Nebraska football got the first win of the Matt Rhule era on Saturday night against Northern Illinois and here are three takeaways.
There were a couple of problematic moments for Nebraska football on Saturday night, but for the most part, they were few and far between.
Nebraska’s defense was outstanding and if not for a turnover that gave Northern Illinois the ball in the red zone, the Blackshirts would have pitched a shutout.
They stuffed the run, holding a third straight opponent below 60 yards on the ground. In fact, Nebraska held NIU to just 149 yards total.
The offense won’t be confused for USC or anything, but the 14-play drive in the second half was beautiful. Heinrich Haarberg did have a fumble, but he played really well outside of that. I loved how the staff ran him at will. He also threw the ball well and more than anything, he was smart with it.
I don’t even remember a pass that was really close to being intercepted. The offensive line dominated in the second half and here are three takeaways from the Huskers’ 35-11 win.
Heinrich Haarberg was up to the task
I’m not quite ready to say that Haarberg should be the starting quarterback going forward, but he certainly made a case for himself on Saturday night. When he left the game, he had completed 14-of-24 passes for 158 yards. He also had two touchdowns and zero interceptions.
There was a fumble on a strip sack, but it’s hard to blame that on him. He also carried the ball 21 times for 98 yards. His effectiveness on the QB sneak was a real weapon and he’s a punishing runner for a quarterback.
Frankly, it was fun to watch him lower the shoulder on opposing tacklers. He also threw the ball better than I thought. Is his deep ball great? No. But he throws well enough to win with.
My thoughts are that for now, the Huskers can allow Jeff Sims more time to get healthy because the kid from Kearney played pretty damn good in his first career start.
It was a MAC team however and one that lost to Southern Illinois last week. Still, it’s hard to complain about what Heinrich did. He made some plays on third down (Huskers converted 8-of-14) and got touchdowns in the red zone.
Mission accomplished.
The defense is fun to watch
Northern Illinois doesn’t exactly have an explosive offensive, but this Huskies team did beat Boston College two weeks ago. This wasn’t a walk in the park and the Blackshirts were suffocating.
The Huskers allowed one yard per rushing attempt. One. There was absolutely nowhere to go and the pass rush was solid once again as Rocky Lombardi was running for his life much of the night.
Nebraska was credited with just three sacks but the pressure was there all night. Nash Nutmacher and Ty Robinson owned the line of scrimmage. The linebackers — all of them — did some good things and the secondary did a great job of playing the ball.
The tackling has also been exquisite. There are five or six guys rallying to the ball on every play and this defense is going to keep the Huskers in a lot of games.
The O-line took over
Nebraska’s offensive line has gotten lots of criticism, yet they took over in the second half, rushing for 147 yards in the second half and getting more than five yards per attempt.
Nebraska football ran the ball 48 times and got 206 yards total. The Huskers averaged 4.8 yards per attempt and had three rushing touchdowns in the second half to put the game away.
Anthony Grant, Gabe Ervin, and Haarberg all scored rushing touchdowns in the second half. This was exactly the kind of fourth quarter Matt Rhule said he wanted Nebraska to be able to play.
Yes, there was a garbage-time touchdown for NIU, but Nebraska lived in the four-minute offense and controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.
It was just Northern Illinois. I understand that. It was still a thing of beauty.
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