Nebraska offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen meets with the media

USA Today

2 days ago

Nebraska offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen met with the media following the team's practice on Thursday afternoon. The biggest story of the day was the loss of tight end Mac Markway for the second season in a row with an ACL injury.
Markway's injury now leaves the Huskers with Luke Lindenmeyer, Heinrich Haarberg, and Carter Nelson as the three leaders in the tight end room. Head Coach Matt Rhule met with the media first and explained that Markway's injury status is heartbreaking news for the team.
Markway came to Lincoln from LSU before 2024, where he caught three passes for 16 yards and a touchdown. He was a four-star prospect as a recruit and the ninth overall player in the 2024 class from the state of Missouri, per the 247Sports Composite Rankings.
Then, offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen met with the assembled press. This will be his first training camp with the team after joining Nebraska during the season last year. Holgorsen told the media that the offense installation is already underway.
'The easy answer is everything, obviously, but it's installation,' he said. 'My day one meeting with the guys was like, we've done a lot of football up to this point this year with our winter OTAs and summer and spring football OTAs and now going into camp. This is like the fourth time we've really installed it. Some guys were here in the spring, some guys didn't get here until the summer. Individually, it might be their second time or it may be their fourth time. We should really have a pretty good understanding of what to do, but it's still installation. It's still installation. There's a lot of technique stuff."
The offensive coordinator detailed his frustration at simple mistakes even on day one.
"I get irritated when guys don't know how to line up or they don't know their assignment. That really irritates me because we have installed it four times. At this point, it should be more about proper technique and making good decisions and starting to work on situations and then putting guys in the position to be able to make plays. It varies from player to player. The overall aspect of it is just trying to figure out what the best lineup is and what we do best.'
Holgorsen talks about the offense's goals for the 2025 season.
'One of our goals as an offense is to become a little bit more explosive,' he said. 'Explosive bodies, I think that'll naturally happen. But that's not what we're going to obsess over. We're not going to be reckless with our play calls just to try to get explosive plays. That will come. Situationally, that will come."
He also discussed the importance of including routine plays on your call sheet.
"Where that really shows up and where your yards per play go up is just routine play after routine play after routine play. If it's a checkdown for five yards, that's better than an incompletion. That's better than a sack. We're just focused on routine plays, taking what the defense gives you. If you do that consistently, those routine plays turn into big plays with good players. I think we have good players that can turn routine plays into big plays, and that will help your yards per play and that will help your explosive plays as well.'
He expressed his excitement at the progress made during the offseason.
'I don't care what I've done, where I've been, teams I've had,' he said. 'It's always been about this and what we have to do to make this the best team that we possibly can. I just look at it right now and I'm happy with the depth. We have 17 healthy bodies at o-line. We get a third group out there and rep those guys."
Holgorsen detailed the current depth of the offense.
"It doesn't look very good, but they're getting a bunch of reps. That's what young offensive line guys need is just reps and development. They need to eat and get in the weight room. We'll worry about those guys here in a couple years. For the now and for the next practice, we've got 10 good bodies that are all practicing hard and that gives us an opportunity to coach them and gives them an opportunity to develop.'
Nebraska will open the 2025 college football season on Thursday, August 28, when the Huskers face the Cincinnati Bearcats at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. The kickoff is set for 8:00 p.m. CT.
Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes, and opinions.