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Nebraska Football has a huge kicking game problem
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Nebraska Football has a huge kicking game problem

In Nebraska football’s 28-10 win over Purdue, the first half was a disaster for both teams.

The score was 0-0 at halftime, but the Huskers missed three chances to get on the scoreboard. Backup kicker John Hohl, starting in place of the injured Tristan Alvano, missed all three of his field goal attempts in the game, two of which were blocked. All three tries came in the goalless first half.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule addressed the kicking issues during his press conference on Monday.

“Last week it wasn’t the field goal protection team, it was the snapper,” Rhule said. “We practice so much on special teams, on field goals, on kicks, all those things. If there is a problem, we will solve it. But if you have to change things now, we panic. We know what we have to do I honestly mean that: we know what we have to do and we have the boys who can do it. That is the phase we are in.

The bang on the first missed field goal was fine, Hohl missed the kick wide to the left. But on the next two field goals, the shot was very inaccurate. Those inaccurate snaps led to both field goals being blocked. It’s something that needs to be improved going forward or it will hurt the Huskers in a way it didn’t against Purdue. Blocking two field goals in one half is almost unheard of.

Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano is known for being aggressive on special teams and going after field goals and punts, making it all the more urgent to fix the problem in practice this week before the game. Rhule said he expects Rutgers to come after their punts and knows its special teams have to be better.

“You can’t be a different guy and practice than during the games,” Rhule said. “We make those kicks every day in training. I expect us to make them in the games. So they are coming after us. They should be coming after us… we have good players. They have to play well and That’s really my message to the team: you can’t suddenly change who you are. If you want to be fast, be good fast, Rutgers team.”

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