Advertisement
football Edit

Final take: The Grand Island boy gets it done on Senior Day

On the day we officially closed the book on what would've been Sam Foltz's senior day, it was only fitting his former high school quarterback led Nebraska to victory.

Stepping in for the injured Tommy Armstrong (hamstring), senior Ryker Fyfe went 23-of-37 passing for 220 yards and one touchdown, guiding the Huskers (9-2, 6-2) to a 28-7 win over Maryland (5-6, 2-6).

As Fyfe led NU to three first half touchdown drives, in some ways you could feel Foltz's presence in the stadium right there with him.

"I thought about that during the week that Sam (Foltz) would be proud of Ryker," head coach Mike Riley said. "I think Ryker threw quite a few touchdown passes to Sam when they were in high school. It's pretty special and I've always had a special spot for Ryker because he's a guy that probably could've gone to a smaller school and thrown for 3,000 yards, but stuck it out here with his teammates and friends and won a big game for us to get our 9th win of the year - it's a big deal. It put us in a position to get double digit wins next week."

For Fyfe, this was also redemption for last year's disaster outing at Purdue. There was a notion out there by some Husker fans that Fyfe wasn't good enough to lead the Huskers to a win.

There was a notion out there that Fyfe wasn't athletic enough to be a true dual-threat quarterback, despite the fact he was a four-sport varsity athlete at a Class A school. Fyfe proved all those theories wrong on Saturday, as he even had a 21 yard run. The Huskers longest run of the day was just 22 yards.

"I wanted to for sure get a win today and it was my last home game, first start, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to go out there and just play as hard as I could and make sure we got a win no matter what," Fyfe said. "So I thought we did a good job with it."

Most importantly for Fyfe this was for Foltz and the other seniors playing their last game at Memorial Stadium.

"I knew it was going to be a tough day, a lot of emotions and obviously, this should be a game that I should be walking out with Sam at my last game, but I knew he was with us, with me, in spirit," Fyfe said. "It was nice seeing Jill and Gerald (Foltz), his parents, before the game, they talked to me, gave me a hug and said, 'He'll be with you out there, just go out and play hard,' so it was fun."

Now on to the breakdown....

Advertisement
The lifelong friend and teammate of fallen Nebraska punter Sam Foltz got it done for the Huskers on Senior Day.
The lifelong friend and teammate of fallen Nebraska punter Sam Foltz got it done for the Huskers on Senior Day. (Getty Images)

What I saw on Saturday 

***This was a day about the seniors, and most importantly closing the final chapter on what would've been Sam Foltz's senior day. The pregame ceremonies were about as emotional as I can remember.

***Fyfe connected with 9 different receivers on his 23 completions. That is a very impressive number, and shows that he did a nice of going through his progressions.

***Credit Spencer Lindsay for stepping in when Drew Brown suffered a concussion on the game's opening kickoff.

***I thought the collective pass rush of the front four was as good as it's been all season. Another hat tip to John Parrella and the job he's done with this group in his first season. They now have 24 sacks on the year, which matches their 13 game total from a year ago.

***With a team-high 9 tackles on Saturday, senior Josh Banderas now has 80 tackles on the season. Those were the type of numbers he needed to put up for this defense to have success in 2016.

***The left side of the offensive line made up of Nick Gates and Jerald Foster looked really strong at times on Saturday. They are only going to get better over the final two games.

***Nebraska scored three touchdowns and had a chance at a field goal on their four first half possessions - that's how you start a football game. Meanwhile Maryland had six drives that were 7 yards or less.

The final grade out

Rushing offense: B+

There was nothing flashy about Nebraska's rushing offense, but it did exactly what they needed it to do. The only thing missing was the big breakout run. I thought NU needed to get 200+ yards on the ground to win, they finished with 181 on 45 carries. The key was Terrell Newby scoring three touchdowns. He had just four coming into Saturday.

Passing offense: A-

The most important thing with Ryker Fyfe's performance on Saturday was he put the ball in places where his receivers could make plays. It was a very efficient performance and when he faced obvious passing situations his receivers came through. He also targeted Jordan Westerkamp several times, which is bound to make any quarterback look good.

Rushing defense: A+

After a few early runs, Maryland's did literally nothing on the ground. The Terps finished with just 11 yards rushing, and their top two backs finished with just 34 yards on 10 carries. Coming into the game the Terps were regard as one of the top rushing offenses in the Big Ten.

Passing defense: B

The pass rush and coverage was as good as we've seen it this season at times on Saturday. However, the Huskers did have one breakdown on a screen play that led to a 92 yard touchdown, which was more yards than the Terps had the entire game before that play.

Special teams: D

Nebraska had a blocked field goal and they also allowed Maryland to successfully execute a fake punt. Punter Caleb Lightbourn also did not have his best day shanking his first punt and putting his second through the end zone when it could've easily been pinned inside the 20. They also allowed Maryland to have a nice return to open the game, which is why kicker Drew Brown got hurt because he was forced to make the tackle.


Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET's Big Red Wrap-Up Tuesday's at 7 pm.

Advertisement