3 things I want to see from Nebraska football against UTEP

This isn’t a drill folks, we are two days away from the return of Nebraska football. The Cornhuskers are a 27.5-point favorite against UTEP but after the last decade, Nebraska can’t take anything for granted.

UTEP won three games last season but they have a new head coach in Scott Walden, who brought a bunch of his guys with him from Austin Peay.

The Miners are hoping to shock the world. Nebraska football wants to get back to its winning ways and it starts by taking care of business in games like this.

Frankly, I hope it’s over by halftime. That’s probably not realistic for the first game of the season but here are three realistic things that I want to see from the Huskers on Saturday.

Dylan Raiola to play clean

Sure, I’d love to see Dylan Raiola throw for 300 yards and three touchdowns on Saturday. That’d be great and it’s totally realistic.

UTEP has some solid pieces in the secondary and some dangerous pass rushers. Turner Corcoran will get tested. Hopefully, Nebraska can protect Raiola because as long as they do, he should have a clean game.

I want to see Dylan make good decisions. Yes, there will be some head-turning throws — the kid is just that talented — but I want to see Raiola execute the simple things and most importantly, take care of the ball.

Nebraska couldn’t do that last season and it cost them a bowl trip. So, I’m hoping to see Raiola play a clean game because if he can do that all season, this team will be tough to beat. ‘

Win the line of scrimmage

Nebraska had a great run defense last season. The Huskers also had a top-three rushing attack in the Big Ten. They did a great job of winning at the line of scrimmage.

That needs to continue though and it shouldn’t be a problem against UTEP. Corcoran will be someone to watch at left tackle and I’d be lying if I wasn’t worried about that.

But you can cover up one spot. The other four guys should be solid and Nebraska should out-gain UTEP on the ground by a wide margin, especially if the defensive line can dominate as they did last season.

If not, this might be a battle.

Someone grab hold of the RB job

We have no idea how the running back rotation is going to work out. Marcus Satterfield said he doesn’t want to play four running backs all season but the first depth chart had or next to the game of Gabe Ervin, Rahmir Johnson, Dante Dowdell, and Emmett Johnson.

At some point, someone needs to grab the bull by the horns. Maybe it will happen this week. I’m excited to see what Rahmir can do if he’s finally utilized properly. I’m high on the other backs too but I’d love to see someone get hot on Saturday and grab the RB1 job at least for the time being.

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