Here’s this week’s Checkdown:

I thought Jamie Chadwell’s Liberty University would boat-race JSU. Jacksonville State’s D has kept them in the game.

Rich-Rod is the head coach of Jacksonville (talk about a fall from grace). #2 ranked West Virginia, then to Michigan, etc, etc, and now at Jacksonville State. They are 5-1 so good for him.

While I have nothing but good wishes for Logan Smothers (and am rooting for him in the game), I am so glad he left so HH could start his progression upward.

LS has a very weak arm, throws into double coverage, and is not nearly the runner that HH is.

For those interested, the game is on ESPNU. Rich-Rod just pulled Smothers, but he will be back in because they run a 2-QB platoon system.

End of the 3rd: Liberty 17-13 over Jacksonville. I love both offenses, but both can’t execute. The under was the sure bet tonight.

Can we all agree that the uniforms we’re about to wear next week are ass? I feel like Tom Osborne and Larry the Cable were the design team.

Matt Rhule just announced that WR Marcus Washington is out for the season with a torn ACL.

Washington will have surgery soon. It's the same left knee that he injured at the start of fall camp.

The Huskers got out and grab a commitment from RHP Luke Broderick.

The Mount Michael graduate comes from Iowa Western where he spent his freshman season. It was a struggle as he compiled a 13.19 ERA in 14.1 innings across eight appearances including two starts. He also had 13 strikeouts compared to 12 walks.

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Big Ten Men's Preseason Basketball Media Poll
1. Purdue (24) - 388 pts
2. Michigan State (4) - 368
3. Maryland - 304
4. Illinois - 301
5. Wisconsin - 276
6. Indiana - 244
7. Ohio State - 228
8. Northwestern - 195
9. Iowa - 164
10. Rutgers - 147
11. Michigan - 131
12. Nebraska - 90
13. Penn State - 71
14. Minnesota - 33

Preseason Player of the Year
Zach Edey, Purdue - 27
Tyson Walker, Michigan State - 1

Preseason Freshman of the Year
Mackenzie Mgbako, Indiana - 19
DeShawn Harris-Smith, Maryland - 5
Xavier Booker, Michigan State - 2
Myles Colvin, Purdue - 1
Scotty Middleton, Ohio State - 1

Preseason Transfer of the Year
Ace Baldwin, Penn State - 14
Olivier Nkamhoua, Michigan - 6
Jamison Battle, Ohio State - 4
Kel'el Ware, Indiana - 2
AJ Storr, Wisconsin - 2

Preseason All-Big Ten First Team
Zach Edey, Purdue
Jahmir Young, Maryland
Terrence Shannon Jr., Illinois
Tyson Walker, Michigan State
Boo Buie, Northwestern

Preseason All-Big Ten Second Team
Clifford Omoruyi, Rutgers
A.J. Hoggard, Michigan State
Ace Baldwin, Penn State
Keisei Tominaga, Nebraska
Coleman Hawkins, Illinois

Preseason All-Big Ten Honorable Mention
Bruce Thornton, Ohio State
Julian Reese, Maryland
Steven Crowl, Wisconsin
Dawson Garcia, Minnesota
Braden Smith, Purdue
Chucky Hepburn, Wisconsin
Xavier Johnson, Indiana
Zed Key, Ohio State
Mackenzie Mgbako, Indiana
Payton Sandfort, Iowa
Jaden Akins, Michigan State
Connor Essegian, Wisconsin
Olivier Nkamhoua, Michigan
Tony Perkins, Iowa
Jamison Battle, Ohio State
Fletcher Loyer, Purdue
AJ Storr, Wisconsin
Tyler Wahl, Wisconsin
MalikHall, Michigan State
Ben Krikke, Iowa
Donta Scott, Maryland
Kel'el Ware, Indiana

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Tough couple days for the Illini.

I know most of you don't watch the videos when we post them to the board, but it's worth it. There was a lot to break down today from another newsy Matt Rhule presser. Did that on the latest Rapid Recap with @Greg Smith

>> Marcus Washington's torn ACL
>> Rhule: Never had a team with this many injuries to key guys
>> Bigger roles for Malachi Coleman, Jaidyn Doss, Jaylen Lloyd
>> Rhule's stern message on Anthony Grant's fumbling issues
>> Long-term impact of Friday's win as Nebraska becoming player-led program

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it's high time the nebraska football players started holding each other accountable. the bonehead stupidity has to be handled by the players. the level of immaturity and lack of focus seems to go on without any consequence. maybe the freshmen or the volleyball girls should take over these duties.

Now more than ever we need a game manager running the offense. Sims was a turnover machine because he was trying “too hard” with top players around him against Minnesota and Colorado. Those “top players”are now hurt and out for the season. What do you think he’ll do with the added pressure to “make a play”? The defense will win us games… if the quarterback just move the ball, punt most the time and steal some points here and there.

If we want to make a bowl we need to see sidearm throws out of bounds instead of Perfectly thrown spirals to a waiting defensive back. Punt the ball and let the defense win the game!

TIME

I'm watching OU/Texas, Ohio State/Maryland, and Missouri/LSU now, and for the most part, their Offensive Linemen mostly look like the Ty Robinson body. No or very small love handles, tall but not power forward looking tall, and filled out with fairly developed upper bodies. This is in contrast to our OLs who except for Benhart and Teddy look like pears, all with significant love handles.

Bottom line, we need to have a new OL recruiting strategy, where we:

1. Don't recruit players who are just too tall to get any leverage against a defender.
2. Stop recruiting already heavy guys, thinking we can replace 60 lbs of fat with 60 lbs of muscle. If a player is "fat" coming out of HS, regardless of whether he's 6-5 or not, that's a signal that his work ethic is the cause of him being fat.
3. Rather, we need to focus on the 6-3 to 6-5 guys who are in good shape, maybe TE types, and build them up into athletic OLs.
4. Finally, don't be afraid to recruit a 6-1 guy to play center or guard if that guy has great film and is a really good player.

October 11
1614 - The New Netherland Co. was formed by a group of merchants from Amsterdam and Hoorn to set up fur trading in North America.

1779 - Polish patriot and American Revolutionary War commander Casimir Pulaski was killed in the Battle of Savannah.

1809 - Just over three years after the famous Lewis and Clark expedition ended, Meriwether Lewis was found dead in a Tennessee inn, an apparent suicide; he was 35.
1899 - The Boer War began in South Africa.

1906 - The San Francisco Board of Education ordered the city's Asian students segregated into their own school. (The order was later rescinded at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, who promised to curb future Japanese immigration to the United States.)

1915 - English nurse Edith Cavell was executed by the Germans during World War I.

1939 - A letter from Albert Einstein was delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt concerning the possibility of atomic weapons.

1962 - The first session of "Vatican II" was convened by Pope John XXIII.

1968 - The first manned Apollo mission, Apollo 7, was launched with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard.

1984 - Space shuttle Challenger astronaut Kathryn Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space.

1986 - President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened two days of talks in Reykjavik, Iceland, concerning arms control and human rights.

1991 - Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her; Thomas re-appeared before the panel to denounce the proceedings as a "high-tech lynching."

2002 - Former President Jimmy Carter was named the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

2005 - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it had finished pumping out the New Orleans metropolitan area, which was flooded by Hurricane Katrina six weeks earlier and then was swamped again by Hurricane Rita.

2014 - Customs and health officials began taking the temperatures of passengers arriving at New York’s Kennedy International Airport from three West African countries in a stepped-up screening effort meant to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus.

2017 - The Boy Scouts of America announced that it would admit girls into the Cub Scouts starting in 2018 and establish a new program for older girls based on the Boy Scout curriculum, allowing them to aspire to the Eagle Scout rank.

2022 - NASA announced that a spacecraft that plowed into a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away succeeded in shifting its orbit, a test aimed at fending off any more dangerous asteroids in the future.

Birthdays
27 - Rhea Ripley (professional wrestler)
31 - Cardi B (rapper)
34 - Michelle Wie (golfer)
35 - Ricochet (professional wrestler)
37 - Lucy Griffiths (actress)
38 - Michelle Trachtenberg (actress)
43 - Robert Christopher Riley (actor)
45 - Trevor Donovan (actor)
46 - Matt Bomer (actor)
47 - Emily Deschanel (actress)
49 - Darien Sills-Evans (actor)
53 - Constance Zimmer (actress)
54 - Andrea Navedo (actress)
55 - Jane Krakowski (actress)
56 - Artie Lange (actor/comedian)
58 - Chris Spielman (football player)
58 - Sean Patrick Flanery (actor)
58 - Rikishi (professional wrestler)
61 - Joan Cusack (actress)
62 - Steve Young (football player)
66 - Dawn French (actress/comedian)
67 - Stephen Spinella (actor)
70 - David Morse (actor)
77 - Daryl Hall (singer)
80 - Gene Watson (singer)

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Today in Sports History - October 11

1902 - Nebraska defeats Grinnell 17-0.

1913 - The Philadelphia Athletics defeat the New York Giants in five games to win the World Series.

1913 - Nebraska defeats Kansas State 24-6.

1919 - Nebraska and Minnesota play to a 6-6 tie.

1924 - Oklahoma defeats Nebraska 14-7.

1924 - The Boston Bruins and the Montreal Maroons were granted NHL franchises.

1925 - The New York Giants played their first NFL game. The Giants lost 14-0 to Providence.

1930 - Oklahoma defeats Nebraska 20-7.

1941 - Nebraska defeats Kansas 32-0.

1943 - The New York Yankees defeat the St. Louis Cardinals in five games to win their 10th World Series.

1947 - Nebraska defeats Iowa State 14-7.

1948 - The Cleveland Indians defeat the Boston Braves in six games to win the World Series.

1952 - Nebraska defeats Kansas State 27-14.

1958 - Kansas State defeats Nebraska 23-6.

1969 - #7 Missouri defeats #20 Nebraska 17-7.

1975 - #4 Nebraska defeats Kansas 16-0.

1980 - #10 Nebraska defeats Kansas 54-0.

1984 - Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) made his debut in the National Hockey League (NHL) against the Boston Bruins. He scored a goal on his first shot on his first NHL shift.

1986 - #3 Nebraska defeats Oklahoma State 30-10.

1992 - Deion Sanders plays for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and MLB's Atlanta Braves on the same day.

1997 - #3 Nebraska defeats Baylor 49-21.

1998 - Steve Young (San Francisco 49ers) became the 20th player in NFL history to throw for 30,000 yards.

2003 - Missouri defeats #10 Nebraska 41-24.

2004 - The Houston Astros won a postseason series for the first time in their 43 year history. They defeated the Atlanta Braves 12-3 in Game 5. The Astros had lost 7 playoff series previously, three of them to Atlanta.

2006 - In New York, Cory Lidle (New York Yankees) and his flight instructor were killed when Lidle's plane crashed into a high-rise apartment building.

2008 - #7 Texas Tech defeats Nebraska 37-31 in overtime.

2020 - The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Miami Heat in six games to win the NBA championship. The entire season had been played in a "bubble" at Walt Disney World in Florida for three months because of the COVID pandemic.

2021 - Jon Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders following reports about messages he wrote years earlier that used offensive terms to refer to Blacks, gays and women.

His team is currently 3-3, however, he made some big catches on both of their TD drives and he was even used as a fullback in one formation to lead block. Looks like a solid TE commit!

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Anyone attend the Power Trip music festival? Heard AC/DC and Metallica was awesome.

The publishers and some other beat writers for Rivals’ Big Ten sites put together individual power rankings and voted on a number of midseason awards — including OPOY and DPOY for the first half.

It's the bye week but recruiting never stops! Check out my three bye week goals for Nebraska recruiting.

Hey, everyone.

I've set up shop in Hawks can we're awaiting Rhule. The coach will talk for around 10-15 minutes, and it will be the only Husker football media availability for the week. I'll provide live updates of what Rhule says and we'll have more in-depth stories later.

…are currently ranked in the top ten. Impressive.

Before anyone gets overly excited, I should mention that we are not one of them.

Bad for this year, good for future years.

Don't misunderstand, I'm sad that these 2 players got hurt and I wish they hadn't. But none of these talented freshmen were going to get any significant playing time at WR, but now they will.

Plays tonight at 7 against MTSU (ESPNU). Haven't been able to watch him play this year yet. Interested to see how he does.

Any updates on his injury? Did not look good on TV.

Some smoke from other boards (Nothing of merit) that Daniels isn't looking to return to Kansas and will be portal bound. While I don't think there's enough merit in message board musings, it does make for an interesting question if it came to fruition. Would Nebraska make a play? He's already close to Lincoln. Certainly seems like a fit for this offense.

But let's pretend he is on the table and Nebraska is interested, it begs another interesting question - how many years in a row do you dip into the portal for your starting QB? At some point does a school start doing more harm than good consistently looking to the portal for your signal caller?

More of a hypothetical discussion than anything. Again, I really don't think there's much to the Daniels smoke at this point, nor do I have any reason to think he'd be interested in Nebraska.

I did not see us being 3-3 after 6 games. That's 1 better than I thought.

I'll go with 2 and 4 with wins against Purdue and Michigan State. If the offense stops turning it over we may have a shot at 3 wins.

10/21 Northwestern
10/28 Purdue
11/04 @ Michigan St.
11/11 Maryland
11/18 @ Wisconsin TBA
11/24 Iowa

Not sure if we would even be interested, but he decommited yesterday.