Breaking news, I have an update around Dylan and the injury that he suffered versus the Indiana Hoosiers last Saturday. What that injury is, what’s his timeline, and will he miss any games?
Now, this happened in the second quarter versus the Hoosiers. He walked it off and proceeded to play the rest of the game. But it looks like it’s a little more serious than we initially anticipated.
A tweet came in from Josh Peterson, one of the Nebraska Beat reporters, and he said that he confirmed with a source that this isn’t the first time Dylan’s injury has been bothering him throughout the season. This actually started versus Illinois earlier in the year. Now, this makes a lot of sense, because Dylan Rael was playing great those first three games.
He started to play poor against Illinois, and it’s only gotten worse. That is due to this ankle injury. We go back to the film, honestly.
There’s a couple things that have really been standing out in Dylan’s game. He hasn’t been stepping into his throws. He’s been throwing off his back foot a lot, and he won’t scramble.
Well, it’s all because he injured his right ankle a couple weeks ago. You can’t step into those throws, because when you step into it, you’re going to twist your ankle a little bit. You’re going to put pressure on it.
So it’s clear that that injury has been lingering for a little while now, and it re-aggravated itself versus Indiana. Now, when he got injured versus Indiana, it was non-contact. Nobody even hit him.
He kind of just rolled over his own ankle. It’s very tender, and it’s something that he’s been dealing with for a while. So, with that knowledge that we now know, I have one big question.
Why did Matt Rhule keep him in the ballgame as late as he did versus Indiana? The game was over. They were blowing us out, and yet Dylan was in there in the fourth quarter. He was injured.
He was tender, and yet Matt kept him out there. I have no idea. That game was over.
He should have played at Haarberg lot sooner. And I also want to pose a question. What do we do from here? Because it’s clear that Dylan has been dealing with this right ankle injury for a while now.
There were concerns a couple weeks ago that he was dealing with a shoulder injury, too, that I hinted at. So it’s clear that he can play through this. That’s the reason he’s played.
But should he? I don’t think he should, at least not this week, versus Ohio State. Listen, we’re going to lose either way. Whether Dylan plays or whether he doesn’t play, we will probably lose.
Let’s give Haarberg an opportunity. That’s just my opinion. I understand that the staff probably is going to roll Dylan out there because they’re going to try to win this ballgame no matter what.
He’s going to try to rebuild this team over the next three years. So I’m thinking larger than just one game. So if it were up to me with this ankle injury that’s clearly impacting his performance, I would sit him on the bench versus Ohio State and then reassess him going into UCLA and see what Haarberg can do versus the Buckeyes.
We’ve seen the staff hide injuries before. Scott Frost did it with Adrian Martinez. Adrian Martinez in 2021 played through a broken jaw the entire season.
So that just shows you a lot of times these staffs, they hide a lot of injuries, especially in the starting quarterbacks because they just don’t want that out there. That’s what’s happening here with Dylan, but it’s clear as day through the Illinois game. We saw him get banged up even versus Purdue, but specifically against Indiana.
This right ankle is impacting his ball game. He can’t throw off.