Dylan Raiola injury update

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We'll talk about that a little bit later. For now,
it is Husker Buzz, and joining us for that is
our guy, Sean Callahan or Husker insider Sean Happy Monday.
How are you feeling?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
He Well, it's quite a weekend obviously with losing Dylan
Riola and obviously see Nebraska fall by four in a
game they almost were about to feel like pull away
from and go up seventeen to six or maybe even
twenty one to six before the.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Injury in that play out. And now t J Latist
the guy on the positive note, I am a Dodgers
fan and I was able to catch the final innings
leading medium.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Okay, so you saw it as what was happening.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
You did get to stee locker room was erupting with
the game ending because they were still in Lincoln as
it was playing out. We were on Channel seven doing
our report, so I was like, who's all cheering? Oh,
that's all the USC players. So it was an interesting weekend.
But yeah, the loss of Riola now the focus as
we move forward.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, I'll ask you about that Dodgers thing in a second,
because as a sports guy, I got a I've been
arguing with myself and some of my friends about where
that lands is like one of the great sporting events
I've ever seen, honestly, But we'll get to that in
a second. What's the status of this team right now?
This is a true air out of the balloon type

(01:16):
of thing for a roster, not just to lose the game,
but to lose the game in the way that you
lost the game by four points at home on a
night where Nebraska looked as good as they could with
the blackout and with the national television audience. I think
a lot of people are like, man, look at Nebraska.
They look legit just as a brand right now. And

(01:37):
then now you get the news over the weekend that
Royola is out for the rest of the season, and
what that looks like with three teams that are not
walkover opponents the rest of the way. What's the status
of this team now that they have to completely pivot
to an entirely new looking offense with the backup quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, it's a tough deal because they were so close
to winning game, and they played well in a lot
of areas. I mean, there were a lot of things
there that you can like, Wow, they held usc to
their worst passing game and really one of their worst
offensive games on their Lincoln Riley. And you know the
problem was the ground game, though Jada Mayeva was able
to kind of be an X factor, running it ten

(02:19):
to eleven times, you know, on true rushes, which the
previous two games he had only run at once combined.
So they brought that rinko in and we've seen everybody
do that to Nebraska all year with their lack of
edge discipline, the way they've played the run at times,
the counter plays they've chased, which leads to these quarterback
plays where you know, every single power for a team

(02:39):
that has a running quarterback has almost had a career
game this year in terms of how much they've attempted
to run with the QB. And that continued to be
the case where teams are running the ball at their
quarterback and average of about seven eight times per game
against Nebraska, which is a high number. But yeah, speaking
of Nebraska's quarterback now without Dylan Rayla out for the year,
broken bone in his leg, they have surgery on it,

(03:01):
so he won't travel to UCLA. He's going to be
a way he'll be around a team in practice though
that's going to bring Marcus Davila up as the third quarterback.
Obviously Jalen Graham stad or two, and then TJ. Latif
is the true freshman out of Compton, California, played his
high school ball at Orange Lutheran High School. Get a
step in four star was an Elite eleven quarterback, very

(03:24):
talented player, played at a high level. So he'll come
in and get the chance. But now I think you've
got to retool this to fit him better. I think
when he got into the game it was a little
limited because you built the game plan around Dil Roola,
and now you have a week to build a game
plan that might fit TJ's skill set better. And that's
what I am intrigued about with Dana Holgerson, what he

(03:44):
can do. And then you've got to buy a week
after this week before Penn State, so there is some
time to get him going. But this week I would
expect that we'll see some different feel and different looks
out of t J.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Latif we're seeing with John Callahan for Husker Buzz. It
certainly is a pivot moment here. There are still three
games left in the regular season and then whatever bowl
game that Nebraska gets selected for and we know Bowl
games don't mean what they once used to, but you
don't take those opportunities for granted. And it could be
a great time to see what you have in TJ.
Latif a very different looking type player, certainly a guy

(04:20):
who seems to have solid mobility, the true freshman aspect,
the lack of college playing experience is certainly interesting. But
he's going to get a chance to play against a
UCLA team that you know, for the most part this
season has been fairly stingy. Defensively, they had the whenever
they've played good teams like Penn State in Indiana, they've
given up a boatload. But for the most part since

(04:41):
the coaching change, they have been much more competitive outside
of that Indiana game. So what can you say about this?
Is the matchup on the road and kind of what
should be I mean, this is not going to be
as tough of an environment as maybe the Penn State
or even the Iowa game could theoretically be. Even so
that game is in Lincoln, I wonder, you know, is

(05:02):
this the kind of opponent and it being a night
game on the West coast that is going to be
a good landing spot for a guy to make his
first collegiate start.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
I don't think the atmosphere is going to be daunting.
There's going to be maybe more Nebraska fans there than
U c l A fans. I mean, this is a
program that's really reeling at this point. And you know,
if not for these players getting paid at U c
l A and NIL involved, a lot of these guys
might have just hung it up and gone to the portal.

(05:34):
But if you do that a lot of times, you
stop getting paid. So that is the one positive about
it in il It keeps players in situations like UCLA
finding their coach in August or September. You know, these
players are still playing and they're playing they're being paid.
So it's a motivated team and they've rallied behind this
interim coaching staff with Tim Skipper and Jerry Neuheisel as

(05:56):
the offensive coordinator and Nico, I mean the Abi Aaba
has done a very good job as their quarterback and
he's run for over one hundred yards in some games.
So there's some matchups that concern you. But yeah, as
far as a road atmosphere, I think it does help
Nebraska in this game because it's going to be a
lift when they get out there, this team and they
see the Rose Bull full red. I don't care who

(06:19):
you are as a player that should get excited to
get out there and try to get the win.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, no doubt the Rose Bowl as a venue. I
think a lot of people who follow sports it is.
I think the Crown Jewel building or facility that college
football you just need to visit at some point in
your life and I haven't gotten a chance to go.
These players are going to feel that, I think, and
I agree with you. I know it's not the Rose

(06:44):
Bull game, but the Rose Bowl in any situation for
a game that counts is certainly going to feel special.
With that being said, Emma Johnson was fantastic. I think
having a good passing game to help him as he
establish the run is important. But I also am kind
of intrigued by the idea that you have two guys

(07:05):
back there that Dana Holgerson could kind of draw up
some interesting run concepts with a more mobile quarterback that
you would actually draw some running plays for, like TJ.
Latif is that something we can be on the lookout
for with a week's notice.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Well, I think you bring up a good point. I
do think you can do a lot more with TJ
that in the end is going to help Emmit. Right now,
emmittt is a little easier to probably scheme forca Israela
was not really a running threat. Immitt's strength has always
been making tacklers miss. He's made by far the most
tacklers miss of any running back in the Big Ten.

(07:42):
This year he's got over fifty four Smith tackles I
believe on the year. Fifty four I think is the
number he leads the conference and carries he leads the conference,
and yards he leads the conference in ten plus yard runs.
So Immit has been outstanding. And I think now you
add another threat next to him, that could open a
few more things up. That could actually bring some safeties

(08:02):
up that when Dylan Royl was in safeties ten to
hang deep. Now those safeties might creep up more and
hopefully that's going to open a few more easier passing
reads for Latif and Dana Holgerson. Okay, that was one
of the challenges with teams how they defended Royola not
a running threat, So what do they do? They camp
everybody in a deep shell and there's not a lot
of deep balls that are there. For Dylan Royola, it's

(08:25):
got to be a lot of screens, a lot of underneaths.
Hopefully there's going to be a few more shots down
the field based on how teams will defend the Huskers.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
And just real quick, you know. And for Emma Johnson
three of the last four games, the Minnesota game being
the outlier, He's had incredible games over one hundred and
twenty plus yards in all three of the other games, Maryland,
Northwestern and USC. But do you think that Latif as
a true freshman, considering how well he's played, the fact
that he was the lead eleven, does he have the

(08:53):
arm talent? Do you think to give confidence to Dana
Holgerson to draw up some schematic things to get at
him stretching the field.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
With his arm. Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, go
back to earlier in the year. He threw a perfect
deep shot to Cortes Mills and I believe it was
the Houston Christian game and there was a strong wind,
and that same play, Dylan Royola was not able to
make the furrow perfectly where he did.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
So.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
He has big arm talent, big strength, you know, that's
not a concern as far as pushing it down the
fields is making. I think it's more of the reads,
the confidence, making the right decisions and getting the ball
out and I'd imagine they're not going to keep the
ball in his hands too long. We don't know Elijah
Pritchet's status for the week Gunnar Gotool was out for
the season. They announced that today kind of under the radar.

(09:40):
That was announced by the head coach, Matt Ruhle. Teddy
Prohoska's out. So if you have Pritchet not available, that's
three of your top five tackles that are unavailable going
into this game right now.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, and that's not ideal obviously when you're trying to
protect a guy who is making his first collegiate start.
But we'll continue to break this down try to figure
out what that's going to look like. But I can
tell you that it definitely feels different and husker Land
than it did a week ago as we were getting
set for the Blackout game. Now it's kind of what
do we look for for the last quarter of this

(10:11):
season and try to understand what this team is going
to be moving forward. Sean Callahan our guy. Last thing
for you man, that Dodger in Blue Jay World series
as a whole, especially Game seven, there was an eighteen
inning game earlier in the series. Yamamoto having the series

(10:32):
that he had, I was trying hard with all the
crazy plays and the different crazy things that had to happen,
the unlikely heroes for honestly, both teams throughout. It has
to be up there, like, honestly, like one of the
top two or three world series of my lifetime. Would
you agree with that? Or am I just a prisoner.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Of the moment. No, it's up there for sure. I
mean I think at moments in my lifetime in the
Kirby Pucket home run, oh yeah, the Joe Carter home run.
I mean those are moments for me. Kirk Gibson, I
was young. That was a Game one kind of deal,
like Freddie Freeman last year. But this is Game seven.
I will tell you this a little behind the scenes story.
So Andy Kennedy from Channel seven and I were waiting

(11:10):
to go on live because we had to wait for
the Oklahoma Tennessee game to get off the air. So
we're standing on the field waiting and I had my
phone and we're watching it. I mean, we're both baseball guys.
We're watching this closely, and then they q us we
have to go on live the ten o'clock news, And
it was right when Will Smith's home run happened. Wow,

(11:31):
and we're on the air. We had the phone down
on the ground and we weren't watching because we're talking
and Andy joking because he saw my eyes look down
one time. But then when we were off camera, I
was talking and I was covered up and he nudges me.
And that's right with Will Smith at the home run.
So it was quite the intrigue to have to wait

(11:51):
that out. Then on my walk back to the huscar
a line offense, which is office is about ten minutes
from the stadium, that's when the inning inning double play,
and that was around me walking near the Haymarket, heard
a guy yell really loud.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Well, congrats, dude. I mean, you know, I wasn't wanting
them to win, but you just couldn't deny that they
were the better team, guys like Smith and Rojas coming through. Obviously,
Otani had the huge Game three, but really wasn't much
of a factor in the later games in the series.
Yamamoto was the MVP, but they were just the more complete,

(12:26):
They were the better team. They executed better in the
big moments, especially in Game seven. Congrats to your squad,
and I'm happy for you that they got to win.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
No. Baseball, the Japanese influence this adds to this. I mean,
I look at baseball right now in Japan, probably like
what NBA basketball was in our generation in the nineties,
when everybody was just all Michael Jordan, all the stars.
Well that's Jeff, that's Japan right now. With these three
superstars in LA and the amount of media fifty sixty
media people that travel around the Dodgers all year just

(12:55):
to watch these guys and cover them for an entire country,
It's just wild to see the story they've become, not
just here but worldwide.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
No doubt, man, I appreciate it so much. We'll chat
again tomorrow and throughout the week getting set for this
UCLA game.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
All right, thanks guys.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
We have to keep in mind the last decade of
being a Husker fan, you went nine years without making
a Bowl game. You broke that streak last year. Thanks
are turning the right direction. We had this weird little
thing with the coach that maybe he'd be trying to
bolt to his home where he went to Penn State.
That has apparently been taken care of by his contract extension,

(13:37):
which was signed last week. There's still a lot of
question marks as to whether or not this is the
right guy to take Nebraska back into the Promised Land.
He seems like he's a good coach. He has elevated
programs like Temple and Baylor who were in real bad
shape when he got there, and he has improved the
Nebraska football program from a team that wasn't even making
bull Bowl games to getting to a six and two record.

(14:00):
Even though you would have liked to have that Michigan
game back, maybe even a little bit. Not to say
that they deserve to win that game, but there is
a world that that game they could have won. And
then the Minnesota game is the real clunker. I have
no idea what the heck happened there. They obviously game
planned incorrectly, could not figure offensively out, and especially like

(14:20):
salt in the wound that Iowa scored like forty points
immediately on Minnesota the next week, it really makes you
feel stupid for only putting six on the board against
that same team. Losing the USC at home is theoretically defensible.
USC was favored even before the Ryal injury, but to
lose by four points, not finding a way to get

(14:40):
that game with all of the pomp and the circumstance,
the blackout, they painted the field, everybody's in black, the
black balloons, the lights show in between the third and
fourth quarter, and you couldn't find a way to get
that game won. It stinks, it does, But just keep
in check here that you have another four star guy.
I'm just not sure what it's going to look like.

(15:02):
I don't know what they're going to be able to do.
Usla's defense has been at least solid the last month
for the most part. I'll take that Indiana game away
if they scored fifty six points on them. Indiana's a juggernaut.
I mean, they really are. But they've had a bye week,
they've had a chance, they've been looking at Nebraska for
two weeks getting ready for this game. It's a home game,

(15:22):
like Sean Callahan said, there is a really good chance
you're going to see a very large number of Husker
fans that are going to be there in La. They're
gonna fill up the Rose Bulls should be a fantastic atmosphere,
but not a real hostile one for TJ. Latif and
the Huskers. But if you can win one or two
of these games at the end of the season, you
can get to eight wins. In a perfect world, you

(15:42):
can find a way to get to eight. Might be
able to spoil Iowa, who's trying to make this little
mini run to I mean, if they win the rest
of their games, they're going to be in playoff talk.
The Iowah Hawkeyes are. I know that sounds absurd, it
sounds insane, and I'm not trying to tell you that
you like you don't have to believe me, but Iowa

(16:04):
has lost two games. Their two losses are to an
Iowa say, a team who got off to a five
and zho start and they have since collapsed amongst many
injuries among other things. Their second loss is a five
point loss to Indiana. They played Indiana tougher to anybody.
They play Oregon this week, Iowa does, and then USC
on the road, which is another ranked team probably by

(16:26):
the time that they play, and then Michigan State and
then they play at Nebraska. If Iowa wins those four games,
they are going to be in playoff conversations. They will
be third in all likelihood in the Big Ten standings
by the end of it that the third place team
in the Big Ten is going to get a playoff spot.
Nebraska could stand in the way. It could be a massive,

(16:48):
massive game for Nebraska to get back at Iowa for
some of the pain Iowa has caused Nebraska over the
last decade. If you can get two of these wins,
you finish eight and four in the regular season, knowing
the last three plus games he had a play it
with a backup quarterback, a true freshman backup quarterback, no less,
And not only that, but you got to ruin Iowa's
playoff chances. That is a more than successful season for Nebraska.

(17:12):
So let's yeah, maybe a deep breath, Maybe we need
to take a couple of days and just like decompress
for some of the bad news that we've gotten with
the Huskers the last seventy two hours. But what I
will say is there's still plenty out in front of
us to be happy and celebrate about. Let's take it
one day at a time.