You don’t have to play your ring entrance song just yet, but better soon know what it is. It’s game month, with a 100-degree heat blast in Nebraska to welcome it in.
You can assume without asking Nebraska football coaches that it’s preferred that there are still three weeks until players are adjusting their body clocks in Dublin. Still on “Good Life” time, Mark Whipple believes the key cogs of the Husker offense – and, of critical matter, those QBs – have been successfully pedaling down the block during the first week of fall camp.
Along the way, he reminds his quarterbacks that they don’t have to do it all. A fine thing to think about with regularity, and certainly when it’s third-and-goal from the 3.
“We had a really good summer of just kind of going on the things that they see themselves—in the throw game and in the run game, the mistakes they’ve made,” Nebraska’s offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach said after Monday’s practice. “I’ve seen them take a step forward.”
He thought Casey Thompson And the other quarterbacks did a good job of organizing meetings and on-field work with teammates between spring and fall, and now those older players like Thompson seem quicker to process matters this camp. It’s also helped in now understanding any missteps on the fly and to ideally shoo away a mistake from happening that next time.
“You can see the young guys make a mistake and they don’t know, but the older guys know right away, ‘OK, boom, I’ll get it next time.’ So we’ve minimized the mistakes and made some progress,” Whipple said.
Nebraska’s “Day by Day, we get better and better” chant must be the truth of this August as Husker football tries to turn its fortunes with a mostly new-look offensive staff and 33 new scholarship players compared to last season.
Chemistry is still a work in progress between the quarterbacks and wide receivers, who Mickey Joseph has liked the progress of overall but acknowledged need to more consistently stack strong days. He was blunt that his group got bested by the defensive backs during Monday’s work.
“I’m sure after today they’re going to go back and think about it and they’re going to come back this afternoon for the walk-through and be more focused,” the wide receivers coach said after the practice. “And then I think (Tuesday) they’ll come back and be ready to go. One thing about this group, once I challenge them they always come back. That’s one thing I like about them. They don’t just let me talk noise to them and not respond.”
Regarding the building connection with the quarterbacks, Joseph knew the summer wouldn’t handle that completely with six quarterbacks and about 20 receivers getting work in.
“So the chemistry is going to slowly come. It’s going to keep coming, it’s going to keep coming,” he said. “And I think once you settle down on a quarterback and settle down on the receivers, I think that’s when the chemistry will happen and that’s when they’ll start gelling more.”
Joseph wants a top six receivers he can rely on and obviously Nebraska needs a QB1 who can combine playmaking with shrewdness in keeping the turnovers down.
It seems fair to say Thompson, the transfer by way of Texas, has been thought by much of the public to be the favorite to start at quarterback since he announced he was coming to Lincoln in January. There’s still no reason to think that he’s not that guy on Aug. 1.
He’s definitely healthy.
Whipple wasn’t overly concerned about how Thompson was coming off his thumb injury from last year by the way the QB performed in the spring, but the coach said that it’s “much better” after an offseason procedure and the junior transfer appears to be fine heading into this season.
Certainly the zip on his passes was evident in the half hour the media had during the beginning of practices on Monday – where Thompson took first reps in each drill, followed by Chubba Purdy and Logan Smothers. Make of that what you will, or not at all, but it’s not a surprise at this point that Whipple himself seemed to suggest the more experienced Thompson was ahead.
“He can make all the throws but I think right now he’s taken another step of going through his progressions a little bit quicker – understanding coverages and understanding the plays,” the offensive coordinator said.
During the spring Thompson was still adapting to what Whipple said were probably 90 different concepts in the pass game. More reps and summer growth has allowed him to see some of those things with more clarity, Whipple thinks. “Where you can short some of the things in progression by coverage and understanding what the defense is doing. I think that’s where he has a leg up over the other guys.”
Whipple added that all the other quarterbacks have gotten better too, including the young like Heinrich Haarberg and Richard Torres, who the coach pointed out had their two best days of late. The first-year freshman Torres probably has the strongest arm of all in the room, he added, but believes all the QBs can make all the throws required.
On Monday, the Huskers got in some red zone work. A quarterback has to be savvy down there with tighter windows and a quicker trigger often required. It was the first time doing red zone work at a Nebraska practice for someone like Purdy, who only got about five practices in the spring due to injury.
“We were alright. Not great. Didn’t turn the ball over – that’s the big thing,” Whipple said.
Heading into the practice, the coach reminded his quarterbacks to make red zone decisions like it was the real show, with the game in Dublin, Ireland, now just 26 days away.
“I told them today, ‘Play it like it’s the first quarter at Northwestern.’ We get down there we want to get points on the board. Yeah, I want a touchdown all the time but if it’s not there just be smart and get rid of it. the board.”
Pitt’s offense last year, which had Whipple calling it, ranked 12th nationally in red zone touchdown percentage (71.0).
The coach’s stressing of ball security and making sure players don’t turn something into nothing by forcing the issue is normal camp preaching by a staff. But it sure strikes a loud chord with a fan base all too used to seeing their squad on the wrong side of turnover margin for most of the last two decades.
Nebraska will no doubt be a favorite over Northwestern going into that game, but going minus-2 or minus-3 in turnovers can change everything. Prior to last year’s 3-9 mark, a Wildcats team that won the division two years ago beat the Huskers 21-13 in large part because of the Huskers’ red zone failures and turnovers.
And when asked about picking his starting quarterback, Whipple answered: Take care of the football. He repeated that line.
“I think first games at any level of football are lost more than they’re won,” the veteran coach said. “So take care of the football. Understand we’ve got a good team, we’ve got a good defense, we’ve got a good kicking game. It doesn’t all have to come on you.”