It is certainly nothing new that the Nebraska football team has some Real question marks for special teams. For whatever reason, this particular side of football has been a sore spot for the Cornhuskers for years. Long before Matt Rhule came to Lincoln. But that’s no excuse.

In fact, Rhule and his hand-picked special teams coordinator have failed to put a unit on the field that better than what we saw The last two years are part of the problem. But you can’t say they aren’t trying.

On Monday, Rhule announced that he had hired the former Nebraska football player Kicker Brett Maher To Help the special unit. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this isn’t a new move. Maher has been with the team since the start of fall camp. And yet the special teams effort has been less than great.

On Friday night, starting kicker Tristan Alvano was unavailable and his replacement John Hohl scored a short field goal against Illinois, but missed a 39-yard kick that would have ultimately been the deciding goal.

Even if Alvano had been healthy, he wouldn’t have been able to pull off that kick. The Nebraska native has had his own problems since taking over the starting job as a freshman.

The special teams were not only plagued by stubborn field goal kicks. Punter Brian Buschini had problems sometimes in 2023. Although there are some signs that he is improving, he appeared to make a mistake on a booming punt against Illinois.

It looked like Buschini had punted the ball to the wrong side of the field, allowing the Illini to make a nice return and bring the ball from inside their own 20-yard zone almost to the halfway line.

Kick coverage was also a problem last year and this year. All of this shows that the Nebraska football team knows there are problems. Rhule is trying to fix them with new additions like Brett Maher. But none of the solutions came overnight.