The HuskerOnline Friday Forecast: Nebraska Football vs Colorado I Nebraska Huskers I GBR

Friday forecast it is Colorado week Sean I and let's first get this out of the way this could be the final meeting in the regular season at least between Nebraska and Colorado these two teams aren't on the schedule moving forward and games like this are going to be fewer and farther between as we move forward in college football yeah credit Tom osbor uh when he was athletic director he helped get these games on the schedule a four game series that started in 2018 that's going to end here in 2024 and also those Oklahoma games uh that were on the schedule um and and you know when you talk about non-conference games these were the fun ones the ones that have some meaning some history some juice especially after conference realignment and you know Andy I spent a very good part of my career going to Boulder and covering these games when they on Black Friday for all those years and it is a bit of rivalry I mean these fan bases really do not like each other and when you go into Colorado even to this day you can sometimes feel that hatred from those Buffalo fans yeah Matt Ru said that he was out skiing with his family in the offseason he said a woman came up to him and gave her a piece of his mind and he he took it all in stride and says hey this is what river about right no question and uh that's what college football's about uh bit rival and Colorado's always been unique because it is kind of nestled in an NFL pro sports market and so it is almost kind of covered like a pro sports team the fan base almost resembles more of a pro sports crowd more more than a say a traditional College crowd you the when you go to game in Boulder it almost feel can feel like an NFL crowd a little harder edged um not necessarily kind of your nicer older College crowd that you see at other places so yeah there is some blood between these two teams and then you add the Deion Sanders element what happened last year in Boulder the way Nebraska fell apart with the five fumbles and like Matt Ru said there really wasn't much I could say we fumbled it five times right right this is the fourth meeting between these two schools since 2018 but it could be like we said the final one well let's talk about Nebraska uh on Saturday complimentary football really the theme of the day yeah the way Nebraska ran the ball they really wanted to establish that they had the tight ends heavy packages trying to just kind of get the pace of the offense going to run over 80 plays when you don't run a Hurry Up Tempo that's not easy to do it takes great efficiency and it was third down Nebraska was 11 of 17 on their third down conversions I thought the big one that kind of swung the game early was they faced the second and 30 the only real period that Nebraska's starting offense was penalized it happened to be back-to-back plays a false start and then an illegal uh crack back uh pass interference call sent him back they were able to get out of that and that just tells you with Dylan ryel at quarterback you know he can make all the throws in a second and 30 no problem what did you think about Dylan's performance it was fantastic right you know I think we all had an expectation of what he could be that was better than I think anyone could have imagined I mean to come out and your first start CU we've been around a lot of bigname freshman in our careers covering not just nebr other programs and it's hard it's really hard to come out in your first ever game and do what he did and make it look like that you know you might see a flash like a wand Del Robinson like oh wow he's going to be a really good player but to do it the way he did immediately at that level that that was impressive complet a 70% of his passes more than 200 yards and a couple touchdowns great start now on the other side of the football in terms of defense they played well but obviously they have a big big test or a bigger test this week with Colorado they were very vanilla uh I don't know if Nebraska really blitzed in this game at all last week it was a very base package a lot of cover two cover four Drop Zones so they were careful on what they showed Colorado they did not really come out in my opinion in a lot of exotic things it was straight base limited Blitz and they played their starters like Ty Robinson only played 19 snaps so they were able to manage the snap counts for a lot of those veteran players and play as you heard Matt 107 Players got in this game last week that was unbelievable Colorado obviously shador Sanders everybody talks about Travis Hunter everybody talks about what was your take when watching that opener against North Dakota State they can move the ball yeah Colorado if you know when they add the Olympic seven on seven football I think shador Sanders and Travis Hunter and and Horn that might be the team for America Dion might coach the American seven on seven team in in four years but they they looked unreal in terms of how they can throw the football they cannot run it though I mean even in the two-minute situation at the end of the game when they're trying to kill the clock they had a throw so this is I mean you kind of know what you're going to get and it's a matter of how aggressive do you want to be with blitzing shador Sanders can your front four get to him and cause some havoc and can you match up with that speed because you know Hunter and Horn this group they they are fast they are the best receivers you'll see all year and maybe some of the best you'll see in college football yeah uh Hunter and Horn over 100 yards each in fact horn almost 200 both caught seven passes shadur with almost 450 in the air in the opener against NDSU but as we saw the Bison actually moved the ball pretty successfully especially that opening drive I think Nebraska's offense can move on this defense don't you yeah this is a defense that wasn't good a year ago and they have a lot of new faces in there they have some decent pass rushers uh but Nebraska they're going to want to control the pace um that you cannot turn this into a track me you want and and I felt like last year a much more limited Nebraska offense they were forcing Colorado to play a big 10 game and they had control of that game in the midc quarter before the misfield goal and the Baraga turnovers completely flipped that game upside down and finally Matt R talked about how important it is at Memorial Stadium Saturday to create a home field advantage you know he talked about even Saturday uh against UTEP he had to go from one ear flap to two in terms of his headset cuz he just couldn't hear how important is that crowd going to be uh on Saturday to make it a home field advantage Andy it's going to be so loud on Saturday that you and I in the Press Box might need to come up with a hand signaling system I like that it's it's going to be loud and you the only one that I can think of recently was 2014 Miami that's the one kind of the the comparison game like this feels a lot like 2014 Miami there's no doubt the Michigan game in in in 2021 was special too because they had just beat North Western kind of felt like things were going to go and then they they lost in the last minute but this is going to be right up there with one of the best atmospheres we've seen in this Stadium really in the last 25 years yeah they won that game 10 years ago against Miami we'll see what happens on Saturday when Nebraska takes on Colorado it's a 6:30 kick at Memorial Stadium and it will be broadcast on NBC