“We got two touchdowns early in the game, but there’s no points on the board, ” coach Mike Riley said. “I don’t think there were a whole lot of plays that we couldn’t have stopped”. They are 1-2 on the season so far.
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NU failed repeatedly to stop Tommy Armstrong Jr., Nebraska’s senior quarterback, who threw for 246 yards and added 132 on the ground. However, things seem different through the first three games of the season.
NORTHWESTERN: Coach Pat Fitzgerald has been criticizing his team for not finishing drives.
But I’m mostly nitpicking at this point.
“But I’ll tell you what the best thing, about that is we came back and just had to keep playing”.
Nebraska’s first two possessions of the second half couldn’t have been drawn up any better by offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf on the grease board at the break. That score came on a 10-yard touchdown run by Jordan Westerkamp. The Huskers left 21 points out on the field and could have comfortably won this game 42-13 (substitute a Westerkamp touchdown for Brown’s field goal).
Nebraska had seven penalties in the game for 55 yards, but OR was called for 13 penalties and 126 yards.
In the first half of play, Nebraska tallied 285 total offensive yards compared to the 206 put up by Northwestern.
“We’re not getting off the field on third down”, Fitzgerald said after his team allowed Nebraska to complete eight-of-15 third and fourth down conversions.
“There was a nice cut block and after I got past that there was no one there”, Thorson said.
Ready for grass: The Huskers have continued to practice on grass on the infield of Ed Weir Stadium, right outside the Hawks Championship.
“I think [there’s value] for sure”, Riley said. Thorson has just a 49-percent completion rate and Jackson is averaging about 87 yards, though he is going against a team that gave up 336 yards on the ground last week. One play later, Newby rushed four yards for the Cornhuskers’ first touchdown and a 10-7 lead.NOTES: Nebraska opened its sixth Big Ten season with a ideal (3-0) non-conference record for the second time in three years. They also fumbled the ball twice into the end zone, which led to two Northwestern touchbacks. It would have been easy for the Huskers to come into this game with a victory hangover after last weekend’s thriller.
“Tommy Armstrong just being Tommy Armstrong”, receiver Stanley Morgan Jr. said.
“We were in one of our base defenses and knew that No. 6 (Nelson) was a guy they like to get the ball to”, said the 6-foot-1, 195-pound Williams. Tonight’s game marked Armstrong’s second career 100-yard rushing game. Nebraska’s offense was one of the nation’s best at picking up yards when behind the chains and Northwestern’s defense was one of the best at preventing them. The Cornhuskers knocked on the door after a 59-yard pass from Armstrong to Alonzo Moore.
This has seen running backs Devine Ozigbo and Terrell Newby combine for over 350 yards and five touchdowns.
Nebraska (4-0) remained unbeaten coming off a tight win over OR that vaulted the ‘Huskers into The Associated Press poll for the first time since December 2014.
Through three games this season Northwestern had been very good at keeping teams out of the end zone. Nebraska scored 30 or more points in eight games previous year.
Nebraska can boast five national championships, 46 conference titles, three Heisman Trophy winners and an 883-368-40 record that makes it the fourth-winningest program.
This time, Tennessee delivered the comeback by scoring 38 consecutive points.
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Northwestern now heads into October, with Iowa, Michigan State and Ohio State all looming, and faces the task of turning their season around.
