← Middays With Matt
Middays With Matt
PFF Grades (Thurs 8/13 - Seg 5)
00:15:21
Matt goes through different PFF Grades of Husker football.
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We have the tech to get food delivered in 15 minutes. But we all have horror stories about buying tickets. The GameTime app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included. So what you see is what you pay. And the gametime guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy, and more with GameTime. Download the GameTime app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase turn term supply. Well, you heard John say it there on the ad. I'll repeat it next Friday. We are eight days away from the 1620 the zone golf tournament. So excited. I want to say it was back in. Maybe it was February, January, February. Around that time, we had a. We had a pretty big meeting at 1620 zone. It's actually where Big Clock spawned, where it were that joke that eventually became reality of Matt wanting a big clock in the school studio. That's where that meeting came from. But also what happened in that meeting was a discussion of different events that we can do for the 16th one of his own listeners, because we love our listeners and we love how much you guys interact with us and you spend time with us and you give us a part of your day, and it means the world to us. And so we wanted to create an event that, you know, showed that to you and was an opportunity for us to have a great time, you know, as a community, as a radio station. And so we, We. You know, this was a. The. The 1620 zone golf event was something that had happened in the past for years and years and years. And it took a break. And during that meeting, we had the opportunity to be like, all right, let's bring it back. Let's do it. And I was lucky enough to be tasked with kind of getting this thing rolling. And, you know, it's been a complete team effort from everyone here at the Zone to everybody at Usher media, and we've done a great job of putting this event. And shout out to Keely and Stacy and Josh and Heather and Cammie and all the people Josh on. Obviously, you, usc, Happer and Schaefer. Just been a. A lot of people coming together, a lot of tender love and care to put on that event, which will be happening eight days. And so we have 20. We have spots that are filling up fast. Like, we only have a couple of spots left. It's 400 for a foursome, 100 per golfer. Right? You get 18 holes, you get complimentary drinks, you get complimentary food, you get swag. Gift prizes. We're also going to give out hole prizes on every single hole. So you've heard us saying about, talking about Bert Kreischer tickets, talking about concert tickets, talking about different gift cards that we've been given away. Every single hole will have one of those tickets or prizes or, or custom setups that we can give to you if you end up winning that competition. So also, if you come first or second and third place in either the first or second flight, you're gonna get some of your money back right from signing up for this thing. So it's gonna be a awesome, awesome event. Miracle Hill Golf Course, presented by Cutwater and Tee Box. And we also want to thank Lingfeld. Overhead doors. Hopefully one of you guys get a hole in one so we can give you $10,000. That's one of the prizes that we're going to have on all the par three. So, so excited. Next week, August 21st, and don't forget, after our golf, we're going to be at the Phoenix. We're going to be partying it up. Maybe I'll do a 999 challenge, I don't know. But we're going to have a great time. So don't forget 1620 zone.com go and sign up 1620, the golf tournament. All right. Pff. Stats of the day. So gotta slow down. There's a lot of words I just said all at once. Last year. One of the scarring things of last season wasn't the D line for me. Now, now I'll tell you why. Bear with me. I personally thought that, okay, hey, like, you know, Cam and rvp, they have a ton of talent. They shown flashes, but this is gonna be the first time they get a ton of snaps. And that's going to be, you know, a big thing for them. And can they adjust to that? And they, you know, it wasn't just them. It was. It was everybody on the D line. And I think the D line coach should be included in the blame. That just didn't step up to the plate. And, you know, it was very disappointing. And part of the reason they ended up having a, a terrible end of the season. But the expectations for the D line heading into last season were like, I don't know, like they're. There are people who said, all right, yeah, it's a question mark. But in theory, based on what we've seen from these guys, these guys could step up and end up being pretty decent. And unfortunately, that didn't happen. But one unit that everybody. And maybe I don't want to couple in everybody, but a lot of people, including myself, were high on was the offensive line with the idea that, man, you're bringing back a lot of experience. You're bringing back guys who we know have been good before. We're bringing back guys that, you know, are coming from different places. I mean, Rocco Spindler was coming from a national championship, you know, team that. That was in the final game, right? We had Henry. You had Henry Latovsky, who had played plenty of football, who was super strong. You're like, oh, my God, him in that guard spot's going to be great. You had, you know, Justin Evans, who'd shown flashes of playing really well at center gunner Kula played snaps at the end of the year as a young guy, stepped up, was impressed, like kind of down the list. Elijah Pritchett, hey, he's a blue chipper. He could end up being, you know, something really big. There was a lot of optimism and a lot of confidence that the offensive line was going to be a strength of the team. And. And it wasn't a weakness, but it wasn't what you thought it was. There were moments where you're like, oh, my God, 50 and 51, they're just road graders right now. I. They're just absolutely kicking the crap out of people. And look at 59, that interior, they look great. And then you have games in Minnesota where they give up nine sacks. Some of that is on the quarterback, but you get what I'm saying. It's. It's one of those things where we. I really felt like I was very confident the offensive line was going to be a game changer, and it ended up being not what I expected. Was it terrible? Not always. Was it great? Not always. Was there a little bit of both? Absolutely. We come into this season and we have a lot of expectations and a lot of confidence, and you've heard nothing but really good things about the offensive line. And, and my question, I think, to most people would be, are you confident in the players? Are you confident in Jeep Wade? Are you confident in their size or athleticism, their experience? Are you more banking on the guy who developed guys who got draft? Keelum, Rutledge. Right. Just got drafted in the. Into the NFL by Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech. Not too long ago was a Joe Moore award nominated offensive line. Jeep Wade's got plenty of pelts on the wall when it comes to all conference players and NFL draft picks. Like are who. Are you confident? You confident in the players? You confident coach and you know, it's hard to put a number, an analytic on a coach in terms of, hey, this is his immediate impact. But I wanted to go through and use our PFF stat of the day segment to kind of break down this offensive line and give you a pretty good outlook on, on how they look and, and what maybe you could expect from them heading into the season. So we're going to go through this quickly. A couple of niche stats for, for all of them. Let's start with Elijah Pritchett. This is a guy that, you know, his first couple snaps against Cincinnati, we heard about Pritch right when he came in. It was an adjustment for him. It was a long road for him to go to, to be really oou to be a part of the program. We heard plenty about his, you know, offsides problems, his penalty problems. Some of those issues he was having, you know, in the preseason. He comes in against Cincinnati, one of his, his first series, they get down to the one yard line, he flinches, false start that, you know, ends up pushing them back. I forget. I'm pretty sure they ended up having to kick a field goal there, if I'm not mistaken. But it wasn't a great start. And he gives up two sacks against Michigan State. He gave up a sack against Maryland and his PFF grades, you know, to begin the year weren't all that great. He had a 45 against Houston Christian. He had a 32 against Michigan, had a 41 against Maryland. Really talented defensive line last year. Gave up five pressures or, sorry, six pressures in five games where it's like, it just, it wasn't a great beginning for him. But at the end of the year, Elijah Pritchett really started to figure it out. In his last six games at the left tackle position last year For Nebraska, last six games, he only gave up one sack against Minnesota. He gave up zero against Northwestern, gave up zero against USC, gave up one, gave up zero against UCLA, Penn State and Iowa. His two highest graded games last season was an 86.6 against Northwestern and the final game of the year, 86.6 against Iowa in pass blocking. He is a guy that in his last kind of stretch of the year played some of his best football and is, it's a dude that you consistently hear, hey man, he's, he's really taking a step up. He's really bought into this program. He's becoming more of a leader. He's buying into what this system is. And I think that as the buy in was more communicated to everybody, the results came. The more we heard About Pritch coming around and Pritch you, you know, being better and Pritch really buying into his nutrition, to his coaching, trusting the program, buying into the chemistry, buying into the culture. That's when you started to see things go well for him. Let's move on to Evans. He was the number one returning center in PFF. Number one returning PFF graded center from last year to this year. 70 point, 78.5 overall, 82.5 pass block. That was 400, that was 43rd out of a couple hundred players. Zero sacks last year. Nine pressures though. 49th in the country out of a couple, out of plenty of centers who qualified for that. He's going to be the pillar. I mean he's going to be the building block. He's going to be the, the, the straw that stirs the drink. He's going to hold this entire thing together and they're going to count on him not only, you know, to, to block well and to run block well and pass block well, but the center and, and this is a very educated audience. But you know, you gotta, you gotta call the shots, man. You gotta be out there, you gotta call the pressures, you gotta call, you know, who's where and you know, calls on the flying change protections, maybe even, you know, change plays. Like there's just so much that goes into the communication from the center, you know, to the rest of the offensive line. And to have a guy who has played as much football as Justin Evans and not only just played football, but played really good football, high level football is going to be massive. All right, let's get into the new guys because this is really where it comes into like Evans is a dude that's being picked to potentially be an all American. Pritch is a guy that we all know really came on. At the end of the year, what can we expect from the other guys on this team? Let's start with the transfer that they got that everybody wanted in Paul Mubenga, that they moved heaven and earth to get this guy. Mubenga last season played 127 snaps in pass block. 127 pass block snaps. He gave up zero sacks, two hurries and two quarterback hits. He from a pass blocking perspective was really, really good. 67.9. That's a very good number for pass block overall. His highest rated pass blocking numbers came against Clemson where he had an 81 pass block. He also had a 76.9 pass block grade against Alabama. Two very high level teams right there. Also Clemson's offensive line had some NFL Guys there. His run block though is nothing really to get excited about. A 46.3 run block rate for Paul McBanga. His overall PFF grade is 53.2. So it's one of those things where he excelled last year from a pass blocking perspective. But you know, the thing about him and the run block is that all you ever hear about this guy and all everyone really talks about this guy is how athletic he is. And you get a guy like that who can move and be as physical as him and you put him with that coach, with Jeep Wade, I think he can have a positive outlook that he can improve there. But the bones of a really good pass blocking guard or without a doubt there. Now, Brendan Black, he's a dude that was interesting to me. We always talk about his experience, but I've always been curious, like, all right, yeah, he's played a lot of snaps, but what does that mean about him being good? He had a 67 PF grade last year ranked, ranked pretty decent with offensive guards. 738 snaps total for Brendan Black last season. The guy played a ton, a ton of snaps for Iowa State. 4 sacks, 11 pressures in 12 games with a 97.8 efficiency blocking rating. Very high. Look, this guy is pretty, pretty good. You know, he's. He's not necessarily an all American, is not necessarily a dude that's going to light the world on fire. He's not going in the first round of the NFL draft or as of right now, right, with the numbers that he's had. But he is kind of that perfect. And Nebraska's done this with multiple guys now, right? They did it with Ben Scott, they did it with Spindler where they kind of just plucked these guys who. Yeah. Are they the greatest players of all time? No. But you put them in there and they know that they could be reliable. Ben Scott was reliable for seasons for Nebraska. Rocco Spindler had moments where it's like, wow, this guy looks like the best goal lineman on the field for Nebraska last year. I think Brennan Black is just one of those classic kind of Matt Rule offensive line portal additions that we've come to see and come to get used to. And. And here's the next guy and kind of the key to this all tree Bob a lot. Now. He got hurt. His snaps got limited last season, but he only played seven games. He ranked 102nd out of 245 tackles and pass block. He ranked 163rd out of 245 guys in total blocking and total PFF or sorry. And yeah. And total PFF grade with 60.1, 398 right tackle snaps. He only took 23 left tackle snaps last season, had 236 total pass blocking snaps. In those 236 pass blocking snaps, he only gave up one sack. So this is a dude that, you know, got hurt last year and definitely had at times his struggles overall. But the bones for pass blocking are definitely there. And you know, it's very incredibly efficient to have 236 pass blocking snaps and only, and only give up one sack. And so I think that you kind of go down the line and you feel really confident. What you have in Justin Evans and the analytics back that you go down the line and you're comfortable with the solid play of Brendan Black and the analytics back that. And then I think you have three guys where you, you have a promising Elijah Pritchett, like I said, last six games only gave up one sack. His out of his seven final games, he had three of his highest PFF grades. Like those are all very encouraging signs. And then you have guys in Mubenga and Babalade where if you can just, they have the foundation and bones of really good pass blockers. If you could, if you can up them in the run game just a little bit, I think you're going to have an offensive line you feel really good about. And I've said this over and over again, Nebraska's not going to be good without a great offensive line. They're not going to win at a high level of the Big Ten without a great offensive line. They have the foundation to be really good in that area. It's going to come down to the Jeep Wade taking them to that next level. Be wildly interesting to see if they do that. Let's hit a break here. Let's talk about Russell Westbrook coming up next. 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