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BTN analyst Gerry DiNardo, who has forgotten more about football than most media will ever know, watched Nebraska's practice Monday as part of the annual BTN bus tour. Here are eight of his takeaways, as told to the Journal Star as the tour made its way to Iowa:

1. Nebraska looks much better physically across the board than it did a year ago, he said.

"It's not even close," he said. "The best way to describe it is, when you looked at them last year, you'd say, 'This doesn't look like Nebraska.' This year, you'd say, 'This is what Nebraska's supposed to look like.'

"I must say Minnesota looks much better physically as well. If you just look across the Big Ten West, I think it's making a push to be maybe the most balanced division in college football. Not the best, but the most balanced."

2. The quarterback depth behind starter Adrian Martinez jumped out at DiNardo. He's talking about, in no certain order, Noah Vedral, Luke McCaffrey, Andrew Bunch and Matt Masker.

"Everyone's struggling with quarterback depth and Nebraska looks like it could be three deep in a world of transferring quarterbacks," DiNardo said. "It seems like Nebraska's ahead of the curve in that regard."