Was on vacation so I failed to get this article out last Thursday. My bad.
Welcome to this twelve-week countdown where we count the weeks until Nebraska takes on the Cincinnati Bearcats at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday, August 28th.
This will be my list of Nebraska football’s 12 most indispensable players. They may not be the best. They may not even end up playing this season (which would likely be bad for Nebraska). These are the players that need to step up this season for Nebraska to take that next
step.
Countdown Archive
12 Weeks: Punter Archie Wilson
11 Weeks: Keona Davis
10 Weeks: Ceyair Wright
9 Weeks: Dane Key
8 Weeks: Kwinten Ives
7 Weeks: Andrew Marshall
This will be Marques Watson-Trent’s sixth season playing college football. Over the first five seasons at Georgia Southern, the 5’11” 225 pound linebacker complied 363 total tackles. He had three seasons with more than 100 tackles including 16 games with double digit total tackles. He was a three-time All-Sun Belt Conference selection and was the conference defensive player of the year in 2024.
Last season the top three tacklers for Nebraska were Luke Gifford (73), DeShon Singleton (71) and John Bullock (70). Only DeShon Singleton will be back for the Huskers this season so there are some tackles to be had for whoever Matt Rhule and John Butler put on the field in 2025 on defense.
Watson-Trent had 118 tackles in 2024.
In 2022, he was on the Georgia Southern team which came in and beat Nebraska. In that game, he had 10 tackles. Obviously, the Sun Belt conference is not the Big Ten. But production is production at some point.
Should we expect him to come in and get 100 tackles? No, probably not. But could he end up leading the team in tackles in 2025? I think that he could.
Admittedly, players like Mikai Gbayor might be the guy that steps in and has a monster season at linebacker.
With that said, it is hard to ignore 100 tackles per season over three seasons. If Watson-Trent is anywhere near that productive for Nebraska then it could be a coup that they got him to transfer from Georgia Southern.
More from cornnation.com:
- Nebraska Football: Mike Riley’s Breakout Group Comments At Big Ten Media Days
- The 2007 Nebraska Football Season: Booing, Big Holes, and Broken Hopes
- Flakes: Auto Play Videos Should Be Banned
- Nebraska Football: Mike Riley’s Remarks At Big Ten Media Days
- Big Red Cobcast: Is it Time to Cheat?
- Shawn Eichorst: Nebraska Obliged To Do One Home Friday Night Football Game Every Third Year
- Wisconsin Badgers 2017 Football Preview
