Husker Football Practice Report October 5: Armstrong Battling Sprained Ankle

Coach Mike Riley met with the media after practice today. The first updates from his press conference were about injuries.

Mike Riley indicated that this is something Tommy had “before” and that he aggravated it during the Illinois game.

They may rest him again Thursday but hope to work him back into practice Sunday. I know that during the Illinois game, I was extremely curious as to why Tommy was not being utilized in the run game very much. This explains it.

Cethan Carter also did not practice, which was expected as he was already not expected to play against Indiana after the bye week.

Offensive lineman David Knevel was still “recovering” (injury not specified) but should be back at practice next week. Knevel left during the first quarter of the Illinois game.

As for the defense, Coach Riley wanted to be sounder in pass coverage and schematically “tightening” some things down.

The Huskers have been seeing a lot of cut blocks and Coach Riley feels like they need to do a better job of getting out of those.

The Huskers also did a lot of situational work today. The situations he specifically mentioned how to get into position for a Hail Mary and needing a couple of plays to get into field goal range at the end of the game. They also worked on trying to pin a team deep “hang 10” on punting. He indicated they did “some” Indiana prep.

He also talked about getting the young guys, especially the scout team, more involved in the regular offense and defense. He said they have done scrimmages with them for a period. They are coached and filmed like it was a regular practice.

Coach Riley was also asked about the opponents’ yards per carry (4.8) being rather generous. It it not a horrible number, but should be improved. He blamed most of that on tackling.

Working on the two-minute drill and no-huddle was also a priority. This was done not only for the offense, but also to get the defense used to working against tempo.

He praised his cornerbacks, Kalu and Jones, for their abilities and felt they would continue to get more confident. He responded to another question by indicating “it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out we had to do better pass defense wise”.

He also said that it was obvious that when they ran the ball well, they won games and they made a concerted effort to commit to that this season. “We just gotta keep going with it”.

The final information he gave was that most of the coaches are going on the road this weekend for recruiting.

The Huskers practice again Thursday but have Friday and Saturday off.