Behind Enemy Lines: Wisconsin Badgers vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers

BadgerBlitz.com brings back it's Behind Enemy Lines series, where we get an opposing beat writer's take on the upcoming matchup.

For Week 12, we spoke to Zack Carpenter of Inside Nebraska and touched on Nebraska's quarterback situation, early returns on Matt Rhule and more.

Carpenter: Rhule took so, SO many of the proper steps in his first offseason here. But what was most impressive, to me, in the offseason was how ruthlessly Rhule and his staff implemented their philosophies during the weeding-out process of spring ball. Over the course of a year, Rhule turned around a Baylor program that had been left in shambles, going 1-11 that first year and then 7-6. Eventually, it gave way to an 11-win season. He ran the very same Baylor playbook in Nebraska almost to a tee – right down to the smallest details like putting ping-pong tables in the locker room and buying loads of Popeyes Chicken for the coaches and players to eat during weeknight film study.

Year One of Rhule has evolved step-by-step along the process – both forward and backward – to the place we’re at now: The Huskers have exceeded expectations in his first year, but they’ve also missed some huge opportunities that have left things feeling very deflated going into Wisconsin and Iowa. You’ll hear this from almost every Nebraska fan and it might sound annoying or like an eye-roll worthy excuse, but they’re also 100 percent right: This team could be – and probably should be – 7-3 (or even 8-2) and in the driver’s seat of the Big Ten West. But they’re not because Nebraska continued to make the same mistakes and shoot itself in the foot. You won’t hear this from enough Nebraska fans but it’s just as accurate: This team could also very well be 4-6 (maybe even 3-7) going into this final stretch. All things considered, I do think 5-5 is about the right record for this team even though there was so much more left on the table.

Carpenter: Woof. How much time you got? How dare you make your first question centered around the thing that everyone around here has been talking about all season, all day, every week and especially the past week. I could go 2,000 words here but in an effort to keep it as concise-but-still-bleak as possible: Nebraska’s three quarterbacks (Heinrich Haarberg, Georgia Tech first-year transfer Jeff Sims and second-year Florida State transfer Chubba Purdy) all played last week against Maryland, and they combined for five turnovers. There are people on this beat who have been around a lot longer than me – I’m talking 20 years longer – who have argued it was the worst display of quarterback play at Nebraska in about two decades. That should be enough to sum it up, but it’s still not enough.

Nebraska leads the country in turnovers (27), and this year’s team is in danger of setting a new program low for worst turnover margin (the Huskers lead in the country in that category, too, at -14 and the Huskers’ all-time record low is -18 set in 1967). The quarterbacks have accounted for 23 of the 27. Purdy – yes, the younger brother of former Iowa State and current 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy – only has one turnover because the third-stringer has only played two series all season.

The ball security issues at the position can be traced back to Sims but, more appropriately, the decision of Matt Rhule and OC/QBs coach Marcus Satterfield hand-picking Sims as their top transfer portal target out of Georgia Tech. Sims had the most turnovers of any returning player in college football coming into the season (31 turnovers across his 25 games with the Yellow Jackets). In order to not pile on and keep it moving: It’s not accurate enough to say he simply hasn’t worked out here. He’s been an abject disaster. He was responsible for six of the Huskers’ eight turnovers during an 0-2 start, and he’s now up to 10 turnovers on the season with 41 for his career. He committed those other four turnovers despite suffering an ankle injury that essentially led to his demotion and him having played just 40 snaps over the last eight games. Assessing a quarterback’s mental makeup is the most difficult part of the evaluation process, and missing on that aspect is costing Rhule, Satterfield and this Husker team dearly.

Haarberg, a fast and physically punishing runner, got out to a hot start but has faded with the physical wear and tear he’s taken. Nebraska won five of his first six starts and had to survive his own ball security issues. If you’re being honest with yourself as a Husker fan, Haarberg’s grit and toughness to hold serve at the quarterback position saved the first season of the Rhule Era and created a higher ceiling than what it was trending toward. The gas tank might be empty for him after everything he gave, and it could ultimately result in him missing the last two games with his own ankle injury that knocked him from the Maryland game. (That’s my read on the situation, anyway.)

So, Haarberg is hurt and I don’t think he’s going to play in anything but an emergency situation on Saturday. Sims is unplayable. If he does go out there and lead – truly lead – Nebraska to a win over Wisconsin, it would be one of the most notable redemption arcs the program will have seen in quite some time. I believe it will be Purdy as QB1 on Saturday night. But, as has been the case going into almost every single game this year, we have no idea what we’ll really be getting (or who we’ll be getting) at quarterback on game day from this team.

Carpenter: I can’t go as far as “must-win” territory because I take that phrase literally. Those are the games where, if you lose ‘em, you die. Nebraska still has one last gasp of air left in this season if it loses to Wisconsin, and the football gods may have handed the Huskers a defibrillator with Iowa losing star defensive back/punt returner Cooper DeJean for the rest of the season. He’s the best player on Iowa’s defense and one of the most electric special teams players in the nation – on a team that is winning because of, and ONLY because of, its defense and special teams.

DeJean got hurt on the Hawkeyes’ first defensive possession against Nebraska last season and missed the rest of the game. It was the No. 1 factor – in my opinion – in the Huskers snapping an eight-game losing streak to Iowa. It wasn’t a coincidence that Nebraska’s star receiver (Trey Palmer) popped off for an 87-yard touchdown catch on the very next series, caught another TD pass on DeJean’s replacement a few drives later and finished with 195 yards receiving on an Iowa defense that had only allowed a total of 195 or more to two TEAMS all season. Let alone one receiver.

This latest injury to DeJean will dominate the storylines as much as it should – which is, to say, a lot.

Carpenter: Philosophically speaking, this defense simply has heart, toughness and buy-in – all three traits that have been strong enough from this group to match the cliché. I covered the 2019 Ohio State team up close. That was the best defense I’ve ever covered as a CFB writer. It was full of superstars and future first-rounders (Chase Young the most name-brand of them all), and it dominated all season.

This Nebraska defense is not as good as that OSU defense, let’s not go crazy. But this Husker defense has more toughness and heart than any I have ever seen, and it has the best bend-don’t-break mentality – and results – than I have ever seen. The offense puts its defense in absolutely awful, almost can’t-win situations over and over and over and over this year. And it still keeps coming up big. You might see those game-winning opponent drives at the end of losses to Minnesota or Maryland and think something different from the outside.

But sometimes when the gas light pops on at the end of a long car trip with one of your buddies, maybe you don’t make it without having to call for a tow truck. If your buddy did you a solid, though, and filled up the emergency gas can in the trunk just a litttttle bit so that you could pour a quarter-gallon into the tank, then you’ve got a shot at making it all the way home. If he didn’t, then your car is going to die on the side of the road.

That’s been Nebraska’s season.

Carpenter: The Huskers’ season opener and their last five games have all been the exact same. And I do mean the exact same. This is going to be the exact same, too, and there is no reason for me to think differently: Slow pace, great defense, ugly offense, turnovers galore (forced and unforced), minimal scoring opportunities, low point total put up by both offenses.

Nebraska has a 3-3 record in those games. In the three wins, the Huskers are -1 in TO margin in each one. In the three losses, they were -3 twice and -2 once. Turnovers have been the biggest difference in every Husker loss this season, and they have survived in spite of those turnovers in every conference game they’ve won, too. After committing 12 turnovers over the last three, likely calling on the third-string QB to lead an offense that has lost seven of the top 14 players in the rotation at some point this season and heading up to a city where the program hasn’t won since before Bart Starr and the boys were beating up on the Chiefs in Super Bowl I …Yeah, count me out on predicting Nebraska to win. The Huskers absolutely – absolutely – can win this game. I’m just not picking them to do it, and I wouldn’t lay my own money down on betting either side. The only bankable, no-sweat bet is the under, which has hit in 13 of the 20 combined games between these two teams. Take the under. Take it. Say thank you.

Wisconsin 16, Nebraska 13

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