Nebraska football looked sharp, especially on offense, during Saturday’s Red-White spring game.
The Huskers didn’t exit the spring completely unscathed, though, in what was officially their 15th and final practice of 2024 spring ball.
Early in the second quarter, redshirt freshman WR Demitrius Bell and sophomore CB Blye Hill – a transfer addition this offseason out of FCS program St. Francis (PA) – both suffered major injuries.
Matt Rhule provided brief updates on both players in Saturday’s postgame press conference, saying that Bell suffered a “significant” injury and Hill suffered a “semi-significant” injury.
Rhule did not expand much further on each player’s injury, although he said he believed both were to each player’s patellar tendon in the right knee, and he later mentioned that “tears were running down their face” in the locker room after getting injured.
Both injuries came in eerily similar situations.
Both Bell and Hill went down with injuries to their right knee, both grabbed their right knee while laying on the turf writhing in pain, both required a long stoppage in play in order for the Huskers’ training staff to take them both to the locker room on the injury cart for further evaluation, and both happened within two minutes of game time.
Additionally, both injuries happened while Matt Rhule was up in the press box in order to join the Big Ten Network television broadcast for a brief on-air interview with play-by-play man Larry Punteney and color analyst Kenny Bell, a former Husker receiver.
“Oh, jeez. I hate that I’m up here right now,” Rhule said in live reaction to Demitrius Bell going down injured. “Demitrius, you talk about a player that’s come a long way for us. Got here at like 157 pounds, he’s put on 28 pounds of muscle. Put on that weight, has done unbelievable in school, just a wonderful, wonderful person, wonderful young man. Hopefully he’s OK.”
Bell, who has been limited for much of spring ball while dealing with an injury, got hurt on Saturday after he caught a quick out-breaking route, sprinted to the right sideline for a gain of a few yards and was tackled by a pair of Husker defensive teammates with his right knee folding under him at an awkward angle.
Hill, who was seen after the game using crutches and with a knee brace on, was first the victim of a Husker offensive teammate’s illegal blindside block downfield on a pass play. On the very next play, the Husker offense called a quick-pass play toward the right sideline. Hill took one step toward the pass catcher on the sideline, making a cut to change direction in pursuit, and his right knee immediately buckled. He went down to the ground screaming and slamming his right hand repeatedly into the turf.
Both are unfortunate injuries to a pair of players who had been ascending all spring and were in the midst of a rise up the depth chart.
Both have been seen as potential starters come fall – especially Hill, who Rhule said after last Saturday’s scrimmage was in line to be the starting cornerback opposite the team’s No. 1 corner Tommi Hill.
Bell, though at times limited in practice, had been taking some reps with the No. 1 offense, per Inside Nebraska sources, and had been shining in his role.
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