Nebraska Football: Mike Riley's Biggest Concerns Post-Spring Practice

New head coach Mike Riley presided over his first spring game at Nebraska on Saturday. The score (Red 24, White 15) didn't mean much, but there were a number of lessons to be drawn from the teams' performances.

The most important thing to remember about the spring game, though, is that it is really just a glorified practice—one of fifteen in the spring, with another entire camp coming this fall. The results and performances of the spring game should be viewed through that lens and weighted accordingly.

Having said that, there are two glaring areas of concern for Riley after seeing how his team performed under the lights and in front of the crowd. It might only be two areas, but it's fair to say that they're big ones.

Throwing the Ball

Here are the stat lines for Nebraska's quarterbacks at the Spring Game:

Player	Comp	Att	Yds	Comp %	TD	INT
Tommy Armstrong Jr.	6	12	77	.500	1	0
AJ Bush	12	22	124	.545	0	2
Zack Darlington	7	11	70	.636	1	0
Ryker Fyfe	2	6	57	.333	1	0
Tyson Broekemeier	4	6	65	.667	1	0
Johnny Stanton III	3	11	19	.273	0	1
TOTAL	34	68	412	.500	4	3

That's just not good enough. Yes, some of the incompletions were dropped balls (more on that in a bit). But at least on the evidence of one practice (in front of 76,000 people), the only quarterback in whom you could put any faith to accurately deliver the ball was redshirt freshman Zack Darlington.

Again, remember the caveat about this being just one practice. But Armstrong's completion percentage was about what it has been so far in his career, making fair the question as to whether that number can reasonably be expected to markedly improve.

Catching the Ball

Nebraska's woes with the forward pass on Saturday weren't limited to the quarterbacks. Time after time, when passes were delivered on target, receivers were unable to make the catch. Wide receivers, running backs and tight ends were all guilty of drops in situations where a catch should have been made.

Of course, the two concerns run together. Nebraska's run game looked effective, with jet-sweep action (and play fakes off it) putting stress on the defense horizontally and providing an opportunity to get playmakers like De'Mornay Pierson-El the ball in space.

But if Nebraska's passing game is as anemic as it appeared on Saturday, it won't take long for opposing defenses to scheme for the run and dare Nebraska's quarterbacks to win with their arms. On the evidence of Saturday's performance (which, again, is limited evidence), it's hard to have too much faith in the team's ability to do so.

In other words, Riley and company still have a lot of work to do before Nebraska tees it up against BYU on September 5.

Depth at Linebacker

Dedrick Young, a true freshman, saw quite a bit of playing time at linebacker at the Spring Game. This could be seen as a great boon, a young and promising talent forcing his way onto the field, and a source of great excitement.

Or it could (probably more accurately) be seen as a sign of a lack of depth at the position. Setting aside this year's recruiting class (most of whom have not arrived in Lincoln), Nebraska has five scholarship linebackers. One of those, David Santos, has been out the entire spring with injury.

So it's great to see Young on the field, and it does appear he's got a bright future. But Nebraska may be leaning heavily on the kids at linebacker this year, particularly if there is any injuries.

Neither Fish nor Fowl

In this transition year, Nebraska's offense may be a bit of an amalgam. At the Spring Game, a number of the formations and plays looked very similar to the zone-read shotgun sets of former offensive coordinator Tim Beck. Others very much had the feel of Riley's pro-style offense he ran at Oregon State.

Given the personnel he inherited, it's actually reassuring that Riley will not be attempting to force his players into a system that doesn't suit their skills (see: Dailey, Joe). But it also means that in this time of transition Nebraska could be caught without an identity on offense, fully committed to neither the zone-read spread nor the pro-style attack.

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