Mark Whipple praises Trey Palmer, preaches patience with production

One of the biggest transfer portal additions for Nebraska has paid off through the first half of the season. Trey Palmer leads the team in receiving yards by a wide margin in seven games, and Mark Whipple has noticed.

Although Palmer’s production has been up and down this year — just like the Nebraska offense — Whipple said that’s all part of adjusting to the new system. Last year, Whipple worked with stars Kenny Pickett and Jordan Addison in his third year at Pitt. Now, it’s year one in Lincoln, and that means it’ll take time to implement the scheme.

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“We missed him a lot early in the year,” Whipple told reporters Wednesday. “He was open a lot of the time. It’s just timing. The system, it takes time. I probably tend to lose my patience because being at a place for three years, you build it up and things that seem easy, some of the things that Kenny did with Jordan are some of the same stuff that we’re doing.

“It just takes time. Some of those things we missed at Purdue, we worked on. You like to add new plays because the defense — it’s kind of an NFL thing, they don’t practice them. We’ve just got to get better at those, which we have this week.”

Mark Whipple on Trey Palmer: ‘I’d be foolish if I didn’t get him the ball’

Whipple continued his praise of Palmer, calling him Nebraska’s best player. He, along with running back Anthony Grant, are two key parts of the offense, and that allows the Cornhuskers to showcase their versatility.

“I’ve always said I’d be foolish if I didn’t get him the ball,” Whipple said. “And AG’s our best running back. Getting our two best playmakers in, the guys are really [a] supporting cast. As I said, we missed him at Purdue, but still always try to do it and we’ve moved him around a little bit more.

“He’s playing outside and slot and doing some things that way. I don’t really think about it that much. Just kind of put things together with the offensive staff and try to get guys open and try to make the throws.”

The Cornhuskers have their work cut out for them this week, though, going up against an Illinois defense that leads the FBS in scoring defense. That means Whipple might have to do some different things.

But he’s used to that. After all, Pitt had the Biletnikoff Award winner in Addison last year.

“Last year, part of the thing at the end, they would do things with Jordan,” Whipple said. “Might see it this week because [Illinois] had an extra week. With one week time, you don’t see it that much in college compared to the NFL.

“We’ve got other good players. Marcus [Washington] has come on, Ollie [Martin] had a 100-yard game, Travis [Vokolek] is healthy. Then, you’ve got to find a guy who’s got the single coverage.”