Nebraska Football: 3 early breakout candidates for Huskers in 2022

There is some renewed hope surrounding the Nebraska football program heading into the 2022 season and here are three players poised to breakout. 

It seems like Nebraska football fans have held onto the false hope that Scott Frost is going to deliver a winning football program for years.

However, it seems like it will all come to a head in 2022. Frost and the Huskers will either put together a winning season and get back to a bowl game or he will have a new job.

Nebraska football has been busy in the transfer portal and revamping its coaching staff which makes me optimistic that the team can win 7-8 games in 2022.

It might sound crazy. But I really like the addition of quarterbacks Casey Thompson and Chubba Purdy, as well as some of the other additions from the portal and JUCO ranks.

Frost has brought in plenty of reinforcements but there are also plenty of holdovers and there are three poised for breakout seasons for Nebraska football in 2022.

1. Rahmir Johnson, RB

Johnson had a pretty good year last season and was Nebraska’s second-leading rusher. However, 692 total yards doesn’t necessarily qualify as a breakout campaign in my book.

New offensive coordinator Mark Whipple is looking for someone he can feed the ball to on offense and one guy capable of carrying that kind of load is Johnson. He averaged 4.4 yards per attempt last season and also caught 16 passes for 197 yards too.

I still think the Huskers are going to spread out the carries quite a bit but if anyone has a shot at reaching 1,000 yards next season or even 1,000 total yards out of the backfield, it’s Johnson who is a dual-threat that wasn’t utilized enough last season.

It seems like Whipple is excited to get him involved and getting Johnson more touches seems like a logical way for things to go at running back.