Five burning questions heading into Nebraska's bye week

The biggest question facing Nebraska athletics got an answer on Sunday, as Nebraska announced it had hired Washington State athletic director Bill Moos as it's new A.D.

It didn't take long for questions regarding Mike Riley's status as the Huskers' head football coach came up during Moos' introductory press conference, and while Moos made it clear he doesn't fire coaches mid-season, he added that would definitely be "taking notes" on how NU closed out the rest of the year.

Knowing that his new boss is officially in place and evaluating his every move, how will Riley and his staff handle essentially going through a six-week audition to save their jobs?

Riley said in a statement he was looking forward to meeting with Moos and talking more about their goals for the future of Nebraska football, but there will undoubtedly be some tension around the program if Nebraska's struggles continue.

Until more is known about the future direction of Nebraska athletics, the only thing Riley and his coaching staff can focus on is trying to keep their team from completely imploding over the final five games.

Saturday night’s 56-14 embarrassment against Ohio State will go down as one of the low points in program history, and now the Huskers get two full weeks to stew over that game and listen to criticism about their coaches and their own play.

The task of finding the proper balance between resting and physically recovering, preparing for the next game at Purdue in two weeks, and rebuilding the team’s battered psyche will be no small challenge for Riley and Co.

Any chance he has of maintaining his position as Nebraska’s head football coach will likely depend on how he accomplishes that over the next 12 days.

As if the bruised egos weren’t enough for Nebraska to endure following the loss to the Buckeyes, the Huskers got even more beaten up physically.

Already down two of their top three safeties going into the game with Aaron Williams (neck) and Antonio Reed (knee) out, NU ended up losing senior Joshua Kalu - who just returned last week after missing the previous three games - to a re-aggravated hamstring injury midway through the OSU loss.

Maybe the biggest injury added to the insult came when redshirt freshman J.D. Spielman left the game in the fourth quarter after hauling in his 11th catch of the night and being tackled hard into the turf.

Spielman looked to be OK after the game, but he ended up not making it to the postgame press conference because he was in the training room receiving treatment.

Again, the best news for Nebraska is it has two full weeks to heal up before its next game at Purdue, and the Huskers will need to be as close to full-strength as possible in order to save what’s left of this season.

Another injury situation to keep a close eye on over the next two weeks will be with running back Tre Bryant and his problematic knee.

After re-aggravating a pre-existing knee injury early in the third quarter at Oregon, the sophomore has now missed the past five games and looks nowhere near being ready to return to action anytime soon.

Bryant tried to make his way back at practice last week, but he only made it through two periods during last Monday’s half-pads session and again was unable to finish out Tuesday’s full-pads practice.

Going into last week Riley said a medical redshirt was certainly a possibility for Bryant, who has played well under the 30-percent cutoff this season to be eligible.

It should also be noted that when a player plays is a factor, as that 30-percent limit starts at the beginning of the schedule.

Look for these next two weeks to be the final verdict on Bryant’s season, and at this point signs are leaning more and more to him not playing again in 2017.

The only thing that could save what has been a disaster of a season would be a furious finish over the final five games and a bowl victory to build some desperately needed momentum heading into the offseason.

But based on what we’ve seen from Nebraska over the past two weeks - and really the entire year, for that matter - the optimism of that happening is limited, to say the least.

According to the college football analytics site, FootballStudyHall.com, the Huskers were only favored in two of their remaining five games heading into Saturday night’s contest, with a 66-percent win probability vs. Northwestern and a 52-percent chance vs. Iowa.

That also didn’t account the mental damage done by Ohio State.

If those odds hold true, NU would once again be a 5-7 team on the outside looking in for a bowl bid.

However, there have been multiple five-win teams to earn bowl invites the past two seasons since the NCAA started allowing sub-.500 teams to play in bowls - the Huskers being one of those in 2015.

But would Nebraska’s higher-ups actually want to go through the formality of a month of bowl preparations either with an interim coaching staff or head coach it fully intends on replacing?