UCLA Football Preview: Can the Bruins Stop the Nebraska Running Game?
UCLA will be up against a very experienced Nebraska offensive line this week.
The big Nebraska news coming out of last weekend’s game against Southern Cal is that quarterback Dylan Raiola is out for the season with a broken fibula. In Raiola’s place, true freshman TJ Lateef will start instead.
Overall, the Cornhusker offense has been very balanced this season. They have run the ball 52.5% of the time and gone to the air 47.5% of the time.
Nebraska has been very effective at getting to the Red Zone. They’ve made 40 trips into the Red Zone this season. They’ve scored on 35 of those trips with 24 of those scores being touchdowns. By comparison, UCLA has scored 14 touchdowns on 24 Red Zone visits. So, on a percentage basis, the teams are similar. The difference in total Red Zone attempts here is likely due to the Bruins’ lackluster offensive performance under Tino Sunseri in the first four games of the year.
Interestingly, despite being a balanced offense with a slight bias towards running the ball, the bias flips when looking at Nebraska’s touchdowns. They have scored 19 passing touchdowns to just 15 rushing touchdowns.
Quarterback
The four-star recruit from Orange Lutheran was one of the best quarterbacks available in the 2025 recruiting class. While I’m sure Matt Rhule would have preferred to redshirt Lateef this season, he will now be forced into action.
Saturday’s game will be just the fourth game he’s played in this year. Before last week’s game against the Trojans, Lateef had also played against Akron and Houston Christian.
Overall, he’s completed 16 of his 19 pass attempts for 261 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions.
Lateef is also a dual-threat. So far, he’s only carried 11 times for 50 net yards. That’s an average of 4.5 yards per carry. He’s scored two rushing touchdowns, which places him in a tie for second-most rushing touchdowns, despite seeing limited action until now.
As a four-star recruit from Orange Lutheran, Lateef was one of the best quarterbacks available in the 2025 recruiting class. While I’m sure Matt Rhule would have preferred to redshirt Lateef this season, he will now be forced into action.
Saturday’s game will be just the fourth game he’s played in this year. Before last week’s game against the Trojans, Lateef had also played against Akron and Houston Christian.
Overall, he’s completed 16 of his 19 pass attempts for 261 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions.
Lateef is also a dual-threat. So far, he’s only carried 11 times for 50 net yards. That’s an average of 4.5 yards per carry. He’s scored two rushing touchdowns, which places him in a tie for second-most rushing touchdowns, despite seeing limited action until now. Regardless, the Bruins will need to account for Lateef’s mobility.
Running Game
The Nebraska running game begins and ends with redshirt junior Emmett Johnson. Johnson has accounted for 57% of the rushing attempts by Nebraska. The only other Cornhusker with more than 17 carries was Dylan Raiola who carried 46 time before he was injured last weekend.
Johnson has carried 175 times for 1002 net yards, which is an average of 5.7 yards per carry. He’s scored ten touchdown this season and his longest carry of the year went for 50 yards. Simply put, this guy is a workhorse. If the Bruins want to win this game, they will need to find a way to stop Johnson.
Obviously, Raiola won’t play on Saturday. So, expect Lateef to absorb all of his carries and then some this weekend.
Behind Johnson, Kwinten Ives and Isaiah Mozee have each carried 16 times. Ives has gained 119 yards and scored twice, giving him an average of 7.4 yards per carry. Mozee has gained 71 net yards for an average of 4.4 yards per carry.
Meanwhile, Lateef and Mekhi Nelson have each carried 11 times. Nelson has gained 43 net yards, giving him an average of 3.9 ypc. He’s also scored a touchdown.
While eight other Huskers have carried the ball, none of them of carried more than six times.
Passing Game
The leading receiver for Nebraska is redshirt junior transfer Nyziah Hunter, who came to Lincoln after spending the past two seasons at UC Berkeley. Hunter has 38 receptions for 555 yards and five touchdowns.
The other two starting receivers are Jacory Barney, Jr. and Dane Key. Barney has made 33 receptions for 384 yards with three touchdowns while Key has caught 25 passes for 314 yards with five touchdowns.
The starting tight end will be redshirt junior Luke Lindenmeyer. Lindenmeyer has made 26 receptions for 286 yards with a pair of touchdowns.
The only other Cornhusker with more than 10 receptions is Johnson, who has caught 33 passes out of the backfield for 197 yards and a touchdown.
Offensive Line
Historically, Nebraska has a history of excellence on the offensive line. The fact of the matter is that Johnson would not be in the middle of a 1,000-yard season without the big guys up front. Every lineman listed on the Nebraska depth chart tips the scales at at least 300 pounds. That’s a lot of beef.
To make matters worse, three of the five starters are seniors while the other two are redshirt juniors. So, there’s plenty of experience up front too, and that’s despite the fact that the Huskers have lost both of their original starting tackles Gunnar Gottula and Teddy Prochazka for the season due to injuries.
In fact, the most experienced unit on the Nebraska team is the offensive line. Husker offensive linemen had combined to play in 227 career games with 123 career starts entering this season. Seven Husker offensive linemen have started at least 15 games in their career, all at Power Four schools.
Redshirt junior Justin Evans will start at center. has started 26 games at Nebraska, including 16 starts at left guard, 10 starts at center and one start as a sixth offensive lineman.
To his right will be senior transfer Rocco Spindler at guard and senior Turner Corcoran at tackle. Spindler started 24 starts at right guard while he was at Notre Dame while Corcoran has started 36 games for Nebraska with 30 starts at left tackle, three starts at left guard and three starts at right tackle. He started his first game of the season at right tackle last week against USC, but moved to left tackle later in the game due to an injury to starting left tackle Elijah Pritchett. Junior Tyler Knaak will sub in as the right tackle if Pritchett is hurt again.
Pritchett, a transfer from Alabama, started 12 games last year with the Crimson Tide. He started 11 games at right tackle in 2024 and one at left tackle. He has been Nebraska’s starting left tackle the past five games. The final piece of Saturday’s starting offensive line is Henry Lutovsky. He has made 24 starts in his Husker career, 15 at right guard in previous seasons and he has started all nine games this season at left guard.
Analysis
Looking at the depth and experience on the offensive line, it’s easy to see why Nebraska’s been able to rely upon their running game for so much of their success this season, and it sure seems like Matt Rhule has re-developed a unit that Nebraska has long been known for.
The fact of the matter is that line wins games.
In order for UCLA to have a shot in this one, they are going to have to find a way to neutralize the Huskers’ blockers up front and find a way to slow down Johnson.
Of course, just when it looks like they’ve down that, they will have to worry about Lateef going to the air or improvising with his feet as well.
The Bruin defense will need to earn their keep for sure. If they struggle to get off the field as we’ve seen in other games this season, it could be a long evening at the Rose Bowl. But if they can find a way to pressure the young QB and maybe turn the ball over at some key moments, it will go a long way towards a Bruin victory.
Go Bruins!!!
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This article has been edited to include the missing paragraphs which should have been at the top of the article. I have no idea how whole paragraphs got chopped like that.
Experienced beef on the O Line for Nebraska sounds similar to the last game when our defense was totally man handled.