Nebraska Football: RB Gabe Ervin ‘100%’ in bounce-back year

Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule praised running back Gabe Ervin earlier on Monday, as spring practices begin. For his part, Ervin sounds like he is ready to go.

Ervin had 37 carries for 124 yards and two touchdowns in 2021. Injuries caught up with him, and he didn’t have as productive a 2022 campaign. He carried the ball 20 times for 94 yards, averaging 4.7 yards per carry with the injuries still nagging him. The explosiveness he showed in his initial freshman season just wasn’t there at the time.

As a result, he kind of got left by the wayside, as running backs Anthony Grant and Ajay Allen gave Nebraska football fans something to be excited about at the running back position. Nevertheless, it seems as though Ervin is ready to go and fully healthy as spring practices begin.

This is certainly good news for a Nebraska football running back room that is already full of talent. At his best, Ervin is a physical, bruising running back between the tackles. Ervin is also a player who can explode once he finds room. He has shown that a bunch of times already over the course of his Nebraska football career, and having him in the backfield would be a nice complement to  Grant and Allen.

Ervin ready to help Nebraska Football

Injuries have hampered him, but now he believes he is fully healthy and ready to go, as transcribed by Husker247’s Michael Bruntz.

“This is the best I’ve ever felt. I feel bigger, more explosive. That big back that’s going to do some damage this year. Last year was kinda iffy. I was still trying to recover from that knee injury because it’s a big injury. I was just trying to come back slowly. I started over-compensating with that knee, so I was really kind of iffy last year, now I’m 100 percent and ready to go.” 

He would undoubtedly bring a physical style to the running back room, and would be a good complement to the shifty, speedy player in Allen. It could be said that Ervin and Grant are a similar style of running back, but even still Ervin would be able to bring another weapon to the table for Nebraska football.

If he is fully healthy and ready to go, he could definitely make some noise in this running back room. Depth is not a problem at the position, and neither is talent. Ervin certainly has the latter, it’s just about being healthy and putting it all together.

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