1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Dana Holgorsen Audio: September 8th, 2026, 4:25pm

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Dana Holgorsen Audio: September 8th, 2026, 4:25pmAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Back to one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. All right, welcome back in. It is one-on-one with Harrison and Jake Bachvin for this hour, and then we'll switch things up heading into our number two. I was getting ready to head down there to Alumni Hall on 11th and Pete. You guys are welcome to hang out there as well. We'll set up a speaker and also check out some of the merch that those guys have down there.

It's usually my go-to stop anytime I need to get some gear for my. family come Christmas time. So we'll have Jalen Reyes, the associate head coach of Nebraska volleyball and the national champ himself, Ridge-loved, former Husker alum of Nebraska wrestling. So again, encourage you guys to join down there and hang out with us. Maybe pick up some gear from alumni hall as well. We did have some more audio from the coaches. We had Holkston spoke today or spoke today along with about a handful of players. I thought Holkson was pretty interesting. Here's his opening statement at the podium today, kind of recapping everything in that Ohio game. We didn't, you know, just from an operation standpoint, you know, there were no hiccups.

You know, there was no miscommunication with me and him. And there is no substitution issues, no clock issues, you know. So from an operational standpoint, I thought everything was fine. I'd hate the better part of that game last night. That would have probably thrown for a little bit of the loop, no communication. might have been a little tough. But, no, I was pleased with that aspect of it. There's a lot of game one stuff that, you know,

you're just not going to find out until you play, you know. And so it's good to get that first game under our belt. And, you know, I had a lot of things that we need to address yesterday. And, you know, just looking forward to, you know, trying to get the game two to improve on some things. You know, obviously the penalties are not what, we're after, you know, two pre-snap penalties. I've seen worse, you know, snapped it 74 times and only had two, you know, so that's not uncommon, especially in game one, just can't happen.

You know, some bonehead plays, you know, you should never block behind the play. I mean, that took a 57-yard touchdown off the, off the board, which, you know, hurt us, you know, would have been an eight-point lead going into halftime. We would all felt a little bit better about it. Instead, we're going in there 14, 13, you know, with a stalled drive. So just stuff like that, you know, and Isaiah had a holding call. He blocks so hard, you know, and he's always so physical that, you know, he's going to get his hands on people, but you can't, you can't twist them. you know, and you got to let go at time. So a lot of things you need to work on,

but overall is pleased with game one. Not much I can, you know, honestly disagree with them there. Like there were, as far as errors went, I really did just feel like majority of it was like one bad special teams play where I believe is on a kick return where they tried to like bounce it back and try to find some extra yards. Otherwise, it was just penalties.

Like some of the drives were going fine, maybe some accuracy issues, which will get to that with Holgerson as well as to where he thinks some of those issues. come from. But other than like some slight, you know, axiote issues, you look at Anthony Clinger's completion percentage was in the 50s, Horstons goal, seen a month that up in the 70s. A lot of it did feel like, hey, the drives are clicking along, but we're having a penalty that's putting us in

third and long to where we're putting it really tough. And then you take a sack and you're looking at like a third and 21 or whatever it may be. You know, and that was my thoughts. Like as close as that was in that first half, the big defensive miscommunication, then it did feel like it took a little bit while for that defense to settle in and fully lock things down. But really, you know, about a third of their offense still came off that first drive, you know, on those three plays. Yeah. Yeah. It was, you know, and that's, I think that was the biggest takeaway as far as like the negatives. And it's like, it's not the worst thing in the world. You don't

want to consistently have these problems, but a lot of people can understand game one. And he talked about it. I mean, there's things that pop up that you don't know until you play a game, right? And then you have to go through those issues. But again, I look at it. It was funny because I was looking at the amount of penalties to Brassica had, and they had nine, and I was thinking, man,

that's a lot. So I was going to go compared to the other big 10 teams and bring it back and rub it in Nebraska's face. Well, Ohio State had 10 penalties. Yeah. You know, some of these other teams across the big team, I would throw Michigan out there,

but they're not a great example right now, but they had a lot of penalties. But, you know, some of the top teams, I think Oregon had like nine or 10 penalties. Some of the top teams in the, in the conferences are doing that. And it's not going to be,

you know, year long. It's, it's kind of getting back out there, seeing what you can get away with. You know, and then a lot of those penalties are, it's not like the guys don't know it, right? It's just got to get into the routine of it. And when you're playing your first game,

you're not fully in the routine of it. So hopefully that they can, they can make those adjustments. But because I think that's too, for the most part, what kept Ohio in the game, right? Was the obvious defensive mistake there from Jeremiah Charles. They were playing zone.

They were playing, man, you get beat deep. That's the longest play of the game. Their second drive where they scored a field goal on, you know, was the drive was extended because William Swinery had the face mask. So, you know, a lot of this stuff where Ohio did have success was partially because Nebraska was helping them. And you give Ohio at all the credit in the world for picking that up and taking advantage of that. But what Nebraska fans want to see at least less than anything is them beat themselves because we've been through that. We've seen that with teams in the past. I hate to keep going back to it, but I, I think that was the blueprint by the time Scott Frost's tenure was coming to a close was

just wait. Nebraska beat themselves. That's all you have to do. And so Nebraska, I think was, that was part of the frustration through the first half was like, this is, this is dicey, this is ugly. They kind of look like they're hurting themselves. But that's part of the excitement in the second half is that they're able to kind of nail that down. I think a lot of those penalties were in the first half. You know, and then obviously in the second half, the big question for this game is going to be, did Nebraska wear Ohio down or did the sun wear Ohio down?

It's like Ohio's comparative depth to Nebraska where Ohio down. Because if Nebraska was able to do that and kind of become that wall, that speaks on big things for Nebraska moving into the future. If, you know, a similar thing's not going to happen against a conference of one who has similar resources, you know, it's not going to be easier. hardly understand that. But then that was more kind of speaking on Ohio side. But they cleaned it up and won the game. And, you know, now this week, that's what, you know, I think a lot of people expect to blow out. And so the eyes, I think this week are going to be on that penalty number and to

see, along with that in the win, what can you kind of break down? Did they get cleaner from week to week? That's going to be, I think, the microscope. Yeah. And I think that's the fair microscope to have right now because, you know, you can go through the running back room. You feel like you are, you got three guys that at least shown some good flashes in that game. Jamal will obviously be in the headline, but even if you break down, like, my guy Nelson, I thought looks pretty good.

And Isaiah Moses, like early in the game, didn't get as many reps later on until, towards the end there, I want to say, but he certainly had some moments than the wide receiver route. You had a lot of wide receivers where you, you do kind of look around and it's like, boy,

Gilmer 10 targets, five reception, and we'll get some oddie about some of those drop balls. But then you're like, well, Jacori Barney is looking pretty good. Like, Isaiah Hunter for how good he was last year and having some of those explosive plays, Boy, that's a guy you'd want to feed the ball to you more.

Luke Lindenbier, we're always talking about using the tight ends, is, you know, wanting to utilize them more. And then you might walk away from that game, but they're like, boy, did we utilize Luke Linderbier enough? And then Holgerston speaks today at the press conference saying, that was best game that Luke Lennemeyer's had. And it was more on his blocking, just panicking people. And then he was able to get out there for some easy passes.

What did you evaluate Anthony Colandra, his first game in a Husker uniform? I know the fans were impressed, three touchdowns, no turnovers. Most fans are going to take that at any given day. day, but he did have a lower completion percentage. Took, you know, maybe one bad sack that you could pin on, you know, maybe the receivers weren't open. Maybe the linemen gave up pressure too quick, but it wasn't anything like we saw like versus Minnesota, which it should, right?

It's Ohio, but we weren't, you know, taking sacks left and right. Yeah, I believe just a couple there, the one counting the fumble that he ended up recovering. And again, three touchdowns, low completion percentage, but no turnovers. Yeah, yeah, and I think the drops considerably played into the lower completion percentage trading. It's very interesting. Quasi Gilmer has kind of become his go-to guy, right? And that was entering the game. And you had heard about reports in the off season that they were developing a good rapport. And that's just interesting to me because the quasi-Gilmer we saw the other day, honestly, was left a little bit to be desired because of the drop. So, you know, I got to believe

that's uncharacteristic for him. And if you are going to develop that chemistry with Calandra, you probably wouldn't see as many of those drops. And then you kind of further kind of read into it. You know, when Calandria did kind of go off, I think it was Keelan Smith, who got a drop as well. You know, so if he's going to be that frustrated with the drops and then also find that that his favorite target is going to be Quazy Gilmer, that's got to be pretty uncharacteristically.

Right. Because he just wouldn't put up with that too much. So, you know, I don't think that we're going to see too much of that moving forward. So I think that will help the completion percentage. You know, obviously he was as advertised mobile enough, you know, to kind of keep plays going and extend things and make things interesting. I mean, he's his touchdown run. I thought was rather impressive, just kind of getting skinny when he needed to and kind of powering in at the end was very impressive. I like, I like him. And I think a lot of it is, again, just kind of as advertised.

Doesn't have everything. You know, I think along with the drop, some of the accuracy could have been better. maybe that'll get better as it goes on. But I don't expect him to be the most pinpoint accurate guy. I expect him to get it to his receivers with a chance for them to make a catch. I thought he did that more often than not. And so a lot of this is just kind of comparing to your previous guy, right? And where Nebraska was.

But I think it'll just give Nebraska fans a lot more excitement, a lot more feeling that you're in a play or in a game. Because if Nebraska kind of got behind last year and it's just, You know, you couldn't throw deep and, and, you know, it was just, it was just problematic. It was going to be hard to, to kind of climb out of a hole, whereas this offense, I think, can do that. And Calander can, you know, live for the next play and kind of keep every play in of its own, kind of have its own excitement. To your point, I mean, he did also scramble backwards and had that, um, uh, play that ended up getting them to third and 31.

There's not much you can do about third and 31, where he had intentional grounding, didn't quite get the ball back to the line. So I expect to see some, some ups and downs, and that's kind of what we thought we would see. But the important thing here, no turnovers, like you said, jump back on that football. So if you can keep doing that, then I don't have near as much of an issue with a little bit of lack of accuracy, which again can hurt. I mean, it might, it'll probably pop up on some important downs this year. But, you know, I don't expect him to be perfect. But he does look to be the part of the gamer and a guy that has a lot of moxie out there. And I think that's refreshing for Nebraska.

Yeah, I think so certainly. You know, I'm okay with him being frustrated. It's shown a little bit of motion out there for the receiver because I do think you're right. That might just be uncharacteristic and that's part of the frustration. But it's interesting. Horgerson did talk about, let's take a little bit of zip off the ball on some of these throws.

Now also catch the freaking ball. And he says it at the end here. But here's Holkston talking about, you know, some of the throws that Colandre had, putting a lot of mustard behind him. And here's Holkiston talking about maybe you can take a zip off some of those. He is. And he needs to tone it down a little bit. Even a couple of those drops, like he, like when I was watching the video with him yesterday,

he's like, I probably put a little bit too much zip on that. You know, like the one where quasi came across the middle on a shallow cross. That's, that's from me to you. You know, and he, I mean, he probably had a little bit too much on that. So, you know, be receiver friendly, man. You know, where his accuracy can improve a little bit. some of those, you know, were not quite where I've seen him put it. And he needs to put it to the point to where those guys have a little,

a little easier time catching the ball. With that said, still catches a dang ball. It's right in your hands. Yeah, I think it's like a pretty fair statement. Like, yeah, Colingra, you don't need to throw it 100 miles an hour if it's a shallow with the guy's right there for you. And at the same time, for the wide receivers, you know, even if it is a little hot, you got to hold on to those.

And it is the first game. And I think you can maybe see that on the wide receiver part. And he also says, you know, talking about Colandria, it's like, yeah, you had some inaccurate balls that I haven't necessarily seen yet in practice. So some of that live fire action, some of that stuff comes out. There'll be something to keep an eye on that completion percentage of the next game versus the team who did lose to Tarleton State bowling green. That is another game where you hopefully, the Husk is like dominant, but we got all week to talk about that one. We'll throw it to break.

Don't go anywhere. It is one on one. Jake Bockovan, Harrison, Hart. Talk to the end a bit.