Nebraska Football: 10 Training Camp Priorities

We've spent an entire offseason talking about what to expect. We've looked at past performances and tried to glean some glimmer of insight about what is to come this autumn. We've taken April's Spring Game and magnified every nugget of information we got to keep us going through the summer.

But now it's here. The calendar turns to August, and fall camp opens for Nebraska football. The first kickoff of the 2011 season is now less than a month away and we know that actual work is being done by the actual team to help get ready for Nebraska to succeed.

But what exactly is that work? What is it that Nebraska is, or at least should be, working on before the season starts? Let's take a look at what the priorities for Bo Pelini should be as the team gets ready for the upcoming campaign. 

Getting the Linebacker Depth Chart Set

Lavonte David made a case for himself as Nebraska’s defensive player of the year, breaking the school record for tackles in a season. But Nebraska spent much of 2010 in their “peso” defense with two true linebackers and a hybrid safety-linebacker.

In 2011, we are more likely to see three-linebacker defensive sets be the rule. In addition to David, Nebraska’s starting linebackers are likely to be Will Compton and Sean Fisher. Compton has not yet lived up to his recruiting promise, and Fisher missed the entire 2010 season with injury. Neither can be viewed as a proven commodity.

Behind the starters are a lot of question marks. Can Alonzo Whaley step up and contribute? Will David Santos see playing time as a freshman? Where will Graham Stoddard and Matthew May fit into the equation? Nebraska’s linebacker corps has a lot of potential, but a lot of questions to get answered in fall camp.

Setting Up the Safeties

In 2010, safety turned into a position of strength for Nebraska. Dijon Gomes and Eric Hagg were consistent and reliable performers against both the pass and the run. Unfortunately for Nebraska, both Gomes and Hagg are gone, requiring new starters to step up and fill those roles.

Austin Cassidy returns with some starting experience, and it seems likely that Courtney Osborne will start opposite Cassidy when the season begins. P.J. Smith should have a chance to work himself out of the doghouse this year, and Corey Cooper should see playing time as well. Daimion Stafford, a JUCO transfer, is also almost certainly going to see the field. But fall camp will go a long way to answer the questions left by the departures of Gomes and Hagg.

Rex and the Burkheads

Rex Burkhead is the consistent lynchpin for Nebraska’s offense going into 2011. But behind Burkhead, it’s pretty clear that the three incoming freshman will be on the field over the returning backup running backs. Braylon Heard, Aaron Green and Ameer Abdullah are all, to varying degrees, cut out of the “Oregon back” mold and would seem to fit what new offensive coordinator Tim Beck seems to want Nebraska’s offense to look like.

But fall camp will be crucial to determine when and if each of those freshman see the field, or whether any of them will ultimately redshirt. (Spoiler alert: don’t bet on any redshirts.)

Wide Receiver Rotation

Much like running back, Nebraska’s receiver corps has one proven commodity in Brandon Kinnie and a lot of speedy, young question marks. In the case of the receivers, it’s more a case of players who have been in the program for a few years who are getting their opportunity as opposed to incoming freshman.

Still, assuming that we will see a lot of three-receiver sets from Nebraska, there are still a lot of slots to fill. From the results of the Spring Game, it seems like true freshman Jamal Turner is a playmaker that Nebraska coaches want to see on the field a lot. That leaves Tim Marlow, Stanley Jean-Baptiste, Kenny Bell and Khiry Cooper to fill in the wide receiver two-deep. How new offensive coordinator Tim Beck decides to make such moves will be influenced greatly by fall camp, and will go a long way towards defining Nebraska’s offensive success in 2011.

Filling Some Very Small, but Very Large Shoes

In some ways, I feel a little sorry for the person or persons who end up landing the starting kicker and punter positions for Nebraska in 2011. Rarely has a (ahem) specialist become a beloved figure to a fanbase the way Alex Henery has with the Children of the Corn.

Sure, there’s good reason for Nebraska fans to love the Skinny Assassin. And his departure might well be the biggest loss to graduation that Nebraska feels in 2011.

Freshman Mauro Bondi was given a scholarship to come in and compete with incumbents Brett Maher and Jon Damkroger for the positions. Expectations will be high for the winners of those positions, and fall camp should work those winners out. 

Finding Some Rhythm

New offensive coordinator Tim Beck has been a little coy in terms of the details of his new offense. But there is more than a suspicion that Nebraska will be adopting a no-huddle, up-tempo offense along the lines of Oregon’s attack.

Regardless of the specifics, it’s clear that Beck will be doing things differently than former offensive coordinator Shawn Watson. As a result, Nebraska’s offense will have a new playbook to learn and new rhythm and chemistry to develop during fall camp.

Offensive Line Rotation

In 2011, Nebraska will have three new starters along the offensive line. The offensive line was a focus of Nebraska’s 2011 recruiting class, and it is entirely possible that freshmen Zach Sterup, Ryne Reeves or Tyler Moore could be thrown into the shuffle.

The offensive line is one of the areas that needs significant improvement for Nebraska, which means fall camp will be critical to find the starters and to find the proper rotation to be successful.

Curing the Fumble-Itis

It’s no secret that Nebraska’s inability to hold onto the football was a huge factor in their offensive struggles in 2010. Ron Brown is now coaching running backs, and one of his laser-like focuses is ball security. And if you’ve ever seen Brown speak, you know he’s a guy you don’t want to disappoint.

With a new offensive system and new coaching responsibilities, this fall camp for Nebraska is the perfect opportunity to work on ball security, reduce the ridiculously high number of fumbles from the squad and cut down the number of free possessions in dangerous territory given to opposing offenses.

Ending the Bubba Drama

Say what you want about Nebraska football, it’s never boring. What other school could have a fall camp where the coach has to field questions about a tweet from a respected baseball journalist?

But that’s where Bo Pelini found himself after Peter Gammons tweeted that Pelini had threatened Bubba Starling, the phenom quarterback prospect and first-round pick of the Kansas City Royals. Pelini denied the allegation, and with no follow-up or explanation from Gammons, it appears that particular story has died down.

But August 15 is the deadline when Starling has to either sign a contract to play for the Royals or commit fully to play football at Nebraska. Given that Starling isn’t practicing until a decision is made, the whole “Bubba Watch” saga will be an irritant and a distraction to the team until it gets resolved. The sooner (either way he decides to go), the better.

Building Leadership

The end of Nebraska’s 2010 campaign was full of excuses. An injured ankle. An unfair bowl matchup. A conference conspiracy. But facts are facts, and the fact is that when Nebraska was challenged at the end of the season, Nebraska faltered. The only exception was against Iowa State, and that had more to do with a gutsy Paul Rhoads call that wasn’t executed properly as opposed to any Nebraska resilience.

The end of the 2010 season was marked with Nebraska losing three of its last four games, capped off with an embarrassing, disinterested, mailed-in performance in the Holiday Bowl where Nebraska lost to a team they had beaten earlier in the season by 35 points. Use whatever excuse you want, but there’s no escaping the conclusion that a failure of leadership on the 2010 squad was partly to blame for Nebraska’s end-of-season collapse.

The seeds are in place for 2011 to be different. Taylor Martinez said he felt the need to defer to senior Zac Lee as a leader, even though Martinez had supplanted Lee as the starting quarterback. Rex Burkhead seemed to be the most trusted offensive player on the squad, but he was behind senior Roy Helu last year. This year, Burkhead will be playing mother hen to the three freshmen running backs that will be seeing playing time behind him.

If Nebraska gets nothing else out of fall camp, emerging with strong leaders that can guide the team through adversity will be enough to make the camp successful.

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