Nebraska wide receiver Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda ruled out for remainder of season
Some unfortunate news came out of Lincoln on Monday as Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule revealed that starting wide receiver Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda will miss the remainder of the season after suffering from a torn ACL injury.
The Cornhuskers’ wide receiver room was already struggling with depth, and will now lose one of their most experienced players following an injury he suffered on Thursday versus Minnesota.
Garcia-Castaneda led the team in targets with five but recorded just one catch for seven yards in Thursday’s game versus the Golden Gophers, which will now unfortunately represent his first and last catch of the season.
The unranked, under-recruited wideout attended Twentynine Palms High School in Mission Viejo, California and worked his way to the top of where he is today. Garcia-Castaneda attended Saddleback College his freshman season where he caught 56 passes for 953 yards and 13 touchdowns.
From there he spent two seasons at New Mexico State, recording 41 receptions for 639 yards and four scores, which caught the eye of the Cornhuskers.
He joined Nebraska in the offseason of 2022, but only appeared in four games for the Cornhuskers in his first season with the team. But there’s no doubt that Garcia-Castaneda made the most of his opportunities with five catches for 120 yards and one touchdown in has game appearances.
Garcia-Castaneda was poised to be a big contributor for Nebraska’s offense this season as one of the most experienced members of the wide receiver unit, but now a unit that already had depth problems will have to rely on veterans like Marcus Washington, Billy Kemp, and a cast of younger, more unproven talent.
Regarding Garcia-Castaneda’s injury, Rhule said he was “heartbroken for him” and that now “it’s all hands on deck” for the Cornhusker receiving corps.
Paul Finebaum: It looked like Scott Frost was coaching Nebraska during Week 1
Nebraska started off the Matt Rhule in disappointment, as the Cornhuskers lost in come-from-behind fashion to Minnesota 13-10 on Thursday.
Rhule provided the Nebraska program with new light and hope this offseason following six straight losing seasons, but Thursday night gave Cornhusker fans a feeling that’s all too familiar with them, which college football analyst Paul Finebaum referred to in a recent conversation with ESPN’s Matt Barrie.
“Matt help me with something because I watched the end of the game Thursday night,” Finebaum said. “I thought Nebraska made a coaching change. Why was Scott Frost coaching at the end of that game? Because it did not look any different than what we saw last year.”
Thursday’s loss for Nebraska served as their 14th in one-score games since the 2021 season, with 13 of the losses under the head coaching direction of Frost. There’s no question that the ability to finish games has been a problem in Lincoln, with a 14-2 record in those one-score games since 2021, and unfortunately that trend did not change in Rhule’s debut.
The Cornhuskers played superb defense throughout the night, holding the Golden Gophers to just three points the entire game until Minnesota scored a touchdown and a field goal to win the game in the last three minutes of the contest.