Husker Football Numbers:
Some You’ve Seen, Some You Intuitively Knew, Others That May Surprise
15 — That’s how many days away from Nebraska football returning fully to our lives.
Now, for most of us it never left. Husker fanhood is like a particulary virulent strain of sports herpes. It is probably always in your bloodstream, but it flares up at certain times a year and you should always disclose that shit to your partner at the beginning stages of any relationship so they’re aware of what they’re in for.
Huskerpes? I’ll keep workshopping it. You can tell yourself it’s a cold sore, but when you’re poring over the the transfer portal rankings and desperately trying to figure out if we can increase our net punting average instead of working? You might need some antivirals, fam.
I did a little digging online recently and found a few numbers that shocked, afew numbers that confirmed what we already knew, and a few numbers that weren’t as bad as I thought.
(*Author’s note: I’ll keep it short, but, since we’re inching closer to the season, I had to dust off the old Smith-Corona typewriter — or my busted-ass Dell Keyboard — and take a few blog warmup laps.)
20 — Nebraska was 20th in the nation in total offense last season.
They averaged nearly 450 yards per game, coming in at an impressive 447.6/ypg. We were moving that ball, people. Even though at times it felt like someone had poured sugar into our engine or hit us with the old banana in the tailpipe, the numbers on yardage weren’t half bad. Much like Reel 2 Real feat. The Mad Stuntman: They liked to move it.
70 — These numbers? They are half bad. In fact, these are 3/4 shitty.
Nebraska was 70th in the nation in points per game. You probably knew this, already. Either because Scott Frost’s inability to get his team across the finish line has been an ongoing, and well documented issue, or because you have photoreceptors in your face that turn light into electrical signals that travel from your retinas through the optic nerve to your brain where they are then converted into an image of Adrian Martinez throwing a ball 14 feet over a tight end’s head in the corner of the endzone. Whatever. Hardly breaking news, but still not great when you stare at that seven and that zero.
106 — And, speaking of ugly numbers.
This thicc, triple digit number is here to remind you, of the cross eyed bear that Nebraska’s offense gave to us in the Red Zone.
Yup. We were 106th nationally in Red Zone offense. The only time you want to see 106, here, is if you’re watching a BET show hosted by Lil Bow Wow. That’s it. Any non-Bow Wow related 106-ing is not what we’re looking for. Obviously, this number was a combo platter of bad kicking, turnovers, and — stop me if you’ve heard this before — a lack of ability to finish.
Frost’s offense was really good at buying all the building materials and they kicked ass on demo day. But, when it came time for them to actually re-tile the bathroom floor? Well, they kind of just…didn’t.
24 & 9 — That’s how many touchdowns and picks (respectively) the presumptive starter, Casey Thompson, threw last season in the nine games he saw substantial snaps as QB1 for Texas. Those numbers are impressive. He put up gaudy stats against Oklahoma, where he threw for 388 yards and five touchdowns in a narrow loss and he was at the helm of the 18th best scoring offense in the nation. These numbers, along with reports that he’s one of the leaders on the team and has displayed the kind of — I hate this word, but I can’t stop using it — moxie that fans have been jonesing for.
Hope Springs: it’s not just a 2012 Rom-Com about old people having sex.
116 & 124–116th in the nation in Opponent Kickoff Return yardage. 124th in the nation when we run back the kicks.
Oh, no. We have to talk a little bit about the special teams numbers. Damn it. The numbers for Nebraska’s entire special teams group are so gratuitous, so NC-17 ghastly, that I may need to blur them out like it’s the Spice Channel from 1998. Okay. Brace yourself. Here they are.
Nebraska’s special teams woes are so well documented that they’re basically they’re own roped-off, secured section in the Library of Congress. Or their own subreddit that’s definitely labeled NSFW.
It was exactly as bad as you think. No hyperbole from some hack of a writer making ancient porn references can outdo how not-good things were on that unit last year.
116th because they gave up 25.33 yards per kick return.
124th because they got 187 yards on 12 returns. That’s 907 less return yards than Cortney Grixby had back in 2007. By himself. You could trip on your own stumbling incompetence and gain the 15 yards per return that Nebraska did. This needs some work.
Here’s the good news: it statistically cannot get worse?
I put the question mark in there because I’m a sad, scarred individual. Let’s end things on an upper, shall we?
25 — That’s how many more touchdowns Mark Whipple’s Pittsburgh offense scored last year than Nebraska.
Pitt was 8th in the nation in yards per game, scored a hot 70 TDs, and was 78 spots higher in red zone offense, nationally. It’s enough to make you want to Ghost Ride the Whip(ple).
