Minnesota, No. 25 Nebraska football’s next opponent, allows an average of 108 rushing yards per game. The Huskers’ Emmett Johnson averages 108.3 rushing yards per game.
How’s that for coincidence, though Nebraska’s running game involves more than Johnson, whose average ranks seventh nationally and whose rushing total, 650 yards, ranks eighth?
Even so, the Golden Gophers’ defense will have to deal with the junior running back from, yes, Minneapolis. Friday night — kickoff at 7 p.m. — at Huntington Bank Stadium will be a homecoming for Johnson. That “means a lot, being born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, going to be extremely fun to have a lot of family come and watch, people that don’t usually get a chance to come out here (to Nebraska),” Johnson said Tuesday. “So it’s going to be really exciting.”
Attention will be on Johnson, not just because of the homecoming, but also because of the aforementioned numbers he’s producing. Those numbers, in turn, are reflected in the confidence offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen has in him. Johnson has carried 105 times this season, only 12 fewer than all of last season. “His confidence is really at an all-time high,” said Holgorsen.
Confidence. Before his 50-yard run to set up Nebraska’s first fourth-quarter touchdown in the comeback victory against Maryland, he approached defensive players Cameron Lenhardt and Elijah Jeudy on the bench. “He was like, ‘Man, they can’t stop me,’ like, ‘Give me the rock,’” Lenhardt said. “So when he went out there and had the run … he spoke it into existence.”
Johnson finished with 176 rushing yards on 21 carries against Maryland. “It felt great out there,” he said. “But those guys up front, they work their butts off in practice. I can just give credit to them because they made it easy for me to do what I do. So I give credit to God and credit to the guys up front.”
Johnson is taking nothing for granted moving forward, however. “I’ve had some fun, but my mindset is just, kind of flush the past and move on to the next game,” he said. “I’m excited. I’m proud of how I’ve been playing, how other guys have been playing. But I’ve got a lot more work to do, this team has a lot more work to do. So that’s what I’m focused on, is just getting better today.”
Focused on? “He’s the most focused guy on the team,” Holgorsen said.
Nebraska is 25th in the Associated Press Poll this week, and on the edge of the Coaches Poll, second among others receiving votes. The Huskers have also lost five straight to the Golden Gophers. All of the 5-1 Huskers need to be focused to avoid what happened last season, when they also started 5-1 then lost four in a row, the first of which was 56-7 at Indiana.
The frustration of that blowout caused quarterback and co-captain Dylan Raiola to ask Coach Matt Rhule if the team could wear all-white, as they did at Indiana, Friday night. The all-white uniforms will also be part of the game’s breast cancer awareness initiative.
Johnson acknowledged talking to Lenhardt and Jeudy before his run, but “there were other people; it wasn’t just me,” he said. “A lot of them (on) the sideline came over there just to cheer those guys on because we knew it was going to come down to the fourth quarter, winning close games.”
He and Johnson were in the same recruiting class, said center Justin Evans, who’s from East Orange, New Jersey. “That’s somebody I consider myself close to as well,” Evans said, the “as well” a reference to Raiola. He and Johnson “took our official visit together. We moved in together … Our class was a small, tight-knit class, so just seeing Emmett have all the success … I just feel nothing but joy for him. I’m excited for him this week to go back home and to bring the show on the road.”
A Friday night show.
“I love night games,” Lenhardt said. “It kind of reminds me of ‘Friday Night Lights’ a little bit. All eyes are on you, so that’s kind of a thing … we like all eyes on us.”
