By Brian Rosenthal / Huskers.com
He’d just been given final clearance to play earlier Saturday morning, his symptoms of a concussion no longer prevalent.
Now, with his Nebraska football team knotted with Minnesota in the fourth quarter, senior quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. returned to the field after having left with an ankle injury on the Huskers’ previous series.
By the time he powered Nebraska to its game-winning, 13-play, 91-yard scoring drive with his 13-yard touchdown run, Armstrong had yet another ailment.
Offensive linemen Jerald Foster and Tanner Farmer literally carried Armstrong off the field as the Memorial Stadium crowd of 90,456 roared its approval, not only of Armstrong’s determination and effort, but of his score that gave No. 19 Nebraska a 24-17 victory to halt a two-game losing skid.
What did Armstrong say to Foster and Farmer?
“Honestly, I told them to put me down, at first. I just wanted to sit down,” Armstrong said, eliciting laughter at Nebraska’s postgame news conference.
Head athletic trainer Mark Mayer immediately headed to Armstrong on the sideline.
Was it his ankle again?
No, Armstrong said. His hamstring.
To which Mayer responded, “All right, you’re done.”
Well, for this night, anyway. Armstrong has one more home game remaining in his Husker career, next week against Maryland.
“I won’t be sitting out for that,” Armstrong said. “I’ll be guaranteeing that.”
Armstrong made similar statements to teammates, notably roommate and fellow senior Jordan Westerkamp, not long after he’d been briefly knocked unconscious and sent to the hospital during Nebraska’s previous game, a 62-3 defeat at Ohio State.
Armstrong went through concussion protocol last week and sat out practices until Thursday, when he donned a green no-contact practice jersey and participated in most of Nebraska’s workout.
Nobody knew for certain he’d play until Saturday morning.
“I told the guys this week isn’t about me, it’s about the team,” Armstrong said. “There were a lot of (questions about) what’s happening with me and if I’m going to play or not, and I told them, ‘Hey, you guys just prepare like you guys need to, and I’ll be taking mental reps.’
“In my mind set, like I told Jordan on Sunday and Monday, I was going to play, regardless. I wanted to be out there with those guys.”
When Nebraska began its game-winning drive at its 9-yard line, with 12:57 remaining in a 17-17 game, and with Armstrong’s banged-up ankle given a fresh tape job, head coach Mike Riley and offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf asked Armstrong what plays he felt physically comfortable running.
“I just told them to just open up the playbook,” Armstrong said. “If they needed quarterback runs, I was there to run. If we needed to throw the ball and have some scrambles outside the pocket, I could do that, too.”
On the second play of the drive, Armstrong hit junior receiver De’Mornay Pierson-El on a short screen pass, and the speedy Pierson-El turned the reception into a 29-yard gain. The play was symbolic of Nebraska’s offensive success against a Minnesota defense bent on stopping the run.
The Gophers played soft coverage on the outside, and Langsdorf, from the opening drive on, continually had Armstrong attack the perimeter, with Pierson-El, Westerkamp and Alonzo Moore, along with running backs Terrell Newby and Tre Bryant, capitalizing with sizeable catch-and-runs.
“We wanted to make sure if they were going to do that, load it up (in the middle), that we were going to try to get out there,” Langsdorf said. “It helped us. It loosened it up a little bit in the box. It gave us some inside runs later on that helped us, that we needed. It’s something we studied and felt good about in the game plan.”
It also allowed Armstrong to find a rhythm throwing the football and doing so with a favorable, confidence-building completion percentage. Armstrong entered the game completing 51.3 percent of his passes for the season, and only 41.7 percent over his previous four games.
Against Minnesota, Armstrong was 19-of-27 passing, with no interceptions and two touchdowns, both on screen passes, to Bryant and Newby.
“We hit some of those quick throws that were kind of big for us to kind of get that confidence back and going,” Langsdorf said. “Any time you’re able to do that and get that completion percentage up, it sets up a better balance.”
Armstrong completed three more passes on the game-winning touchdown drive, which turned out to be his last drive of the game after he tweaked his hamstring on his 13-yard scoring run up the middle.
“Honestly, it kind of got to me when I crossed the goal line. I planted on my leg and it kind of felt like a quick shot up my thigh,” said Armstrong, who ran nine times for 61 yards. “I think I’ll be all right. At the end of the day, I wanted to make sure I was out there with those guys, working my tail off to win the game.”
To nobody’s surprise, that’s how the scenario unfolded, with Nebraska winning its 19th consecutive home night game.
“You all know Tommy,” Riley said. “You’ve seen him for years and he is very, very competitive and doesn’t ever like to come out of the game and always thinks he’s going to make the next play, which I really admire about him.”
A reporter asked Armstrong what was on his mind last week as he sat out of practice.
Symbols, numbers and letters, he jokingly replied, referrencing the concussion protocol.
“They did a good job. I thanked them a lot,” Armstrong said of Nebraska’s athletic trainers, doctors and medical staff. “They made sure they thought of the student first. They did a great job of making sure I was OK. I think I made the right decision. I trust those guys.”
Nebraska (8-2, 5-2 Big Ten Conference) now prepares for its final home game against Maryland. The Huskers are still alive in the Big Ten West Division race but must win their final two games and hope for a Wisconsin loss – perhaps in the regular-season finale to rival Minnesota (7-3, 4-3).
“Minnesota is a tough-minded team who has gotten better and better all year long and made plays to win,” Riley said.
Yet once again, Riley’s Huskers made just a few more, thanks to their gutty senior quarterback.
“I suppose by this time of the year," Riley said, "we can describe this as a typical Husker win."
Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.