Just when I thought it was impossible for Nebraska to find another way to lose, they found one of the most painful ones. Week 7 proved to be chaotic all across the College Football landscape, but especially for the now 0-6 Cornhuskers. Nebraska is now on a 10 game losing streak stemming from last year and off to their worst start in program history. This is just one of the many headlines from last Saturday, and this post will cover all the big headlines! Thanks for the support and read on below to see my reflections on Nebraska and the rest of CFB from Week 7.
Nebraska let victory slip through their grasp, falling in overtime to Northwestern 34-31. This is Nebraska's first loss to the Wildcats in Evanston and with a 10-point lead with around 3 minutes left in the game, everything looked to be in place for the first Husker win of the season. However, nothing is over in College Football until its over, and Northwestern has orchestrated numerous comebacks under Pat Fitzgerald before. I was very impressed with the Wildcat's play throughout the game, especially since they are completely one-dimensional on offense with the loss of RB Jeremy Larkin a few weeks ago. Clayton Thorson finished his 4-year torching of the Blackshirts with a 455 yard, 3 TD, 2 INT performance including a game-tying, 99-yard drive to send it to overtime. Nebraska seemingly had no answer for the Thorson-Nagel duo which racked up 220 yards through the air, 2 TDs and multiple 4th down conversions. A severe lack of pass rush gave Thorson far too much time in the pocket, allowing him to find his open receivers. Offensively, the Huskers played well for most of the game. Another balanced attack finished with 482 total yards and the Huskers even won time of possession by 7 seconds! My detailed breakdown of the game will cover my GOOD, EXPECTED and BAD areas below.
GOOD- Nebraska overall played a great game, apart from the last 3 minutes of regulation. The Huskers offense racked up 482 yards of total offense (231 rushing, 251 passing), lead by another stellar performance by Devine Ozigbo. Ziggy finished with 159 yards and 2 TDs on the ground. Holes were open all over the field and Nebraska's offense looked like one Coach Frost would be proud of. Martinez didn't have the best game, giving up the fumble for a TD, but his two picks were off of a dropped pass and the Hail Mary heave to the endzone in overtime. I think he needed to be used in the ground game a bit more, especially late in the game, but he still racked up 288 yards on his own. This offense has been really starting to click as of late and will continue as time moves on. Receivers are starting to get more separation and breaking out some big plays while the ground game has picked up. Defensively, this was one of our better games for a while, especially in the third quarter where we held Northwestern scoreless. The Blackshirts also forced five punts and picked off Thorson twice. Still a long ways to go, but things are picking up for the defense.
EXPECTED- Clayton Thorson having yet another big day against the Blackshirts. As I alluded to in my predictions post, Thorson has had substantial success in his four years against the Huskers. He's now 3-1 against Nebraska and has accounted for 1,124 passing yards with 5 TDs and 6 picks. They may not seem like the greatest numbers, but that's nearly 300 passing yards per game on average and he's now engineered back to back 4th quarter comebacks to eventually win the game in overtime. I'm not sure if he's looking at an NFL career, he'd have a lot of work to do before he becomes a top tier QB, but his collegiate career has been very fun to watch. I was impressed with his performance in Lincoln his freshman year, and he's gotten better each year since. The Wildcats will have a lot to replace with his leadership being gone next year, but as a Husker fan I'm excited for Thorson to be done throwing the ball against the Huskers!
BAD- The players' execution and staff's coaching during the last two drives of regulation (Nebraska's offensive series and Northwestern's final drive). Starting with the Huskers, a simple first down was needed to end this game. Nebraska took over in plus field position at the Northwestern 47 with 2:21 left on the clock. After three horribly conservative run plays gaining 3 yards and taking of just 16 seconds, the Huskers were forced to punt. Nebraska had been running the ball so well all game long, but went absolutely no where on the three rushes that mattered most. They were very simple plays to read, down blocks for the line and a hand off to Ozigbo allowed Northwestern's stout defense penetrate the line of scrimmage and quickly blow up the plays. I think Adrian's rushing ability should be utilized in a game-breaking situation like that, so I was quite upset with the play-calling. Now onto the 99-yard drive by the Wildcats, you just can't let that happen. Northwestern took over with just under 2 minutes left at their own 1-yard line thanks to an incredible punt by Isaac Armstrong. It doesn't mean much, but this is about the time when ESPN's game predictor had Nebraska with more than a 98% chance to win the game. Clayton Thorson had other ideas however. After yet another dumb penalty by the defense, the Wildcats were quickly out of the hole and on the move. The Huskers finished the game with a season-best 9 penalties!! Northwestern finished with just 1. Anyways, as the drive progressed and the Wildcats started moving the ball, it was clear the defense did not know what to do. After a 32-yard pass to Flynn Nagel, Northwestern had the ball at the Nebraska 32 with 20 seconds left. This is a crucial point in the drive because the Wildcats immediately ran to the line and threw the ball to Tight End Bennett Skowronek for a 27-yard gain down to the Huskers' 5. The Blackshirts were caught off-guard by the tempo (which Northwestern had done a few times throughout the game) and were not set on defense. After Nagel's 32-yard catch, I really think Coach Frost should've taken a time out to slow down the drive and settle his defense. Nebraska finished regulation with two timeouts left and I think a pause there would've been very helpful. It wouldn't have saved Northwestern any time either because Nagel had gone out of bounds after his catch. This is a bang-bang scenario and tough to manage, but Frost needs to watch for that, especially with a defense that has struggled this much all season. Obviously there's a lot of fault to the players when you give up a 99-yard drive in the final 2 minutes, but a timeout to settle this team could've made for a different ending in my opinion. It wasn't just the players who lost this game for Nebraska.
Nebraska played well, but continue to shoot themselves in the foot too many times to end up with a victory. Minnesota hung around with Ohio State until the end in the Horseshoe last week, so you never know what they'll bring to Lincoln this week. I'm anxious to see how the Huskers respond after knowing they definitely should've had that game.
Now for some other news around College Football from Week 7:
- There were 7 different top 25 teams to lose on Saturday (some to other ranked teams), but a handful of other top teams were nearly knocked off as well. The chaos is just beginning folks.
- LSU and Michigan State are absolutely the worst teams to make predictions on in my humbled opinion. The moment I put my faith in them, they lay an egg. The moment I feel like they won't show up, they knock off top 10 teams.
- Penn State's season has been blown up by Ohio State and Michigan State for the second year in a row. The Nittany Lions seemed to have lost their edge since the 4th quarter of the Ohio State game.
- Michigan looks very tough. They have a lot of potential to be challenging the Buckeyes for the BIG 10 East crown later this season.
- The SEC East is completely up for grabs after Georgia's loss. Florida almost fell to their trap game with some very heated competition from the Commodores and Kentucky is looking to bounce back after their BYE week. The fight for the right to lose to Bama should be a good one.
- Iowa State, always impressive with their upsets. West Virginia, you let me down again.
- Don't sleep on Oregon in the Pac-12. Probably won't make the playoffs, but they're in the driver seat for the North Title.
- UCF narrowly escapes Memphis with a win to keep their win-streak alive. Great game but close call.
Thank you all for reading my reflections post! I hope you're all having a fantastic week and are gearing up for Week 8! Predictions will be up on Saturday morning, GO BIG RED!
#CFBKnowItAll
Alex Fernando
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