Nebraska football’s defense had a great game plan to stop Iowa star running back Kaleb Johnson and executed it perfectly on 17 of his 19 touches. Johnson’s long touchdown catch was the only play of Iowa’s that crossed the 50-yard line all night.
Explosive plays have been the Huskers’ Achilles heel all season, and unfortunately, they cost the Huskers a game against a team they otherwise dominated. Nebraska was the better team on Black Friday, but Iowa was much more disciplined.
The front seven for the Blackshirts put on a masterclass in stopping the run. In my preview, I called out that Iowa would be vulnerable to getting runs stuffed. The Huskers managed to stuff 52% of Iowa’s run, a 99th-percentile performance in that category. This forced six three-and-outs for the Iowa offense and Johnson’s worst rushing performance of the season.
The matchup between Emmett Johnson and Kaleb Johnson was going to decide this game. After three quarters, Emmett (and the Huskers) won this battle. It only took two explosive plays from Kaleb to put him ahead on the leaderboard. Nebraska struggles to stop the big plays that have plagued it all season. If Dana Holgorsen can help the offense score more points, it will go a long way to helping the defense survive big plays.
By all accounts, Nebraska should have won this game. This can be derived all in a single metric – post-game win probability. Unlike the in-game win probability, which is forward-looking at who is likely to win the game based on the current score, pre-game expectations, and time remaining, post-game win probability uses the final stats to see which team is most likely to win. Given Nebraska’s dominance in the box score, the Husker’s post-game win probability was 93.9%. The 10th highest by a losing team this season.
Despite how well the Huskers played in many metrics, they were dominated in one stat—starting field position. Like in the Illinois and Indiana games, the Huskers started their drives an average of ten yards further away from their opponents. This time, the gap was 18 yards, with Iowa’s average starting field position on its 40 and Nebraska’s starting at its own 22. This advantage was worth about 18 points in favor of Iowa. This has been a self-inflected wound all season, indicating that a change is needed this offseason.
If Nebraska wants to take the next step forward, its discipline must catch up to its talent and production. Iowa scored all its points from the Huskers’ mistakes. Nebraska gets a valuable resource it hasn’t had in several years—three extra weeks of bowl practice. The Huskers need to make the most of this extra time, giving them a jump start on their spring practices and then heading into next fall.
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