Rohr’s Four: Four reactions, impressions, reflections, concerns and questions after Nebraska’s 40-16 loss against Iowa.
1-Who are you?
We know who Iowa football is. The names of the players don’t matter, haven’t matter, will never matter. From the time they enter Kirk Ferentz’s football realm, there are honed into relentless, disciplined, football execution machines. With just enough edge to keep coming at you until the echo of the whistle. With just enough savvy when to get that extra shot in on you, and when to hold back. They become wizards in the dark arts of football.
This education has its limits, and you wonder if the culture of the program keeps the higher-talent players away, but there’s no doubt that it raises the floor of the program to a steady consistency. They recruit to it. They coach to it. They live it every single, stinking day.
So who is Nebraska? After three years under Matt Rhule, do we have any idea? Is it great defensive linemen? Explosive running backs? A pro-style, air attack offense? Do you have any better picture of what that is, or what Matt Rhule hopes it will be? I have a tough time saying yes.
Maybe it’s impossible to build such a clear, program-wide identity in three years, especially now. You can’t stash players away on the depth chart to let them grow and get stronger and get bigger. But it feels like the Cornhuskers are just grasping at what they can grasp at in terms of identity. For now, it’s a good defensive backfield. For now (though probably not through the bowl game), it’s a running-back driven ground game. But that picture will change greatly depending on graduations, portal comings and goings, and staff comings and goings.
There’s just nothing on which you can rely with this Nebraska football program right now. Nothing is plug and play. Everything is gear-grinding and hoping and rolling the dice. And granted, it’s tough to build a depth chart the way you want to in the first couple years of a program. But by year three, the players are basically yours. You picked them. You’ve developed them. You’ve tracked their growth. But I just don’t know where that strength is right now with Matt Rhule and Husker Football.
There’s a laundry list of things to fix about this program, but first and foremost is to find and embrace identities for the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. It may tough to pick up on before the first game next year, but internally, this program needs to find some basic tenets, some bedrock to build on. They’re not there yet. But before any progress can happen, it has to be done. Kirk Ferentz knows what he wants Iowa to be. PJ Fleck knows what he wants Minnesota to be. It’s time for Matt Rhule to start shaping Nebraska more clearly into what he wants them to be, because the team that gave up 40 to Iowa Friday can’t be it.
2-Stop the QB run
How is Nebraska’s defense still so susceptible to the quarterback run? Jayden Maiava bedeviled the Huskers with it at the beginning of the month. Nico Iamaleava kept UCLA in the game with his scrambling. Ethan Grunkemeyer was able to move decently for Penn State. But Mark Gronowski did his best Eric Crouch impression (with Crouch in the building) in running around the Huskers Friday. He ran 13 times for 64 yards and two touchdowns, but it felt like much more. The quarterback run game picked up key first downs for Iowa when it needed them, and kept the chains moving. And at least a couple of times, Gronowski was able to dodge some on-rushing Husker D-Linemen to keep a play alive and at least throw the ball away to avoid a major loss.
Some of the issues stopping QB run can be explained by Nebraska’s deficiencies on the defensive line. The Huskers had to blitz to generate any heat on a quarterback, which reduces the next line of defense if the front four and whatever blitzers can’t get him. Another factor could be Nebraska’s defensive coordinator, John Butler. Not only is he in his first year as Nebraska’s defensive coordinator, he had only called defensive signals for one other season at the pro or college level coming into 2025. And before joining the staff late in the summer last year, Butler had been in the pros for a decade. Mobile quarterbacks aren’t near the threat in the pros that they are in college, since virtually everyone on the defense can run down the quarterback.
But this defense has to start slowing down the quarterback run, now. It’s the only way to get this defense off the field and get the ball back to the offense.
3-Emmett Johnson’s swan song?
I hope this wasn’t Emmett Johnson’s final game as a Husker. It’s cruel that a 200-rushing yard game (actually, 217 yards on 29 carries and a touchdown) was nowhere near enough for Nebraska to knock off Iowa. There’s plenty of blame to go around on a 24-point loss to your rival, and I’m sure both Johnson and the coaches can look at the film and find things he could’ve done better. But man, he was the only positive for the Huskers in that game by a long ways, and it was all on display Friday.
He’s a complete running back: strong, powerful, savvy, elusive. And he’s even become explosive in his final week as a Husker, nearly taking a 71-yard run for a touchdown (that’s how the refs had it initially before review placed the ball at the one; Johnson scored one play later). His growth is the most encouraging sign in the Nebraska program. He was a talented, but maybe late-blooming player that Minnesota didn’t want and didn’t take, and the Huskers developed him into one of the best running backs in the country. It’s a tremendous success story, at a time when this program desperately needs one or two to sell the future.
Maybe enough NIL money is being rounded up to make the decision a difficult one. Maybe other colleges have called offering sweet packages. But my best guess is we’ve seen Emmett Johnson’s last game as a Husker, because he will be at least a mid-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. And if that’s the route he takes, hats off to him. He’s earned his spot on the next big stage.
4-Now what?
If my Four are any indication (and I think they’re at least some), then there are more questions than answers swirling around this program, which is not where you want to be after year three under Matt Rhule with as manageable a Big Ten schedule as Nebraska will ever have. The Huskers played just one of the top four Big Ten teams this year and just three of the top eight. Rhule had big year-three jumps at Temple and Baylor. This will be, at best (with a bowl-game win), a slight hop up, and adjusting for schedule, not much of a jump at all.
The starting quarterback for next year is under question, and now TJ Lateef is battling a hamstring injury. Your best offensive player is likely to go to the NFL Draft. The pass game never had great rhythm, neither with Raiola nor with Lateef, despite having as good a receiving corps as Nebraska has had in some time. The defensive line never developed. It even seemed the defensive backs regressed as the year went on.
This is going to be a tough offseason for Nebraska football. All the uncertainty will make this a tough destination to sell in the transfer portal, and this program badly needs an infusion of linemen. There seems to be no backup running back after Emmett Johnson; neither Isaiah Mozee nor Mehki Nelson did much or had much of a chance to in limited work.
The cold, dour, gray skies that were the backdrop for Iowa’s throttling of Nebraska were a pretty appropriate backdrop for where things are for Husker Football. It’s gonna take one heck of an offseason for this program to bring the sunshine and good feelings back. December could be long, cold and miserable.