3 takeaways from Nebraska football win over Purdue

At halftime on Saturday against Purdue, Nebraska football should have had a three-score lead. Instead, the Huskers found themselves in a 0-0 dogfight.

It would have been easy to fold or panic. Previous Nebraska teams might have done exactly that. However, Dylan Raiola was dealing in the second half.

The Blackshirts forced turnover,  had five sacks and didn’t give up a touchdown until garbage time. There are still some things that the Huskers need to clean up, but you can’t complain about a Big Ten road win (28-10). Here are three takeaways.

Dylan Raiola was special

The difference in the game, beyond a dominant effort from the defense, was the play of Dylan Raiola. The first half was frustrating especially since the Huskers went 0-for-6 on third down and didn’t get any points on six straight drives inside the 40.

Yet, Raiola said after the game he wasn’t “fazed” and he showed it in the second half. Raiola led three touchdown drives after Nebraska fell behind. When the Huskers took the field there were six minutes and change left in the third quarter the game was far from in control.

If the Huskers punted or didn’t score, Purdue could have had a chance to take control with the clocking becoming a factor. Instead, Raiola played like a 5-star with experience beyond his years leading three straight scoring drives. He took one sack, but he did better at getting rid of the ball and finished 16-of-26 for 244 yards and a touchdown.

Things started looking easy for the Nebraska offense in the second half — like it could score on every drive and that’s a reflection of the quarterback play.

Blackshirts looked like the 2022 version

This is the defense we thought Nebraska football was going to have this season. The Huskers got five sacks, allowed Purdue to average 1.6 yards per rushing attempt, and finished off the game with a defensive touchdown.

Nebraska allowed seven first downs and Purdue also made some mistakes on the plus side of the field and didn’t have 200 total yards until the Huskers allowed a garbage time touchdown up 28-3 late in the fourth quarter.

It’s exactly what you wanted to see as a Nebraska football fan. The pass rush was better — the coverage was solid with Ceyair Wright having a good game and the run defense got back to normal. Hopefully.

Special teams will cost the Huskers another game

There are lots of things to like about this win. Emmett Johnson was really good in the second half. Jacory Barney proved he was lightning in a bottle once again.

But it looks like special teams might be a bigger issue than we thought. Nebraska had three field goal attempts and the first one was missed. The next two were blocked.

One positive is that Nebraska scored four touchdowns and I didn’t notice any issues with the snap on any of the extra points (4/4), which caused problems on Saturday.

I’m hoping this is like a golf round and Nebraska is getting all of its bad holes out of the way, but I’m worried the field goal kicking will come back to bite this team again, just like it did last week.

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