Before each Ohio State game, Eleven Warriors catches up with a media member who covers the opposing team to get his or her perspective on the Buckeyes' upcoming opponent.
Nebraska
Cornhuskers
This week, we're joined by a familiar face, as former Eleven Warriors staffer Zack Carpenter, now the publisher and owner of Nebraska's Rivals website, briefly returns to his old stomping grounds to preview Ohio State's matchup against the Cornhuskers.
In our conversation, Carpenter touched on his time at 11W, former OSU commit and now Nebraska starting QB Dylan Raiola, the Cornhuskers' defense and more.
First of all, welcome back to Eleven Warriors as a guest. To warm things up, what was your favorite memory covering Ohio State and what’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed covering the Buckeyes compared to covering Nebraska?
Zack Carpenter: If I had the space to write 2,000 words then I would do it here, but I have too much respect for the Eleven Warriors readers to force them into reading all of that. So I’ll just go with two moments I’ll never forget.
The “headline answer,” if you will, would have to be shooting the College Football Playoff games, especially the Sugar Bowl for Ohio State-Clemson Part II and the national championship game in Miami. When it came to working at Eleven Warriors, one of the pieces of advice that Jason reminded me of was “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” in terms of “if you have an instinct when it comes to this job, don’t sit back and wait, just go for it.” During the pregame introductions for the OSU-Alabama game, I just went for it, snuck into Ohio State’s tunnel near its locker room and was able to shoot a bevy of photos as they took the field during pregame introductions minutes before kickoff. Snapped the coolest photo I’ve ever taken in my career during those moments, was absolutely fired up that I got the photo (and got it in focus), and I was fired up that I got away clean without getting kicked out by any of the many security personnel I was standing next to. Just a cool moment and a story I still tell to this day.
Above all, the memory I love the most was the feeling of photographing Ohio State’s home games. During the transition from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, TBDBITL plays “Hang On Sloopy.” That transition time is when the mass flocking of photographers takes place as we walk from one end of the field to the other. Hearing that song play and hearing the crowd sing along with it is something that’s still special to me. And I’m not even, and never was, an Ohio State fan! Just one of those moments that gave me chills every time and still does when I reflect on it. I never go down to the field during games anymore, but I’ll be sneaking down for that one. I need to hear that live and in-person again.
As for the differences in covering the two programs, it’s not all that different fundamentally. Both media markets are over-saturated, both have a massive media contingent at every single media availability and both programs have irrational fan bases with expectations that sometimes feel unachievable.
There’s no shortage of storylines in this matchup considering how Dylan Raiola’s recruitment played out. As someone who covered Raiola’s recruitment for pretty much its entirety, how much if any extra desire do you think there is on Raiola’s end to ensure he shows out against Ohio State?
Carpenter: It would be human nature to have that extra juice if you’re Dylan Raiola, right? Hell, I’m returning to Columbus and hopping back on Eleven Warriors for this Q&A, and I want to show out. He will certainly have some extra focus and motivations to go out and play his best. In reality, though, the characteristics of focus, motivation and preparation are never going to be things I worry about with him. He’s already as good as any quarterback in the country with those aspects of being a quarterback.
Setting aside the history between OSU and Raiola for a moment, what have you noticed from Raiola’s play in his freshman season, good, bad or ugly?
Carpenter: The first five games were overall sensational. Raiola went the first three games of his Nebraska career finishing with a completion percentage of 70 percent or higher in all three, becoming the first freshman QB since Oregon's Marcus Mariota to go 70-plus percent in his first three starts when Mariota did so as a redshirt freshman in 2012.
Over his first five games, Raiola was sporting a completion percentage of 70.4 percent (100-of-142) for 1,224 yards, nine touchdowns and just two interceptions. That's an average output of 70.4 percent (20-of-28) for 244.8 yards, 1.8 touchdowns and 0.4 interceptions.
Over his last two, against Rutgers at home and Indiana on the road, Raiola has a completion percentage of 57.8 percent (41-of-71) for 368 yards with four interceptions and no touchdowns. That's an average of 57.8 percent (20.5 of 35.5) for 184 yards, two interceptions and, of course, no touchdowns.
He has the keys to the offense. He’s so good at the game week film work and preparation/opponent scouting, and he’s been excellent with one of the elite traits he showcased going into college: Diagnosing defenses pre-snap, processing information quickly and making good decisions quickly. Over the last two games (and, really, it’s been more like 1.5 games because he was good in the first half against Rutgers), we’ve seen more hesitation from him to make some throws and where to go with the ball.
A lot of that, in my opinion, is the Nebraska receivers aren’t doing a good job at all of getting any sort of separation consistently. Going against press-man coverage was an issue for the Huskers’ WR room going into the season, and Big Ten defenses have figured that out.
I don’t know if Nebraska losing to Indiana is entirely shocking, but the way the Hoosiers just completely dismantled the Cornhuskers was startling to say the least. What went wrong, and is there a fix for it the rest of the year?
Carpenter: Pretty much everything went wrong. Indiana isolated its WRs on Nebraska’s CBs for one-on-one matchups and won damn near every single 50/50 ball, and Kurtis Rourke made terrific throws. Nebraska’s run fits on defense were generally terrible, and Indiana absolutely gashed a Husker rushing defense that was considered one of the Big Ten’s best. The Hoosiers pulled off approximately one billion explosive plays (passing plays of 15-plus yards or run plays of 10-plus yards) on Saturday.
Indiana’s exact numbers: Six explosive passes for 152 yards (78 percent of IU’s total passing yards) and nine explosive runs for 171 yards (80 percent of IU’s total rushing yards). That’s a total of 15 explosives for 323 yards to account for 65 percent of IU’s 495 total yards.
That’s good for Indiana, bad for Nebraska … is my analysis.
Indiana game aside, Nebraska seems like a team built on defense, run defense if we’re being specific. What do you think has been the greatest asset to Nebraska on that end of the football so far this year?
Carpenter: Pretty much the exact opposite of everything it did last Saturday against the Hoosiers. The tackling had been somewhat of a concern this year, but it appeared that Nebraska got that figured out against Rutgers and star RB Kyle Monangai. He had three straight run plays totaling 35 yards on Rutgers’ first drive of the game, but he finished the game with just 78 rushing yards (and no TDs) on 19 carries. Not a bad effort against a guy who ranked first in the Big Ten in carries, second in rushing yards and rushing yards per game, tied for second in rushing touchdowns and ranked ninth in rushing yards per attempt entering that game.
That type of success comes down to main factors: Nebraska truly does have some certified dudes on that defense, and the guy running the show at the top (DC Tony White) is one of the best defensive coordinators in the country. He’s going to be a head coach someday, either getting that opportunity in the upcoming offseason or the next one. Just a matter of time.
What are the keys to this contest in your opinion?
Carpenter: This was the first question I answered, and it was good enough that I went ahead and just threw it into our staff’s weekly Bold Predictions piece to preview each game. So I’ll just regurgitate it all here: Nebraska finds itself as a 25.5-point underdog against the juggernaut Buckeyes (that’s two Gs in “juggernaut,” in case Tim May is reading). In order to pull off an upset of epic proportions, the Huskers are going to need to pull off three or four of these five feats:
1) Play a clean game in the turnover department (finish with 0-1 turnovers) and create takeaways (rack up 2-3 of them).
2) Create havoc in the trenches. Collapse the pocket, rack up double-digit pressures (and you probably need 4-plus sacks) and give some major help to a secondary, which will likely need to rely heavily on zone pass coverage, that will have its hands full against Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka, Carnell Tate and whatever other future first-round receivers this OSU team may or may not roll out there.
3) Control pace and clock. Run a game plan similar to the one deployed in the first half against Colorado in 2023. Run the ball effectively, move the chains and bleed clock. Keep Ohio State's offense off the field and shorten the game.
4) Win the explosive-play battle or, at a minimum, play to a draw.
5) Play to at least "neutral" on special teams. You can't miss on field-goal opportunities, you can't suffer significant losses in the field position battles on either side (in the kicking and punting games), and you might even need a big one yourself by either recovering a muffed punt/kick or pulling off a big-time return to set up a struggling offense with a short field.
That’s kind of a lot of things that have to happen, right? Exactly…
Finally, you know the drill here, how do you envision this game going and what’s your score prediction?
Carpenter: I think Nebraska gets the job done effectively *enough* in the No. 1 and No. 2 items on that list above to keep this game relatively competitive.
By “relatively competitive,” I mean keeping it to within a 14-17-point deficit to begin the fourth quarter. Broadly speaking, if that's what you get out of Nebraska on Saturday, that's an acceptable effort and showing against Ohio State after what we saw against Indiana. I think that’s what we’ll get.
When giving my final, official on-paper record prediction in August and projecting out some of the matchups, this game is the only one in which – for whatever reason – I had an actual final score pop into my head, and that vision hasn’t gone away.
Ohio State 38, Nebraska 17
I’ve nicknamed this the “Survive and Advance Game” for Nebraska. Obviously, that term is normally associated with the NCAA Tournament, and it means that you survive in one game, win that game and advance to the next round. In terms of Nebraska going against Ohio State, “Survive and Advance” means just survive the game, don’t get humiliated for a second straight week, show up and play a competitive football game for four quarters and advance to the most important part of your season still in one piece physically and mentally.
