The Nebraska Cornhuskers like to hang their hat on defense, especially under Bo Pelini. That defensive depth has taken a big hit in the last two days as the Huskers have lost 3 key defensive players in two days. First was CB Charles Jackson who had been sitting out of practice with an undisclosed knee injury. It turns out that he will need surgery and miss the entire season. He will get to redshirt though and still have 2 years to play. Junior college transfer Byerson Cockrell will look to fill his role as the nickel back in the defense.
Then Friday evening S Leroy Alexander got suspended for the season for an undisclosed reason. He was penciled in as the starter opposite Corey Cooper. Nathan Gerry will likely be the replacement for Alexander but there are young players that will push him for the spot.
As if that wasn’t enough, it came out late Friday night that last year’s starting MLB Mike Rose would miss the season with a torn ACL suffered in Friday’s practice. Rose was locked in a battle with Josh Banderas for the spot but he did have 66 tackles last season and figured to play a key role on the defense even if he didn’t start.
The Huskers depth will really need to show to recover from this but the only silver lining is this these happened early and they can get the other players ready with basically a full camp left.