Nebraska coaches and players praised Lateef\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have any idea how we feel about him, at the end of the game, with the game on the line we\u2019re throwing the football,\u201d Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said at a news conference this week.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people wouldn\u2019t do that but we\u2019re doing that. It\u2019s because he\u2019s earned that.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the UCLA game, Lateef played in three games. He completed 16-of-19 passes for 261 yards and three touchdowns. He carried the ball 11 times for 50 yards and two touchdowns. Lateef played against Akron, Houston Christian and USC, before starting against UCLA.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what ESPN\u2019s Bill Connelly, author of the ESPN SP+ rankings, wrote about Lateef:<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cEasily the hardest guy on the list to evaluate. A true freshman, Lateef made his first start on Saturday, replacing the injured Dylan Raiola, and he completed his first 11 passes as the Huskers bolted to a big early lead and won. He ended up with only 15 passes and five rushes, but he produced a 98.7 Total QBR. A week earlier, his seven passes gained only 17 yards in a loss to USC. Which was the more accurate impression?\u201d<\/p>\n ESPN did not rerank the injured Raiola in its current rankings. One month into the season, ESPN ranked the Power 4 quarterbacks and Raiola was 25th. Here\u2019s what Connelly wrote about Raiola on Oct. 1:<\/a><\/p>\n “Raiola\u2019s 76% completion rate ranks fourth nationally, and his 11-to-1 TD-to-INT ratio is pretty sexy, but he somehow takes forever to throw (2.89 seconds on average, 108th) extremely short passes (6.2 air yards per attempt, 123rd) and takes a lot of sacks in the process (28.6% sacks to pressures, 119th). Still, the Cornhuskers rank 16th in points per drive and ninth in success rate so he is doing something right.\u201d<\/p>\n Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola was ranked the 25th-best quarterback by ESPN based on the first month of the season. \/ Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images<\/p>\n Here are the rerankings of the quarterbacks Nebraska has faced and the two remaining on the schedule (Penn State and Iowa). Also included are the results of the games and the two remaining Huskers’ games.<\/p>\n Five quarterbacks are ranked higher than Lateef, five are ranked lower. Only two are ranked higher than Raiola, based on his Oct. 1 ranking.<\/p>\n 5. Jayden Maiava, USC (L, 21-17) Two opposing quarterbacks were not ranked because they do not play for Power 4 schools: Akron\u2019s Ben Finley, and Houston Christian\u2019s Jake Weir.<\/p>\n Based on ESPN\u2019s rankings, Nebraska will have an advantage at quarterback over Penn State\u2019s Grunkenmeyer \u2014 who replaced injured Drew Allar last month \u2014 and Iowa\u2019s Gronowski. But after last Saturday\u2019s performances by Penn State and Iowa<\/a>, that advantage might be negligible.<\/p>\n Penn State quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer nearly led his team to an upset of No. 2 Indiana. \/ Matthew O’Haren-Imagn Images<\/p>\n Penn State somehow lost to No. 2 Indiana, 27-24, on a remarkable catch at the back of the end zone by Omar Cooper Jr.<\/p>\n Iowa lost to No. 6 Oregon, 18-16, on a 39-yard field goal by Atticus Sappington.<\/p>\n Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking\u00a0Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI<\/a>,\u00a0subscribing to\u00a0HuskerMax on YouTube<\/a>, and visiting\u00a0HuskerMax.com<\/a>\u00a0daily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nebraska freshman TJ Lateef, with only one start under his belt, was ranked 44th out of 68 quarterbacks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-290254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
9. Brendan Sorsby, Cincinnati (W, 20-17)
38. Bryce Underwood, Michigan (L, 30-27)
41. Nico Iamaleava, UCLA (W, 28-21)
42. Malik Washington, Maryland (W, 34-31)
47: Aiden Chiles or Alessio Milivojevic, Michigan State (W, 38-27)
51: Drake Lindsey, Minnesota (L, 24-6)
53. Mark Gronowski, Iowa (Nov. 28 at Memorial Stadium)
54. Ethan Grunkenmeyer, Penn State (Nov. 22 at Beaver Stadium)
60. Preston Stone, Northwestern (W, 28-21)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n