Michigan plays host to the Nebraska Cornhuskers this weekend at Michigan Stadium, in search of a 10-0 start to the 2022 season. Nebraska enters this game with an interim head coach and all sorts of uncertainty on offense, including an injury-riddled QB position. The Huskers rank in the lower end of P5 teams offensively and given the situation with the signal caller, this looks like prey for the Wolverine defense yet again.  

The Film: Nebraska starting QB Casey Thompson suffered an injury against Illinois and was replaced by a rotation of Chubba Purdy and Logan Smothers. When I set out to do this piece, it was unknown at the time what the QB situation would be and thus I chose the Illinois game because it is the only one where all three QBs played. Since then we have learned that Thompson will likely not play and Purdy is the tentative starter, but it was too late to change. Oh well. Illinois it is, but to gain a bit more knowledge on the other two QBs, I will be drawing clips from the Minnesota game as well. 

Personnel: Click for big or here for PDF. 

Casey Thompson entered the year as a starter and despite an uneven performance, is significantly better than either Chubba Purdy or Logan Smothers, both of whom are now vying for the job after Thompson's injury. Purdy and Smothers, our two Name of the Week candidates, are younger options who Nebraska is hoping to develop into a starter, but they are a long way off from that. Purdy seems favored to start, an FSU transfer who was a legit recruit (top 200 composite) but is currently not playing like one and received the cyan. Smothers was a Frost recruit who played some last season but the problem is he, like Purdy, is a better runner than a passer. Which is a problem considering Nebraska brought in OC Mark Whipple from Pitt to install a pass-heavy offense with Thompson as the QB. 

RB looked like a place of weakness for Nebraska entering the season and right now it is pretty mediocre. Anthony Grant was the JUCO guy that Nebraska fans were tweeting at me about in August and he has indeed ascended to being the bellcow back for the Huskers, rushing 177 times on the season, 144 more than any other Husker RB. Grant is a solid player but I did find some flaws in his game. Beyond Grant, things are pretty murky. Ajay Allen is injured, which leaves Rahmir Johnson or Jacquez Yant, two backs from last season, to get the mop up duty. They are not terribly notable. 

Travis Vokolek is back as the receiving TE, a solid weapon in the passing game but not good enough to earn the star designation on our diagram. He is joined at that position by Chan Brewington and Nate Boerkircher, the latter of whom is more blocky than catchy, though neither are majorly used in the passing game. Among the WRs, Trey Palmer is the star, an LSU transfer who has more receiving yards this season than the next three Nebraska receivers combined. He's fit in nicely on an offense lacking in star weapons otherwise. Besides Palmer there is Marcus Washington as the bigger (6'2") outside WR and Old Friend Oliver Martin as the #3 option, somehow still in school. Toss in Alante Brown and you check off all the receiving targets of note. Those four receivers + Vokolek are all the passcatchers that Purdy or Smothers will likely be throwing to in a given game, give or take one or two targets to a lesser used piece like Tommi Hill (ASU) or Omar Manning (TCU). 

The offensive line for Nebraska is a weak point, as it was last season. The tackles are Turner Corcoran and Bryce Benhart and Corcoran is struggling mightily (cyan'd). Nebraska wanted last year's starter, Teddy Prochazka, to have a starting role but injury cut his season short. Based on his play last year and in a few games this season though, not sure it would have made much difference. Trent Hixson holds down the center spot with Ethan Piper to his left, both of whom did okay against Illinois, but neither are getting rave reviews from your author. Broc Bando is the starter on the right side of the line at guard, dueling with Henry Lutovsky. Lutovsky played more against Illinois and was brutal, and based on the fact that he is dueling with Bando, I was able to quickly deduce that Bando is also deserving of the cyan. Two weak spots on the line and no areas of strength. They don't give their QBs much help. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: 1 passing yard from these QBs, plz] 

Spread, pro-style, or hybrid: Nebraska is a spread 'n shred offense that plays primarily out of the shotgun, going to that formation on the vast majority of the plays they ran against Illinois: 

Going under center was so infrequent there is not much to be gleaned from it, but the tiny sample size we have suggests that it is a run-first formation with play-action as the other option. Otherwise, they're playing out of the gun. Here's the distribution of play type by down: 

Not a ton to say here, looks like a pretty typical balance with your usual skew towards the pass on third down. 

Base set: Nebraska alternated between 11 and 12 personnel in this game but did so mixing it up with a lot of different formations, pulling the WRs in tight, then spreading them out. Or playing with 2 TEs on the line and then flexing one out to look like 4 wide the next play. I don't really have a characterization of their base set because there were a ton of different alignments, but I'll give you a few basics. 11: 

And one look at 12: 

I do want to alert you to a notable 12 personnel formation. Nebraska often lined up in which there are six men at the line but three OL to one side, then the center, then another OL, and then a TE in the place of where a tackle would typically be. That gets paired with a second TE in the backfield parallel to the QB like a fullback and often with the RB in the pistol:

Like I said, there are three OL to the left of the center and then you have one OL to the right + the tackle. This formation is also paired with pre-snap motion often too, which is another feature of the Nebraska offense. 

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL: Nebraska ran more zone than gap stuff against Illinois, but there is a pretty healthy distribution of each based on what I saw, moreso than a lot of teams I've charted this season. Counter and power were both in the wheelhouse for the Huskers, in addition to stretch zone, inside zone, things of that nature. Between their formations and run plays, you can't say this offense doesn't have variety... they just don't go anywhere with these QBs though. 

Hurry it up or grind it out: Nebraska is a pretty standard team pace-wise, 15-20 seconds on the playclock most of the time. They ran some tempo last year against Michigan but didn't see much of it against Illinois. 

Quarterback Dilithium Rating (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): I'm not going to discuss Thompson here because it's not relevant but he was a pretty decent runner himself, though a downgrade from Adrian Martinez in that regard. Chubba Purdy is more Martinez, and Smothers is a good runner too. A shift in the offense was apparent when those two entered the game after the Thompson injury, with a plate full of zone read concepts coming on the table as a response by the Husker coaching staff. They were rewarded by Purdy, who has wheels and executed his reads successfully: 

With Smothers in the game, they ran a designed keeper: 

I felt Smothers was an even better runner than Purdy, though both guys are plus in that area of the game. Neither are lightning quick athletes nor Tim Tebow-sized chonky boys who don't go down on contact, but when these two are playing, the run is probably a bigger threat than the pass. Which, yes, is an indictment of their passing abilities, but it is also a real compliment to their legs. Give both an 8 on our scale. 

Dangerman: The Dangerman for this game is WR Trey Palmer, the only player for the Nebraska offense who has really leapt off the page this season, having reeled in 53 catches in 9 games (nearly six per game), with 5 TD averaging 15.5 yards per reception. The LSU transfer can play, and he happens to be PFF's #7 graded WR this season(!), trailing such names as SMU's Rashee Rice (who you may recall clowning Maryland DBs back during the Maryland defense FFFF) and Marvin Harrison Jr. from our bitter rivals to the south. Unfortunately, due to the dreadful showing from the Nebraska QBs against Illinois, I have no organic clips to show you of Trey Palmer. However, I have watched more Nebraska football than I'd like to admit this season and have a sense of how good he is and it made this an easy Dangerman selection. 

I also have access to footage from some of Palmer's best games this season, including a performance against Purdue where he went God-Mode, catching seven passes for 237 yards and taking one jet sweep 60 yards on the ground. Enjoy: 

There's also footage of his season opening performance against Northwestern in Ireland (don't look up which team won that game), where he made eight catches for 65 yards: 

Palmer is a stud with potential Day 2 NFL Draft upside. He has a touch of size, speed, and nose for the football. Unquestionably the best player on Nebraska's offense... if only this crop of Nebraska QB's could get him the ball. 

HenneChart: *gulp* time to talk about those QB's. For all of Casey Thompsons's flaws- 10 INTs in eight games was definitely a flaw- he was still a solid QB who opened up the vertical passing game. He was throwing for 9.0 Y/A on 62.9% completion despite the turnovers. The two replacements are not in the same ballpark right now and both were miserable against Illinois in what limited chance they got. Logan Smothers didn't really get a chance, with the coaches mostly asking him to run the ball and his OL sacking him the moment he dropped back to pass. He attempted one pass against Illinois (an un-chartable screen) and was sacked on his two other drop backs. He did run it several times, but there is no way to calculate a DSR score for Smothers. We will return to him in a second. 

As for Chubba Purdy, he did play long enough to get a little bit of a chart going: 

Not much to chart here, but since it is election season, I'm going to borrow a line from the Cook Political Report's Dave Wasserman and say "I've seen enough": Purdy is not a B1G caliber starting QB. I could glean that from eight chartable downfield passing events. "How?!" you may ask. This is how: 

Yeah. That was the second horrendous decision he'd made in the game, after this interceptable ball that Illinois didn't come down with: 

After those happened, Nebraska's coaches steered Purdy away from passing plays for a bit but once they went back to it, it wasn't getting better. Accuracy was another issue, as here he way overshoots Palmer: 

In the Minnesota game last week, Purdy's inaccuracy showed up when he underthrew a receiver on an interception, this one being the wounded duck variety: 

On the season, Chubba Purdy is 15/36 (42%) for 91 yards, or 2.5 Y/A. He has 0 passing TDs and 3 INTs. You are reading that right. I was not lying when I said his legs were the best part of his game. Rather I might have been understating it: his legs are the only salvageable part of his game.

I don't understand why Nebraska is debating starting Purdy because while Smothers is definitely not good, he has been better than Purdy for sure. He also has more experience from last season too. Smothers did nothing through the air for me to point out in this game, as I mentioned above, but his legs impressed me (revisit the Dilithium Scale section). Against Minnesota, Smothers was not good, but he was better than Purdy statistically, going 5/10 for 80 yards compared to Purdy's 6/16 for 41 yards (+1 INT). Here is one throw from that game to show you: 

This was initially ruled incomplete but upon review, Palmer got his toes in. A pretty nice throw by Smothers to give the WR a chance and a good job by Palmer to haul it in. 

No matter who gets the starting job, and it may well be another rotation, passing will be a major weakness. Neither player is ready as a high volume B1G passer, which is problematic for a coaching staff that was implementing a pass-first offensive system under Whipple. Against Minnesota, they rushed 35 times to 26 pass attempts. Against Illinois, once Thompson exited, the passing plays went much more screen heavy than they had been previously. They want to run it more with Purdy or Smothers in because that's where those two players are best, and because they cannot be trusted to throw the football accurately against B1G competition. Purdy in particular is a ticking time bomb to make a Gavin Wimsatt-to-Will Johnson INT the longer you let him throw downfield. Nebraska's coaching staff knows it and as a result, it seriously dilutes the ability of this offense to do anything. 

Overview 

This FFFF is so different with Casey Thompson at QB vs. Purdy/Smothers, as you could glean from the HenneChart section. With Thompson, they were a fun passing offense that threw vertically for 350+ yards against Purdue and Northwestern and could threaten opposing defenses. Without Thompson? They are a pumpkin. In the Illinois game I watched, Nebraska gained 248 yards and scored 9 points, but the splits with and without Thompson are damning: 

• with Thompson: 26 plays, 214 yards 
• without Thompson: 24 plays, 34 yards

Uh huh. After getting a week to prepare for Life Without Thompson, they faced Minnesota and put up a "surprisingly good" 267 yards. That's still 267 yards and it was accompanied by only 13 points. They are a bad offense without Thompson at QB, with the passing game completely drying up. It also hurts those QBs that they can't count on any pass protection from the offensive line in front of them. They have 6 OL in on this play and it's still an embarrassing sack against guards Henry Lutovsky and Ethan Piper: 

Two plays later, with the wild card unbalanced OL formation I mentioned in the base set section, they gave up another sack. This one coming against Turner Corcoran and Bryce Benhart, typically the two tackles: 

Earlier in the game, pass protection came unraveled when faced with a stunt, which was the reason for Thompson's injury. Lutovsky is nominally on the hook for the stunt that blows up the IOL and it allows a free rusher to hit Thompson right as he threw the ball, with his arm contacting the defensive player, causing the nerve problem in his throwing arm that is currently sidelining him: 

Nebraska currently ranks 103rd in the FBS in sacks allowed per game this season with 2.83 per contest. Teams marginally worse than them include Indiana (you may remember how that one went) and Iowa [Colorado State is second to last, just ahead of Akron]. The Huskers cannot pass protect at all, with my charting deeming most of their linemen to be significantly better run blockers than pass blockers. With these two QBs sharing the job and this OL in front of them, I'd expect most of that vertical passing game to go out the window and a heavy dose of screens to fill the void. Unfortunately, sometimes the OL doesn't execute their assignments on screens well enough to get the play off the ground: 

Not a great throw from Purdy either! Pass protection problems will also feed into the tendencies of Purdy and Smothers to run, and I would be on high alert if I were Michigan when it comes to scrambling. It may be one of the few ways that Nebraska will be able to move the football on Saturday. 

The running game had some flashes against Illinois, and it was the reason why Nebraska hung in there for as long as they did with Minnesota. They pull Piper on this play and he and Corcoran open a hole that allows Anthony Grant to be off and running for Nebraska: 

We'll get back to the OL in a second, but I want to talk about Grant for a moment. He has had a solid season for the Huskers and I saw some things to like and not like about him against the Fighting Illini. This was a nice cutback to shake a tackler: 

Grant breaks a tackle on this next play to get a chunk run and a first down: 

Unfortunately, two plays later, Grant exhibited a maddening lack of vision that plagued him throughout this game. He's got an easy route to the first down and yet cuts outside and gets stopped short: 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! KNOW WHERE THE STICKS ARE!!! Nebraska got stopped on 3rd down, by the way, and punted. There was another nearly identical instance of that earlier in the game, tear your hair out type stuff for a coach. Grant also fumbled (which Nebraska did not recover, so it was a very up and down performance from him). I do not see a star there, but he's a decent player when he is not missing the hole or turning it over. He can grind out yards that the OL doesn't give him from time to time, which sometimes is necessary, but again, the OL wasn't awful in run blocking. They opened some holes, like on that play above, which is blocked beautifully. On the other hand, there were also easy stuffs and poor plays from the OL: 

I also noticed some RPS- type plays where they were asking receivers and stand-up TEs to try and block EDGE defenders lined up to the inside of them slanting inside. Here they expect OLIVER MARTIN to block one of those types of players and there's no chance: 

Doesn't help that Trent Hixon and Corcoran don't get much push anyway. Between the RPS issues that pop up and inconsistency from the line, plus the solid but not great nature of Grant, I do not foresee a running game that will be able to get yards on Michigan consistently. The threat of the QB run will likely open up some plays here and there but this does not have the feel of an offense that is moving it consistency on the ground against the Wolverines, especially when the pass is doing a whole lot of nothing. 

What does this mean for Michigan?

Nothing really. I feel a lot like I did last week wrapping up the Rutgers offense. Nebraska's offensive ranking in SP+ is not in the Rutgers ballpark, but of course their ranking is based on having Thompson as the QB most of this season. With him, they were an offense with intrigue that could hurt you. Without him? Nebraska might well be approaching Rutgers/Iowa territory. They can't throw it with these QBs in, and their OL and RBs are not good enough to make a ground game happen out of thin air without that passing attack. They might get Michigan a couple times on the ground with the zone reads, and hell, maybe they'll hit a fade to Palmer because that's what every opponent is doing now, but pressure is going to be constant, Michigan will dominate in the trenches again, and Nebraska won't be able to move it consistently through the air. Which is a long way of saying it will be a bloodbath and another strong showing for the Michigan defense.