We're into mid-September and College Football is starting to heat up! There have been some great games thus far, and with more big matchups on the horizon, its only going to get better for us fans. As we look back at the last week of College Football, we have an impressive Husker victory, a couple of crazy highlight plays, and a poor performance week for the BIG 10 in most cases. This post will break down my thoughts on the Huskers' victory over the Huskies of Northern Illinois and some interesting happenings throughout the weekend of CFB. Be sure to share with your football loving friends and enjoy!
The Huskers looked impressive on Saturday evening as they cruised past the NIU Huskies with a 44-8 victory in Memorial Stadium. With easily the best performance of 2019, Nebraska racked up 525 total yards on offense (238 rushing, 287 passing) and held the Huskies to just 74 yards rushing with 11 tackles for loss and 3 sacks. NIU's air raid torched the Blackshirt secondary for 276 yards, but the Huskers did keep the Huskies out of the endzone. The performance was solid, as Nebraska was only faulted for 1 penalty and suffered only 1 turnover on a fumble by RB Dedrick Mills. Check out my full break down of the game with the GOOD, EXPECTED and BAD categories.
GOOD- The Blackshirts. Nebraska's defense has really impressed me early on in the season, and their performance against Northern Illinois was probably their best yet. While there are still holes to fix, the Blackshirts held Northern Illinois out of the endzone and to just 25% (5/20) on third down conversions. The Huskies averaged just 2.3 yards per carry rushing the ball, and were often times struggling to find any room in the backfield. The secondary did give up nearly 300 through the air, and if NIU could hit the deep ball they would've had at least two TDs over the top, maybe more. As always, screws need to be tightened, but I like how this defense is attacking the ball. Still too many poor/missed tackles for my liking, but the Blackshirts are the strength of this team right now. Very good performance last Saturday.
EXPECTED- Improved offensive performance. Following the catastrophic meltdown at Colorado, and with BIG 10 play looming in front of the Huskers, this was an important game for the offense to step up in. There's still a lot of work to be done for this unit (which will be discussed shortly), but dropping 44 points against a team that usually plays tough against Power 5 competition is impressive on its own. Adrian still doesn't quite look like himself, but finished the game with 257 through the air, 44 on the ground and 3 total TDs. Mills led the rushing attack with 116 yards, and the Huskers totaled 238 on the ground. This unit is still young, and will get better as the season progresses. It's good to see the improvement, and it's even better to see Kanawai Noa catch some passes. The wideout caught his first passes as a Husker, including a beautiful back corner TD. If/when Adrian can get into a rhythm with him, this air attack will do some damage.
BAD- The offense's identity. Yes, I did just give praise for the offensive performance, and was overall impressed. However, after listening to David Pollack on College Gameday along with discussing the topic with some friends, the Huskers do not have much of an identity on offense. While I am someone who enjoys having many different things going on at once, an offense is hard to run that way. From my analysis, Coach Frost and his team are still trying to find their identity. They're running such a large variety of plays, it can be difficult to track which scheme they're in at times. One drive will focus on the ground attack and getting the play makers in space with short swing routes and screens, when the next will feature three straight passes to start the drive, trying to break it open down field. Again, I'm all for variety, but with football it's a dangerous game. I think this offense would be able to settle in more if the system was a bit more focused. There is too much youth to try and through the entire play book at them, so why not break it down and start to specialize in areas while adding tidbits of other pieces. This team is obviously hungry, but you do have to eat in moderation. This is a difficult concept to wrap my own head around, but I believe the Huskers would have a bit more success and settle down if their offensive play calls were more focused.
This was a great confidence boost for Nebraska, and I think the players are starting to really see what their talent will lead them to if they play within Coach Frost's system and focus on the basics. There are still issues on special teams and with tackling, but the team is starting to gel. The offensive line has been much more impressive over the last couple games, but the Jamies injury will be important to watch. They have an important road game against the Fightin' Illini up next, hopefully breaking that 8 game road losing streak!
Other highlights from week 3 in College Football:
- Kansas, where did that come from?! The Jayhawks were 20 point underdogs and trailed early before pulling a 24 point upset on the road. With the Mad-Hatter at the helm, you never know what headaches KU could cause in the Big XII.
- Florida escaped Kentucky, but it came with a big cost losing their QB Franks. Brutal injury.
- UCF making another great case for G5 teams with a statement win against Stanford.
- Virginia survives a scare from the Seminoles and a young fan has started selling Lemonade to buy out Willie Taggart. Things are not good in Tallahassee.
- USC nipped by the Cougars on the road and BYU is building momentum in these tight games.
- I'm still trying to figure out how Mississippi State QB got up after flying like a helicopter...
- The BIG 10 did not represent well over the weekend with Purdue getting thumped by the Frogs at home, Michigan State falling to the Sun Devils after nearly sending it to overtime but missing the re-kick after their penalty, and "Scaryland" not being very scary when facing Temple on the road. Also, Minnesota barely survived Georgia Southern at home.
- Iowa State lost their shot at victory in arguably the most Iowa State way possible.
- Credit to the Citadel for yet again beating a Power 5 team in their home stadium.
Thank you all for reading my reflection post and be sure to watch for my Week 4 Predictions coming out soon. GO BIG RED!
#CFBKnowItAll
Alex Fernando
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