1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - What's Nebraska Football's Expectations for the fans? - July 3rd, 11:00am

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

What's Nebraska Football's Expectations for the fans? - July 3rd, 11:00amAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. Welcome in. It is one-on-one before the fourth year on a beautiful third, July 3rd, here with Austin Orman and DP out of town on some business. So I got my guy, Austin Orman, filling in with me for about half an hour or so. Then we do have a great guest coming on later in this show. That I'll kind of tease before we get out of here. But with that being said, Austin Orr, man, how's it going?

Day before the fourth. Great. It's going very well. Thank you very much. Have I convinced you that the Jalen Brown trade was a good trade yet? No, I was kind of listening to a little bit of, I think you were talking about with Jay Foreman on old school as well. You can't convince me. I got a lot of Jalen Brown stock.

He's coming into his own. Also do the Celtics. They sold high, though. I think they did. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was just me, too, like. Just feeling like his time with the Celtics was incredibly underappreciated. And then it's because we should take Tatum or Brown.

In a heartbeat. Okay, that's why we disagree. Tatum's just a better all-around player. J-1 has one skill. J-1 is Boston's version of Shade Gildes Alexander. That's who he is. Tatum's just a better all-round player. Except when the playoffs come around.

Well, because Brown's one skill translates more consistently to the slower pace of the playoffs. Tatum gets you to the playoffs. Tatum keeps you in the games. Brown got up to the playoffs, though. Brown is, okay. But so they were together. So, yeah, what Tatum does,

holds up better over 82 games without a doubt. Brown can be the closer in the playoffs, but I don't think you're in some of these games the way you are for Jalen Brown to close without Jason Tatum. I mean, yeah, there's definitely some truth to that. Like, the team was good because they have both those guys together on the same roster. Like, that's a lot of their success. You know, if I had to pick one, I'm going Jalen Brown.

going, date him. I don't know if we'll ever come across the bridge to agree on that. Like a guy that you spent so much time rooting for Zach Levine. I mean, that's the other cop for Jalen Brown. I mean,

he's a good version of that. That's all I had, man. Don't you dare do that to me. That was my one source of joy. You can't deny, man. The Lamarro, the Lonzo Ball, Zach Levine,

DeMarne Rose. And that was a fun ride for a while. Let us to at least some, some happy moments with Chicago Bulls. But we'll definitely want to get into sports. I want to continue this Hustre football conversation because the texters were having a good time talking about that. But before we do so, Austin Norman, what do you got for Fourth of July plans, my friend?

Oh, I got some, the in-laws are coming into town. The normal family people are not able to make it back from Illinois. So in-laws are coming down today. They'll come back down tomorrow. My wife does work tomorrow. It's her holiday, which is wildly, wildly, unfortunately. She works in the medical field? She does.

Yeah, she's a nurse. So shout out to Wifi for doing all that. And so, yeah, we'll have the fellas, the boys over at my parents' house with the in-laws coming down. I'll be nice and chill. Very nice. She's not in the ER rooms, does she? No, she says she will never, never. never work in the air okay yeah uh just be safe out there because it is one of the busiest nights

for fourth of july those er rooms so definitely we we had some horror stories that we're reading off from texters how close have you gotten to danger with fireworks too close uh how cool i'll say the story quickly because i said it already on the last show but we used to play a game i don't know what they were they're like the bigger firecrackers okay we'd have a game where it's like you wait to see who could get closest to the fuse before you throw it got pretty good at one point i was like you know enough to where I could feel the heat hit the palm of my hand. It was like just got out of my hand and then I won and that was it. I was like, okay, we're not doing this anymore. About, you know, burned down my family farm's tree line the one time. That was just the

firework that tipped over. I don't know if I put it on the rock. I'm calling wind all day. Of course. It could have been bad posturing, but I was a, I was a wee lad. Those are, I think the biggest screw ups I've definitely had by far. But luckily, all 10 fingers. I haven't blown anything off yet. I am not gutsy enough to do firecrackers. I will like them off in a full string, but if you give me an individual firecracker, I just don't even want to run that risk.

I'm more than happy to do artillery shells. I'm more than happy to do like some of the other ones that skip. But firecrackers, nah, miss me with it. I might be losing like a few respect points here. Are you the snakes guy? No,

I'm not a snake guy. Come on now. I'm better than that. I am just, my risk tolerance. is so low. And like, I, there for a while I was the dude that was lighting off the fireworks for for my family in a lot of ways. You know, brothers didn't really want to do it, didn't have much interest. Kind of, you know, took over from dad's week. It's sitting watch a little bit. But

I just have never gotten into the firecrackers. I just think there's too much that can go wrong and I'll do everything else. But, you know, no, I'm not just snakes and sparklers. I mean, in all fairness, that's probably the safer way to do it. Because again, you can run in some testy situations and then I'm just somewhat, I know me, my friends, a lot of people out there are just fortunate. We never ran into that one unfortunate and a counter. So if you are out there again, be safe, but it sounds like your family wasn't the pyro-maniac family for fireworks.

No, I mean, we would, yeah, we would, I mean, certainly get our fair share of them, but, I mean, we weren't pyros by any means. A great joke from one I'd read. I don't want to read it. It says, I did I play that game with Pierre Paul, the unfortunate accident that happened to him. And you guys can always chime in, uh, inch and half a half a minute. I can't remember if that's what that fire was called that it was thrown out there. We got Hammond Beans accidentally blew up a bumper of a car rolling artillery shells down this stream.

Did you have to pay for it, Ham and Beams? That's the real question. I'm assuming, depending on the age, it was either a hit and run or you maybe do got to leave the insurance information down there. But with that being said, you guys can keep chiming it in your fireworks. Fourth of July festivities that you want to hit on. But I do want to talk about the Nebraska football situation. Before you know, it's like a couple months away. will be in college football mode.

The kind of the big topic was, what's the comfort level for you, Austin, Ormond, you don't have to put this on a scale. You can put this into a thesis, however you want to say it. Where's your comfort level heading into the season? Comfort level with what specifically?

Husker football's ability to meet expectations. My expectations for them are that they are going to be perfectly mid again. And so I am 10 out of 10 comfortable. They will meet that expectation. How about that? That's some great wordplay there. I get to that conclusion.

I don't think that they're going to be great. I don't think they're going to be an embarrassment. I think it's going to look a little different potentially in terms of the offense, defense balance, and how Nebraska gets itself in games and works its way out of games. But no, I am perfectly comfortable with where Nebraska football is at. In my head, they are anywhere from 5 and 7 to 8 and 4.

If everything, everything breaks, right? I think if they go 8 and 4, that's, hey, Jobwell does. done. Good job. You did it. They go seven and five. That's kind of what I expect. Six and six. Okay, maybe it dropped one you shouldn't have, but it, you know, good job. You went bathroom. You know, he sat on the potty. You didn't spill. You're fine. Five and seven. Oh, you probably shouldn't be missing a bowl game. That's a problem. Warning bells start to go off. But I don't know. Yeah, I think that Nebraska is going to be what we've seen. I'm not incredibly confident in a leap in this roster right now. And so I've set my expectations as they'll be fine.

they'll be what we're used to at the end of the year. How they get there might be a different journey, but no, I think they'll be okay. And what was like mid to you, six, seven wins? Is kind of where you're thinking? Yeah, I mean, I think anything between five and seven and eight and four is on the table. Do you give them any slack for the schedule? Because, you know, I get the point, I don't really care who's on the schedule anymore.

When this stuff turns out, some teams are always better than you think they are. Some teams are worse than you think you are. But you got Indiana, Ohio State, Iowa. Oregon's on there on the road, Oregon. you got a Washington team, you got Illinois. It's a tougher schedule on paper before the season starts. Do you give them any slack for having some of those games where you're going to go at home Indiana,

and you're going to hit the road, Oregon, that when you're looking at that win loss total, you're like, okay, maybe if you don't get, you know, six, seven wins, I can understand a little bit more because of this year's schedule. I mean, to a point, but I still think that, I mean, I've already marked down. I mean, Indiana is going to be an upset.

Obviously, Ohio State would be an upset. Oregon would be an upset. So there's three. Is Nebraska going to win all three of Washington, Illinois, and Iowa? When necessarily bank on it, I think if they get two out of those three, that's pretty good. And I think if you ask me right now, I would probably rather see Nebraska beat Washington and Iowa than Illinois. Washington being a home game, Iowa being, Iowa, Illinois being on the road, the Friday game, short week and all that. And so you got to go undefeated to the non-con.

I think you got to beat Michigan State on the road to open things up. Maryland will probably come in with some level of confidence and gave Nebraska all it wanted last year. And so, yeah, the schedule is tough. But I go back to, you know what, the Don Draper line and Mad Men, that's what the money is for. That's a great line. There really aren't cakewalks anymore. You know, you joined the Big Ten to have a seat at the table. And so I'm not going to give them a bunch more credit.

it for playing a tough schedule. Now, you know, seven and five against this schedule, maybe that's more impressive than seven and five against last year's schedule. But if you go seven and five with, let's say, a loss to Michigan State Open Conference play and an upset win over Indiana at home, are you really better? I mean, you showed maybe some higher ceiling and in taking down Indiana, but you followed it or you preceded it with a loss that you probably shouldn't have had. And now Indiana coming later, hey, look at them. They learned from it. They're growing. They're improving, they're on the right track. But I also want to stay away from the moral victories conversation. Because to a point, yes, you can have the same record and be a better team in some

aspects. But then we get right back to where we were at the best three and nine team of all time. Or, well, it's not as bad as it was. Well, the record's the same. And at what point is it about wins and losses? I'm not saying I'm there quite yet. But if you're going to beat Indiana and you're going to take two out of three from Washington, Illinois, and Iowa, then you're going to be eight and four. Maybe you can challenge for nine and three. You need to find a way to avoid a bad loss if you, you know, have a quality win. That's how you'll tell you're really moving in the right direction. Well, sit there. No, we do that Derek in a car. Shout to me. I believe he stopped into the ticket studio a little while ago as well. He says, you will be surprised with our offense. Better line

play expected. He says, Mark Indiana down as a win. Take it to the bank. I'm all there for the excitement and I would love nothing more than that. But if I start saying we're going to beat Indiana convincingly, that's going to potentially come back to bite me in the face when I hop on here the day after. But I will say this much. For me, I've gotten away from the wins and losses conversation. And I know I've said this before, but it's when we get towards that second half of the season, I honestly, if we got, you know, lost of bowling green North Dakota, that would suck. That'd be miserable. The fire is going to be, you know, in this imaginary situation. The seat's going to be on fire for Matt Rule.

But I would literally take that if it meant when we get to the second half of the season, you take care of business where you show development that, okay, again, you're putting some new pieces together. I don't know if that quarterback room with Colandria, potentially the starter is going to be instant success. It gets a non-con, probably. It'll probably look fine. But when you get to Michigan State with Fitzgerald down there,

how clean is that operation early on? You've got a better offensive line. I agree with Derek and a car there. Can you get that line to gel with new offensive line? coach Jeep Wade, you got a new defensive coordinator. There's a lot of stuff on the pot that I think needs to culminate. And I don't know if we're going to rip off the season with all that stuff

already coming together perfectly. And that's why for me this upcoming year, trying to get out of the how many wins, how many losses, doesn't look like it's coming together. When we get towards the end. And we say it all the time, you know, Bill Bush, Mickey Joseph, Joseph, were heroes for beating Iowa.

And it was a big deal. You know, how many people were, you know, really clamoring for Mickey Joseph to have that head coaching spot as a result of that Iowa game. But that at least was a team that, you know, had their moments, but also towards the end there showed some moments of growth in development. And that's the part that's always lacking.

It feels like we hit November. And then we have that loss. And I don't know if it's the snake fit curse, that frost put down a while ago where we hang our heads. And it's like, well, maybe we weren't as good as we thought. And then we were on to the next game, take another loss. Yep, okay, this is about where we are. I just want to see a team find a way to respond.

in that second half of the season. It doesn't mean, hey, when you get to Indiana at home, you take them down to show that you have arrived, just means get better. And then when you're rolling to Oregon on the road, you know, just keep building off of the mistakes.

Because, again, I think it's going to be a big season of, hold your breath moments early. Like, I won't be surprised if Michigan State scares us a little bit, even looking at last year. Nebraska could very well go and lose that game.

Yeah. Is that one at the woodshed? Yeah, up in East Lane. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I mean, and I think Fitzgerald's a great coach, what he did at Northwestern. I know me and Kerrker were looking at his ranked wins over at Northwestern.

For him to even, you know, not too far back from 500 was awfully impressive with this time there at Northwestern. But all that to say, I'm not going to freak out early or I'm going to do my best not to. Now, if it still looks like that in the second half of the season, that's when the alarm start going off. I'm going to say Nebraska shouldn't lose any of its first three games, even if they're a little clunky. Yeah, for sure. Like, I don't think we're going to lose those. I just think there's a chance some of it can look clunky. Yeah, no. And I think that's, you know, to be expected to some degree. You hope that by bringing in some, some upperclassmen transfers, guys that are familiar with the scheme on defense, and again, upperclassmen guys for the most part on offense,

it makes it a little smoother, but maybe makes it a little more difficult because these guys are maybe, I don't know, say more set in their ways stubborn, but they've taken so much other coaching, you know, it's another one piled on top of it that they go back to bad habits because say, hey, here's another set of habits that they have to build. And I think that, let's say Nebraska, you know, does struggle and drops a game that maybe you think they shouldn't in the first five. Well, then they win one, maybe you think they shouldn't in the back half. On the one hand, it's going to be, hey, give them credit for growing for being better in the back half of the schedule. On the other hand, it's going to be, well, imagine what could have been had they not dropped that game.

And they gotten a little bit better, a little bit quicker. Why weren't they, you know, a little bit better, a little bit quicker? And so there's always going to be something to complain about until a team goes undefeated or makes the college football playoff or whatever here at Nebraska. I think Nebraska is in a good spot to where I can understand the vast majority of the additions that they made. It's got to click because here's the thing. That's the day and eight. That's the era. You know, every team, you know, we talk about development, continuity.

well, it's still a new team every year. You know, it's still seniors go, freshmen come in. But if you can have those guys, and I said this with Jay, especially as we move into the 5 and 5-5 era, 5-4-5, it sounds weird to call it 5-4-5, you know, 5-in-5-to-play, whatever, I think the vast majority of the contributors across college sports.

I think it ought to be this way for Nebraska are guys in their second, third, and fourth years. And that's really what I'm going to be looking at. You know, is that the, quote, unquote, core, those second, third, and fourth year guys, who are they? How much are they contributing? Can that core stick together and pretend bigger things for the future? 100% with you on there.

And, you know, we'll segue this. And I won't let you get out of here for, and you'll obviously be back running shows for old school as well, still with Jay Foreman later today. But where are you at as far as the offensive line and your trust level there? Because it does feel like an area. I'm hearing a lot of chatter. people think that room's going to be significantly better.

Now, I think the floor was somewhat low from last year, so I expect to jump as well. But, you know, for all the talk around Cole Andrea, with all the talk around, you know, a lot of these new faces on the coaching staff, Jeep Wade being one of them, but I think people are very high on Jeep Wade for the success that he had at Georgia Tech.

If that offensive line is good, that opens up so many doors on not putting a ton of pressure on a guy like Anthony and Cole Andrew. For as much as I like his ability, to have that mobility, to scramble out of the pocket. I wouldn't mind seeing like Michigan's J.G. McCarthy out there where in terms of, I don't need you to take risk if we're able to run the ball and keep it simple. You know, and I think that's kind of been, well, I shouldn't say kind of been.

I think that's what people wish Nebraska's bread and butter was is like, hey, we can keep it simple. And in Colandra, if there is an opportunity where you see some green space or for whatever reason is going to happen, we have a missed assignment or, you know, our left or right tackle, get, absolutely beat. Okay, go ahead, take off, do what you can with your legs. But if this offensive line is good, I feel significantly better about the offense. Now, the defense is another story. But with a guy like Colandria, you know, in the spring game, it's a spring game taken with a grain of salt. I saw some of those balls and some of those chances he was willing to take right then and there. And those were some of the things I was worried

about on where he's coming from. And that showed up right away. Now, it's a spring game. I'm sure they're working on and getting that through. But if your offensive line, if your trenches are good, you don't necessarily need to put him in that many risky situations. He doesn't need to be the quote unquote hero. He can just play within the offense. And I think for a guy like Colandria, he does that mobility,

that ability to scramble and try to make plays. That's great when it's only forced because of a missed assignment. But if you can just run the ball and keep it simple, I think that's probably Nebraska's best shot this year. Where are you at with this offensive line? And obviously with the Nelson news, we don't know what the running back room is. Jamal Rule with the freshman, the five for five being a thing. Maybe you can go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah. But I think if the offensive line's working, like I said, I feel significantly better, at least about the offensive side of the ball for Nebraska. I still think there's a bit of a disconnect between Matt Rule and Dana Holgerson in some ways. I don't fully buy that fit. And I don't know if I have what my confidence level is or my trust level in the offensive line, just having not seen it yet. you know, hopeful, cautiously optimistic. You got like Jenkins that you know,

I feel like most people would trust now, and then you got Elijah Pritchett, which is I think more just the mental stuff. If you can, unlike the penalties, if you can log that up, like he's a great prospect. And then the transfers to your point that we haven't really seen a lot of.

Yeah, it's just, it's all got to come together. And I'm not saying it can't. I'm not saying it won't. We just haven't seen it yet. And so I think that it seems like Nebraska upgraded the talent level. I don't think the offensive line was the biggest issue

that Nebraska had last. year? Was it elite? No, it wasn't. What was the biggest issue you think? I think there's a lot of biggest issues or issues that would be up there. And certainly an offensive line you can have the conversation about as we did plenty of times. But for every time that the offensive line made the offense look bad, I think the offense made the offensive line look bad. That's a great point. As well, it just my two cents on the matter. And so, I mean, you don't have the Big Ten's leading Russia with the world's worst offensive line. You know, and you still got rid of that coach, which I'm not saying it was the right

decision, not saying it was the wrong decision, but it's a decision that was made. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm hopeful. I think that it seems from this side like Nebraska has upgraded at that position. And yeah, I think it would go a long way to fixing a lot of issues. But then I think the pressure does go on Anthony Calandria to some degree to be a better pocket passer than he's been, to deliver the ball on time on target, maybe more than has to not revert to scrambling where he might be a little bit more comfortable in playing outside of the pocket. You know, if the offensive line is going to be as good as advertised or

better than than recent lines, okay, well then prove that you're a confident, calm, collected upperclassmen, stand in the pocket, make gross. 100%. Six and a half is the over under Austin over under 1,800 bets off. Where do you stand? I'm at 1,800 bets off. I don't know if I'm taking that one. It's a dangerous line. It is a dangerous line. I don't like that one and all. I was a little bit surprised by it. I thought it might be down at five.

And again, I don't gamble. I do like looking at these just to see, okay, what is Vegas thinking? Because Vegas usually has a pretty good hunch, so it is somewhat of good barometer. But six and a half.

So at least to me that tells me, Vegas thinks, okay, maybe this team isn't, is down bad as maybe what some people think locally. Although now that we're getting some text, I can tell that college football is only a couple of months away now because we have dramatically shifted.

And we've been talking. talking about Husker football. One from, it's going to be one of the worst years ever. See, now we got some people, and maybe they've always been this positive that are calling for,

you know, great season. I think I saw someone, and we'll read this one, and then we'll go ahead and get out of here. I believe someone that said at seven and three, and they even said the blowouts being, with three blowouts,

and that being Ohio State, Indiana and Oregon. But I still think seven wins is probably more. That was Thomas and Lincoln, who's four out of ten confidence, five and seven record, three blowouts. Oh, five and seven records.

I'm glad you corrected that because he was a little bit more down on it. But, you know, in all fairness, it is a tougher schedule. We don't know how all those ingredients are going to fit in the pot together. But I know one thing, at least here in Nebraska, we're all rooting for that come together so we can have a great successful season. The guys are already getting paid. So you just hope you can make that money worth it. All right, don't go anywhere.

We'll keep one-on-one one roll. We've got a great guest coming up on the LLOVIP line. Don't go anywhere. Austin, Norman, Harrison, we'll talk to in a little bit.