Welcome to the Hot Topic, a weekly look at the state of Nebraska football. Each week on the Husker Extra Podcast, Parker Gabriel, Steven M. Sipple and Chris Basnett will discuss an important topic heading into that week's game, and that discussion will appear in the Journal Star's Husker Extra section on the day before gameday.
Should Nebraska play in a bowl game this season if given the opportunity?
Parker:Â I'm not going to take a super-hard line on this, but I think yes. Part of the issue, as everyone from Bill Moos to Scott Frost, assistants, players, one of the things they said is that they fell behind because they didn't make a bowl game last year, and then spring ball got canceled for everybody pretty much.
So I think any day you can practice is good. Now, are you going to get as much out of one extra week in December as you would from a fresh week in April? I don't know. And obviously, it's not an ideal situation. It's not like a normal bowl year where you get 15 practices. If they play again after the 19th, it might be one more week that the season lasts.Â
And Frost indicated today he wasn't quite sure where his team would be in terms of if they would want to play that game or not. I tend to think that a good number of the guys would want to play, and it would be interesting to see how the seniors fall into that.
I think that, if you had the opportunity to go somewhere, whether it was Arizona or Charlotte or somewhere else to play once more this year, I would think that it would be in good form to rally the troops and do it and get one more opportunity to play together.
Chris: I tend to agree with Parker, and especially when you're a team that all year has said, "We just want to play football." Well, how does that look when you get to the end of the year and you don't want to play anymore when you have the opportunity to play?
There's certainly the component of the extra practices, the travel to Charlotte or Arizona or whatever, the benefit you get from that. But isn't there a benefit too when you're a coach saying all we want to do is play, and then you get to the end of the year and your coach says, "Ahh, I don't know if we want to play anymore." And maybe the players make that decision for him; maybe the players don't want to play, but kind of to your point Parker, the players have fallen in line behind the coach and said they want to play and they want to keep playing.
Is it a lot of fun right now? Maybe not, because they've been here a long time, not being able to go home and do any of those things, and now you're beat up and you're tired and you're sore and it's cold and everything else.Â
I think if you're Nebraska, any opportunity you have to play, you play. You need to develop, even if it's just another week of practices and then a game. You need that extra time to get some young guys some reps in practices, and you need to do it because that's what you've said that's what you want to do, is play football.
Steve: What I wonder is how they go about figuring out who wants to play and who doesn't. It may be as simple as putting it to a vote. Maybe you have your guys vote after the Rutgers game. And I would be interested to see what that vote is, or if Frost just tries to gauge the vibe of his team. I don't know how that vote would go, but if there's a lot of guys that don't want to play, then I don't think you do it.
The thing I'd say on it is, football, it isn't necessarily all that fun. I think the fun in football is the reward. It's sticking together and getting stuff done and having success. If you're not having success, it's not all that fun.Â
Now here's the other thing. Look at what they're taking to Rutgers: they're taking two redshirt freshmen, a true freshman and a sophomore on the offensive line. They're pretty young up front on defense. Get those young guys time, game experience, because that is where it's got to start is in the trenches.
Photos: Golden Gophers oust Huskers on Senior Day at Memorial Stadium
Nebraska head coach Scott Frost greets Huskers captain Matt Farniok (71) during Senior Day festivities before the Minnesota game Dec. 12, 2020, at Memorial Stadium.