7 things learned about Nebraska football through seven games this season

Nebraska football has reached the bye week with a 5-2 record. It feels like that record should be 7-0 or 6-1. As Matt Rhule said, the Huskers are two plays away from being a top-10 team.

Close only counts in horseshoes, though. You don’t get credit for almost winning a football game; otherwise, fans would feel differently about Nebraska football over the past decade.

The Huskers still have every goal on the table. At this point, the only way out is through. As Rhule said, nothing “happened” to Nebraska. This team just needs to play better. Not just in the fourth quarter, but in all four quarters.

Looking back at the first seven games, here are seven things we have learned.

This is Matt Rhule’s best team

It remains to be seen if this team finishes with the best record of the Rhule era, but there’s no doubt this is his most complete team. You wonder what this team would look like with Emmett Johnson, but Anthony Colandrea has been as good as advertised. At times, even better.

The defense looks like it did during the first two seasons. The offense has been more explosive than it has ever been, and the Huskers led Indiana by 11 in the fourth quarter. They led Oregon by eight and didn’t trail in either game until late in the fourth quarter.

Nebraska football needs to beat good teams. It has to win games in November, but through seven games, it feels like Rhule’s team has turned a corner. We have seen it with our own eyes. They just need to finish.

Anthony Colandrea is good enough to keep

Rhule said some SEC teams were tampering with Colandrea, and who could blame them? Colandrea is accounting for 271 total yards per game with 18 touchdowns (four rushing). He’s the second-leading rusher on the team and is completing 62 percent of his throws.

Nebraska football started talking with Colandrea last month about coming back next season under a new contract. His play through seven games only stresses how important it will be to get him back.

The Huskers have found a playmaker at quarterback. They need to keep him as long as possible.

The running backs haven’t been good enough

Through three games, it felt like there wasn’t going to be that much drop-off in terms of running back production. Nebraska ran for over 200 yards in four of the first five games.

Since then, the rushing production has fallen off. Jamal Rule has 22 carries for 68 yards (2.8 average) in conference play. He’s been banged up, but it hasn’t looked the same. Mekhi Nelson has 143 yards on 44 carries (3.3 average) in league play, while Isaiah Mozee has 20 carries for 97 yards (4.9 average). He will be out “for a while.”

Rule will have a chance to go against Washington in two weeks, but the running back room looks thin. In all, the top three Nebraska football running backs have 86 carries for 308 yards (3.5 per carry).

Matt Rhule said Nebraska felt good about the running backs, but after half the Big Ten schedule has been played, it feels like one of the team’s biggest weaknesses.

The offensive line has improved

Nebraska football has allowed 14 sacks through seven games. The Huskers were in the top 60 heading into the Oregon game, so it hasn’t been a strong suit, per se, but the sacks haven’t crippled the Nebraska offense the way they did under Dylan Raiola.

The Huskers allowed five sacks against Indiana. Most of them were on Colandrea. At times, he spends too much time trying to make something happen instead of just throwing it away.

That’s something you live with because he has avoided more sacks than he has taken. Oregon and Indiana combined for nine sacks, though. The running game was consistent, so we’ll reserve our final judgment for the final five games.

Rob Aurich has been a home-run hire

Some Nebraska football fans will want to blame the defense for the past two games. It’s fair in the sense that if it had gotten one more stop, Nebraska might have won the game.

That being said, holding Indiana and Oregon to a combined 37 points sounds pretty remarkable, considering Penn State equaled that number in one game last season with a backup quarterback.

The Blackshirts are allowing just 271 yards per game. They are giving up just 15.4 points per game (16th) and have the best third-down defense in college football (19.4 percent). Oregon and Indiana converted 4 of 28 third-down attempts.

The Huskers are tied for 13th in sacks (18) and rank 44th in tackles for loss (36). There have been improvements across the board, and Aurich has been one of Rhule’s best hires.

Does the defense need to be better in the fourth quarter? Yes. However, you can’t deny the night-and-day difference from last season.

Special teams are a problem

If it weren’t for a strange holding call against a Michigan State defensive lineman, the special teams would have had a major error in three of the four Big Ten games.

Nebraska missed a field goal in a three-point loss against Indiana. It was a chip shot in the first half that went wide because of a bad snap. Another bad snap forced Archie Wilson to catch the ball on one knee, making him down and giving Oregon a free field goal.

Jacory Barney also fumbled a punt. He was fortunate to avoid disaster. The kickoff return game keeps putting the offense inside its own 20, and for a team this good, it’s a shame that the Huskers are back to having one of the worst special teams units in the Big Ten.

The impact of that was felt against Oregon and Indiana. Moving on from Mike Ekeler was fine, but the Huskers needed a proven coach.

Anything less than eight wins is a disappointment

Nebraska dropped two winnable games. It has five left, with three on the road. That’s not easy to manage. Washington and Ohio State are the home games.

Rutgers, Illinois, and Iowa are the road games. The Huskers could go 5-0. They could go 0-5. Anything less than a 3-2 record in the last month will be a major disappointment. Frankly, if this team can’t find a way to beat Iowa — if Rhule’s best team can’t beat Iowa in Year 4 — that will say a lot about the program’s progress, or lack thereof.

For More Nebraska content, follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook Page, and subscribe to the Husker Big Red YouTube Channel.