On what felt like the perfect night for an upset, Wisconsin rumbled away with a 38-17 victory over the Huskers. I, like most of you, was not only disappointed with the outcome, but more so with the consistent mediocrity of our team. The Huskers played fairly well up until the mid third quarter. That's when Wisconsin decided to just run the ball over and over again, wearing down a defense that was left on the field far too long. Yes, it's obvious that Wisconsin is just a stronger team, but Nebraska had countless opportunities to take over and win this game. Let's dive into the details...
Starting with the offense, I don't think I've ever seen a team start a game by throwing a pick six not once, not twice, but THREE times in a season, let alone half of a season. A fabulous opening drive was ruined yet again by one of the most pointless plays in the Husker playbook, the bubble screen. Don't get me wrong, I've seen bubble screens work and I've ran them myself, they can be deadly... but only if blocked well. We don't have stellar blocking on the edge like we did back when Quincy Enunwa and Kenny Bell were around, so the play is a gamble out of the gate. The other issue apart from blocking is how easy the play is to read. That's how the Northern Illinois pick six happened. Regardless if they get the interception or not, being able to read a play so quickly allows the defense to attack from early on in the play. That's when its left up to the blockers and how quickly they can get set up to create a lane. It hasn't been working and will continue to not work for the foreseeable future. STOP TRYING IT!! Especially within our own 20 yard line, it's just not a good play for Nebraska. They can't seem to run it correctly, yes Zig probably should've caught it, but no matter what, this play has been pure poison for the Huskers all season long.
Looking at the rest of the game for the offense, pretty mediocre. The run game was okay, not great by any means, but Ozigbo did finish with 112 yards and averaged 4.9 yards per carry. Tanner looked okay as well, throwing for 262 with 1 big TD to Stanley and the pick six. His completion rating was only 50%, but you can chalk that up to some drops by his wideouts. In my opinion, he played well enough for Nebraska to win the game. However, the inability to finish drives ended up killing that dream. Nebraska punted 5 times in this game, and I'm positive at least 3 of those were on Wisconsin's side of the 50. The Huskers consistently moved the ball until they reached the 35-40ish yard line of Wisconsin, and then stopped. Anywhere near mid-field seems to be similar to the Bermuda Triangle when it comes Nebraska's productivity on offense, because it disappears. I think play-calling is a big part of the issue, but between the 40s, the offense needs to improve drastically. The inability to sustain drives leaves the defense on the field for too long, and against a team like Wisconsin, they'll wear down eventually.
Switching to the defensive side of the ball, I thought the Blackshirts played a damn good game (apart from the 75 yard run right before half time). Yes, they wore down in the end, but that 4th Quarter wasn't even fair for them. Nebraska's offense only ran 6 plays for the entire 4th Quarter. Wisconsin had the ball the rest of the time. Looking back at the defense, they played well, but not great. They too missed a number of great opportunities to capitalize on and take this game over. The first being the aforementioned 75 yard TD run for Johnathan Taylor and the second being after they had just gotten a pick six on Hornibrook and tied the game at 17. Wisconsin is not a team that makes many mistakes, let alone penalties, but they had 8 in this game. A couple of those penalties lead to the Badgers being pushed back to their 7 yard line immediately following the pick six by Aaron Williams with a tie game and Memorial Stadium rocking. As a defender, I cannot imagine a better scenario to step up and take over this game. This was my big turning point in the game, the defense needed to make a stop. From this point onward, Wisconsin only ran 2 pass plays for the rest of the game, both on this drive. One for a 3rd down completion where Lamar Jackson fell down covering his receiver on a crossing route and the other on the touch down where Eric Lee Jr. fell down covering his man in the endzone. Apart from that the Badgers just ran over, around and through the Blackshirt defense. Again, some of this was due to getting worn out by their offensive line that late in the game, but to give up a 93 yard touchdown drive with big chunk runs all the way down the field after you had just tied the game is not how you keep the momentum. They'll be challenged yet again this week with Ohio State, so we'll see what happens. Our safeties were the leading tacklers in the game against Wisconsin, showing that Taylor was not getting touched until the second and third levels. Right now, we can only hope for the best.
Overall, a solid performance early on in the game, but a lack of capitalizing on opportunities and a lack of consistency defeated the Huskers yet again. We'll see how they look this week with another big one at home. Thanks for reading and GO BIG RED!
#CollegeFootballKnowItAll
Alex Fernando
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