Lincoln, Neb. — The Nebraska football team practice for just under 90 minutes in sweats on Monday afternoon inside the Hawks Center, as it prepares to welcome the Wisconsin Badgers to Lincoln on Saturday.
Defensive coordinator Mark Banker spoke to the media after practice, focusing his attention on a tough Wisconsin offense.
“[Wisconsin] is a very physical group. Seventy percent of the time they run one play and they do it well,” Banker said. “They run a power scheme or double-team kick outs. They want to run straight downhill at you, out physical you, get you leaning downhill [and then] all of a sudden come with a big play-action.
“They do something with personnel, to give you some adjustment issues. They’ve got their base group on the field, just two backs, one tight end and two wide-outs, and they’ll get into one-back formation, 11-personnel formations, they’ll put a fullback out at the No. 1 receiver, out on the three-man side, so they give you some challenges there. But it all comes back to tight ends, fullbacks, running backs and just trying to maul you up front.”
With defensive tackles Kevin Williams and Kevin Maurice injured and Vincent Valentine questionable, Banker also discussed how he plans to fill the gaps on the defensive line.
“We did it last game, Greg McMullen can go inside and play,” Banker said. “McMullen next to Maliek [Collins], with [Jack] Gangwish and Freedom [Akinmoladun] on the edge, and he [McMullen] can always go back outside.
“Vincent [Valentine was] practicing a little bit today. We’ll see how that goes. We’ll check in with him tomorrow. That would be a great gain, but that’s what we have to do – we have to start gaining instead of adding by subtraction, but that would be the plan. McMullen would go inside – that would be our first move.”
Despite all the injuries on the defensive side though, Banker is not one to get caught up in the negatives.
“I’m not going to worry; worrying won’t do me any good or our team. It’s just a matter of getting ready for it and if we have to tweak some things, we’ll do that.”
The Huskers are back at it on Tuesday afternoon. Check back to huskers.com for more information.