Early Tuesday morning, Nebraska announced they we’re hiring former Houston and West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen, to be an offensive consultant on the Huskers staff.
The move came just three days after the Huskers disappointing 27-20 home loss to 3-5 UCLA, where the Huskers were unable to produce any sort of sustainable and consistent offense against what was a bottom half of the country defensive unit in the Bruins.
Now if the name Holgorsen and Nebraska sound familiar, it’s because Holgorsen was spotted at a Husker wrestling match back in early January, where the rumors started about the possibility of Holgorsen joining the Huskers staff as an analyst.
Fast Forward to present day where it’s now official, which most likely Holgorsen will be taking a deep look at the Huskers offense.
Given the background of Holgorsen, this move isn’t a shocker at all. The Huskers offense ranks 99th in the country, and true freshman Dylan Raiola and company have really struggled to move the ball down the field ever since the loss to Illinois.
If you take a look back at the offenses that Holgorsen was overseeing, the individual and team results are very solid.
In 13 seasons as a head coach, eight of his quarterbacks have passed for over 4,000 yards, six running backs surpassed 1,000 yards rushing, 20 receivers finished with 1,000 or more yards and 16 of those receivers pulled in double digit touchdown seasons.
The offenses as a whole, mostly all ranked in the top half of their respected conferences, including his 2018 season with West Virginia where the Mountaineers averaged 40.3 points per game, which ranked 10th in the country that season.
The Bigger Picture:
It is way too early to make any assumptions about what is going to take place in the offseason heading into next season. Regardless, we usually go ahead and do it anyways as Husker fans.
I look at this addition of Holgorsen to the staff and the first thought I get in my head is “This is Nebraska’s next offensive coordinator.”
Obviously, current offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield is still calling offensive coordinator, and most likely will be for the rest of the season, but it is worth noting that this is most likely his last season as Husker offensive coordinator.
Holgorsen has been an offensive coordinator before, most notably at Texas Tech where his offense finished second in the country, two years at Houston, finishing second and first in back to back seasons and then finishing the run off the next year at Oklahoma State with the third ranked offense.
We will see how the rest of the season plays out, and we will take it into the offseason, but regardless, this is a major pickup for Matt Rhule and the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
