that’s probably essential to maintain in the weeks ahead.
Add it all up and Nebraska is +6 in turnover margin (13th nationally) against an expected +3.2.6 Not a massive difference but enjoy any positive margin for as long as it lasts. Few things are as random as turnovers, even though the Huskers have done their best to disprove that over recent seasons.
The Bad: A small-play run game and some gains allowed on the ground.
Back to Rhule’s 180 rushing yards bit from the intro. Nebraska has only hit that mark—overall, forget “between the tackles”—once this season. It topped 180 rushing yards six times last season, including in the first four games of the season.
As illustrated below, Nebraska has experienced a sharp decrease in the explosiveness of its run game. The lack of QB run is a big factor here. Without the ability to change the math for opposing defenses, the Huskers’ ability to generate big plays on the ground comes down to individual talent of the ball carriers and line as well as the staff’s ability to scheme those plays into existence. While explosiveness is a category that can and does change over the back half of a season, I haven’t seen much through six games that makes me think it will.
But maybe there’s a silver lining to this. While NU’s run game doesn’t look all that pretty, the Huskers have been able to stay on schedule with moderate gains to a greater degree than it did over either six-game span in 2023. That’s a viable workaround if the passing numbers don’t drop off, and only two of the remaining opponents (Ohio State, Indiana) rank in the top half nationally in rushing success rate allowed.
Defensively, it’s hard to call anything the Blackshirts have produced so far “bad,” but the success rate against the run stands out. The Huskers were consistent here a year ago, ranking 25th over the first half of the year and 24th over the second half. This year’s defense is ranked 62nd and four of the remaining opponents currently rank in the top 30 in rushing success rate.
This is a category that could be huge over the final six games. It’s unlikely the Huskers are taking a big step forward—success rate isn’t one of those categories—and the degree of difficulty is about to go up.
The Ugly: Special teams.
You probably knew where we headed here. Put Brian Buschini—minus one bad punt against Illinois—to the side. Most everything else with special teams has been a struggle, including a 44.4% make rate on field goals (131st), 19.2 yards per kickoff return (74th), 5.8 yards per punt return (96th), 11.8 yards per punt return allowed (108th) and 20.7 yards per kickoff return allowed (90th).
Oh, and Nebraska’s also had three punts and two field goals blocked, which is last nationally, because there’s a serious snapping issue.
Not surprisingly, FPI and SP+ rate the NU special teams 128th and 129th respectively. Can any of this change over the remaining six games?
Special teams stats are inherently noisy because there are relatively few of them, so the answer is sure but also maybe not? It’s sort of a tossup. Areas like punt and kick protect and the coverage units are areas where coaching and maybe some personnel tweaks could make a difference over the bye week. These phases of the game are largely about execution and effort.
The return game is such a small part of things in today’s game—one 80-yard punt return would take Nebraska’s average from 96th to 33rd, to give you an idea—that I mostly think avoiding catastrophe is worth nearly as much as having a big weapon back there.7
That only leaves kicking.
Buschini’s punting doesn’t need to change, broadly speaking. His 47.6 yards per punt ranks fifth nationally. But it’s a safe bet Nebraska’s going to need to make more than half its field goals against the next six opponents. Tristan Alvano is reportedly close to a return, but his career field goal percentage (63%) offers minimal certainty that things will drastically improve.
Simply put, special teams is big liability heading into a stretch where the Huskers are likely underdogs in at least four games. Nebraska isn’t finding new snappers or kickers during an off week. The best bet here is to focus on the controllable aspects of special teams, hope some improvement there offers a little margin for error elsewhere.
After that? Hope for a little luck.
Bye week press conferences? Elite media relations.
Makes sense as EPA is probably the broadest measure of overall quality of the categories I looked at. To be good or bad in EPA after six games is being mostly good or bad at a little bit of everything, so not a lot of change over the back half.
One other note on this very basic correlation exercise: Offensive numbers were more strongly correlated half to half than defensive numbers. Maybe that’s a topic for additional analysis this offseason, but my working theory until then is that offense is the active side of the ball while defensive is reactive (and thus more subject to scheme, playing style and opponent strength).
Which I guess would just be Memorial Stadium, right?
This one’s difficult given two of Raiola’s interceptions were on balls where Nebraska might have also caught the ball, but they’re etched in history as interceptions now.
Rounding down, that would rank 35th.
So far, that seems to be the bet Nebraska has made with Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda on punt return.