Lincoln, Neb. — The Nebraska football team practiced in sweats for 90 minutes inside the Hawks Center on Monday afternoon.
Defensive coordinator Mark Banker spoke to the media after practice discussing the injures that continue to cause problems for his Husker defense, specifically the shortage at the cornerback position.
“If Chris Jones can’t go, that’s a good question…we’ll probably have to take a [red] shirt off of somebody,” Banker said. “Right now Boaz [Joseph] is banged up too. We’d have to go with one of the (true freshmen) redshirts Eric Lee [Jr.] or Avery Anderson. Hopefully it doesn’t get down to that.”
Banker also discussed some of the difficulties that his defense had during the game against Northwestern.
“The first (quarterback) scramble, the disappointing thing about it was, just pursuit,” Banker said. “We had good pursuit to the ball, we just didn’t attack. Nobody attacked. One player stopped in the hole, it would have been about a 3, 4 yard gain.
“Another guy was coming over the top and again just didn’t attack. He was more worried about the guy blocking him from behind. It was more of an attitude, just going after the quarterback and just taking him to the ground. That was the big thing. We had seven missed tackles and two guys accounted for five of them. More than anything it was just the attitude and going to the ball that was bothersome.”
Additionally, Banker looked ahead to Nebraska’s game at Purdue this weekend, highlighting some of the threats of the Boilermakers’ offense.
“In their run game, there’s a lot of movement,” Banker said. “There’s a lot of motioning across the formation as well as an H [back] coming behind the formation so everybody needs to have great eye discipline.
“The two running backs, very similar to last weekend that a lot goes through them, from a standpoint in their run game obviously, and even their pass game, they get their ball to them. Out of the four leading receivers, two of them are running backs.”
The Huskers travel to West Lafayette, Ind., to take on the Purdue Boilermakers on Saturday. Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. and the game will be broadcast on ESPNU. Check back to huskers.com for more information.