Husker WR Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda out for season with injury

Nebraska’s receivers room was already thin to begin with to start the 2023 season. But it officially got thinner Monday.

During his weekly press conference Monday morning at Memorial Stadium, head coach Matt Rhule announced starting receiver Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda is out for the season with an injury he suffered in the season-opener last Thursday at Minnesota.

Garcia-Castaneda was targeted a team-high five times, but caught just one pass for five yards. He was last seen on the field early in the fourth quarter running a route in the end zone.

After the game, Rhule said he wasn't sure of Garcia-Castaneda's status for the rest of the year.

"IGC went down. Looked like it maybe was a serious injury, I don't know. We're going to wait and see," Rhule said.

Without Garcia-Castaneda, who’s in his fifth year of college football and possesses the speed to be a deep threat, the Husker wideouts are largely an inexperienced group outside of Marcus Washington and Billy Kemp.

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Washington, who was suspended for the first half at Minnesota according to Rhule, showed just how important he’s going to be moving forward once he was on the field in the third quarter. He caught three passes for 31 yards and was targeted four times by quarterback Jeff Sims. Sims seemed to have chemistry with Washington, but also starred down the wideout too often, which resulted in a loss-sealing interception late in the fourth.

The offense failed to get the veteran Kemp involved at Minnesota, and he didn’t record a single catch. He was targeted just twice in the passing game, with one of them resulting in Sims’ first interception. Kemp’s second target was batted down at the line of scrimmage by a Minnesota linebacker.

The wideout who played the most snaps against Minnesota, Alex Bullock, is a former walk-on who earned a scholarship just prior to the start of the season. Bullock, at 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, had a successful debut. He caught all three of his targets for 37 yards and a touchdown, though the scoring reception was more luck than skill and execution.

Two true freshmen receivers briefly saw action in Jaylen Lloyd and Malachi Coleman. According to Pro Football Focus, Lloyd, an Omaha Westside grad, played four snaps. He took a reverse for nine yards and a first down. Coleman, a Lincoln East grad, played just one snap and wasn’t targeted.

The Husker offense used a couple non-traditional receivers in the pass game against Minnesota: corner Tommi Hill and quarterback Heinrich Haarberg.

The 6-foot, 195-pound Hill, who ended the 2022 season at receiver after being benched as a corner following the Oklahoma game, played 16 snaps as a corner on defense against the Gophers. He also played one snap on offense and was sent on a deep post route. He had a step on his defender, but was underthrown by Sims.

Haarberg, at 6-5 and 215 pounds, was used as an off-line tight end/H-Back in the first half and caught a 10-yard pass off a play-action that went for a first down.

As for the traditional tight ends, Nate Boerkircher caught his only target for four yards. Thomas Fidone II didn’t get a target in the game while playing 39 snaps.

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