The 3-2-1: Huskers have to get ready for a street fight in East Lansing

Nebraska has to get ready for a street fight this week at Michigan State. We hit on that and more in this week's 3-2-1 column.

1 - Michigan State is the surprise team of the Big Ten

If we have learned anything through one month of Big Ten Conference football, the Michigan State Spartans are the surprise team in this league.

Mel Tucker has brought what he calls a "meat and potatoes" style of football to East Lansing, and he improved their roster year-over-year as much as any team in the Big Ten. Tucker's staff processed 14 scholarship players to the portal after the 2020 season and made 20 transfer portal additions in 2021.

He's taken an NFL free agency mentality in rebuilding things in East Lansing. The question is can they win consistently with this formula?

I also find the history between Tucker and Nebraska very interesting. In 2019, Husker fans took over Colorado's stadium when Tucker was the coach. The Buffaloes won the game, but that was an embarrassing moment to see a Power Five stadium taken over like that for a rivalry-type game. I'd say 65 percent of that stadium was red that day.

This week, Tucker has said he wants to keep Nebraska fans out of East Lansing. I think he's in luck. Many people have already either traveled to Illinois or Oklahoma, so you probably won't see anything close to that Colorado 2019 crowd, but it's a safe be you will see over 5,000 fans in East Lansing this weekend.

The secondary ticket market is also a good indicator of things, and currently, on StubHub, you can get seats for as low as $19.

2 - Frost using his tight ends to shield his struggling offensive line

How do you protect a struggling offensive line? You cover them up with NFL-level tight ends.

I think we got a sneak peek of what Frost's plans are going forward, especially if his line continues to struggle in run and pass blocking sets.

Last week at Oklahoma, Frost's offense arguably looked the best it had all year when it featured between two and four tight ends on the field at one time. Austin Allen and Travis Volkolek are NFL-level tight ends. Teddy Prochazka also has elite blocking skills.

Their presence on the field helped the Husker's offense move the ball in the second half and create more of a push on the line of scrimmage. You only wish they could have had that at Illinois earlier this season.

3 - NU has been plagued by kicker play the last few years

Has there been another team in college football that has had the kicker drama Nebraska has had the last few seasons? I'll add punter in there with the way things ended in 2018 with Caleb Lightbourne and Daniel Cerni's knee injury he suffered a year ago.

Right now, the questions surround Connor Culp, the reigning Big Ten kicker of the year. Nobody saw this coming. Of all the sure things on this team, Culp was almost a slam dunk.

However, when you go back and look at his 2020 season, many of his field goals were chip shots due in large part to the red zone struggles the Huskers had on offense. He only attempted one kick longer than 40 yards in 2020. His other 14 attempts came from within 20 to 39 yards or from inside the 22-yard line.

I still think Frost will stay behind Culp at this point. I'm not sure if you can just stick freshman Kelen Meyer out there and expect him to make kicks consistently right away. You would rather give him a whole year to mentally prepare if he indeed is the guy after Culp.

1 - What's a logical plan for Teddy Prochazka this year?

I guess nobody should be surprised that freshman Teddy Prochazka, a former Rivals100 recruit, is already thriving at Nebraska. The bigger surprise is that he's put himself in a position to have an even more prominent role down the stretch.

Prochazka played just five snaps vs. Oklahoma at tight end, but everything about it jumped out. The offense also looked and felt different with him blocking on the edge. What's going to be interesting is what happens if Bryce Benhart and Turner Corcoran continue to struggle?

According to PFF, Corcoran has given up a nation-leading 20 quarterback pressures over four games, while Benhart has 12 and is tied 11th. Granted, Nebraska has played four games, but the line only gave up a handful of pressures on a limited number of passing plays against Fordham.

These numbers don't lie. The Huskers are having issues at tackle. Could we see Prochazka take over at left tackle, Benhart move inside to guard, and Corcoran go out to right tackle? What's interesting about Corcoran's 20 allowed pressures is PFF only has him in true pass-blocking sets 49 times on the year, while Benhart has been in pass pro 55 times.

2 - With Ervin out, what will the running back rotation look like?

With the Gabe Ervin Jr. knee injury, what will Nebraska do at running back this week?

I think the easy answer would be to lean more on redshirt freshman Rahmir Johnson. However, nothing has been predictable with NU's running backs at this point.

I still think you are going to see another reemergence from Markese Stepp, and it would not surprise me at all to see Jaquez Yant factor in at some point this season.

Michigan State will try to give the ball 20+ times to running back Kenneth Walker on Saturday.

With that said, NU now has three games of tape to study him and how he runs. Per PFF, 372 of his 493 yards have come after contact while averaging 6.53 yards per carry after contact.

I like this match-up for the Blackshirts. Walker is the type of back they tend to have more success against, and I predict the Huskers will hold him to under 125 yards rushing. Something else worth noting is that in 273 career carries at MSU and Wake Forest, Walker has just one career fumble.

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-Tuesday's at 7 pm.