Ending on a High Note!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Chana, New York City in the rear view,

(00:02):
Mary now and we look forward to off season conditioning.
But for your money, what are the storylines between now
and spring practice.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, I mean, obviously the biggest one is offensive line additions.
They've got to get that figured out. But the growth
of this offense and their Dana Holgerson with Dylan Rayola,
with the receivers they've added to what they've got coming back,
I mean, that's a big piece. Then on defense, you
know they lost a lot in the portal where they've

(00:34):
added some key pieces from the portal too. So just
getting this win in the bowl game, finishing with a
winning season, it was the right step for year two,
and now you're bringing in more pieces with more growth
under Dana Holgerson than ideally John Bullern. That was the
biggest thing with the Bowl game, the number of young

(00:55):
players that saw reps. I mean, from Donovan Jones who
more or less started as a corner in this game,
Caleb Benning played key reps, Amari Sanders on the back
end of the defense. We saw a number of guys
get reps, Jordan Achoa, Connor Kaneely. You know, they're trying
to build some promising for depth of the future. Obviously,

(01:18):
Riley van Poppel, they've got to find new leadership to
build because you know, some of these guys that have
been here for five or six years are now gone,
and then they've got to rebuild some of those key spots, and.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
They don't have a lot of time to do it
because you know, spring practice is really restricted. But special
teams are also a tremendously important component that has just
been lost on Nebraska football now over a couple of
coaching administrations. But that almost cost Nebraska the football game.
In fact, you could honestly say Bill O'Brien had kicked

(01:50):
a field goal on his second and last possession, that
would have made that last that last couple of minutes
of the game extremely nerve wracking because once again Nebraska
collapsed on special teams. What do you think is going
to happen and wins are going to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, Nebraska was very fortunate as you as you just
said there, Jim, and you know, Boston College and only
attempted four field goals on the year before the game,
so they were not a good kicking team themselves. But
Nebraska's added a new snapper Kevin Gaelic arguably the best
snapper in the portal. His grades in ninety on Pro
Football Focus. Their current snapper grades they're forty and twenty eight,

(02:30):
so they've upgraded that. They brought in Jack McCallister as
a punter. He actually has a higher grade on PFF
than Brian Bushini currently has. He's ranked as I believe
the fourth or fifth punter in the Big Ten. So
they've got a new punter and a new holder, so
that's been addressed. And then Andrew Marshall from Idaho is
a key kick and punt returner as well as a corner.

(02:53):
But Marshall ran a punt back and ran a kickback
for a touchdown this year at Idaho, who was a
top FCS program. So they're addressing some key needs there.
But you're right it in you know, a lot a
lot of questions and a lot of things maybe fixed there,
but snapper and holder and some of those things are
some of the biggest problems they had this year.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah. Now Bill bush is sitting in Lincoln doing radio.
This is the former Husker assistant. He's actually one of
the more respected special teams coaches in the country. Ed
Foley is a whipping boy on social media. He's the
special teams coordinator. Handicap Bill Bush getting back into college
football at Nebraska or well, Matt rule say, no, he's

(03:35):
part of a previous regime. We'll go get somebody else.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, there's nothing. I mean, he does a radio show
with Steve Simple, who works with me for me, and
there's nothing to it. I mean, this is just kind
of a media creation. I mean, look, he's a great guy,
great coach, but there's really nothing there other than you know,
maybe a few people have wrote that as a suggestion,
but Matt Roule doesn't know him at all, and I

(04:01):
just you know, if he did do something there more,
I think you would go to on the outside, somebody
that's currently still coaching.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Now. Talk about the portal, it's closed for the time being.
When does it open again and when will we see
more activity?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, technically it is open for five days after the
bowl game, so for Nebraska the current players, there's still
a few more days they can enter. You have five
days until after your final game ends. But as far
as visitors, January one is when you can start hosting
again portal visitors, So there's another eighteen days left until

(04:41):
classes begin, or you'll be able to have portal visitors
on your campus, and that will be something to watch
here as Nebraska has already hosted twenty two portal visitors
and you know they've they've landed eleven commits, so that
will be something to watch. Offensive line is clearly their
biggest need right now. I think there's some thoughts about

(05:03):
running back in some other positions, but the old line
would be their biggest need right now.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
All right, big guy, take a break. Great work again
as always, and we'll keep Sean handy in case things break,
because yeah, five more days where Huskers can leave into
the portal because of the bowl game, but then we'll
have visitors right up till about the twentieth of January.
Very good, thanks man. Six fifty five is ready to
go on. I'm a ten kfab