Nebraska defense’s toughest test comes after biggest letdown

The Huskers came into the season knowing they’d be challenged by an Ohio State team that does it all on offense.

Behind a senior quarterback, two running backs who average around 7 yards per carry and a pair of dynamic wide receivers who are bound for the NFL, Ohio State has built an offense that scores the sixth-most points (43.5 points) and totals the sixth-most yards (503) per game in the country.

A Nebraska defense that began the season among the nation’s best might be up for the challenge — but how can the Huskers remain confident one week after allowing 495 yards and having 56 points hung on them in a loss to Indiana?

“Personally, now I’ve flushed it,” defensive back Marques Buford said of last week’s loss. “It happened, stuff like that happens and there’s nothing I can do to go back and change anything that happened. The only thing that I can do personally is as a leader on this team, (to) make sure that every guy on this roster is ready for this upcoming game.”

Senior Isaac Gifford had a similar take on things as Nebraska readies for its trip to face No. 4 Ohio State on Saturday.

“It’s not my first ass-whooping,” Gifford said Tuesday. “You’ve only got one option, and that’s to keep fighting.”

Gifford isn’t wrong, though the 49-point loss Nebraska suffered last week was the program’s biggest margin of defeat under head coach Matt Rhule.

Unfortunately for the Huskers, lopsided games have been commonplace when facing the Buckeyes. Since Nebraska won the first Big Ten matchup between the two teams in 2011, Ohio State has won the last seven meetings. The average margin of victory across those contests is 30.8 points, with a 62-3 blowout in 2016 looming above the rest.

It’ll be up to the Nebraska defense to prevent that trend from continuing and to bounce back from last week’s struggles as well.

Standing in Nebraska’s way, though, is an offense that challenges teams from every angle. Having watched the tape of Indiana’s success at running the ball against the Huskers, Ohio State will look to establish the run immediately and set the tone up front.

Running backs TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, who defensive coordinator Tony White said are “some of the best backs in the country,” lead an Ohio State rushing attack that sits at 5.9 yards per carry overall. Nebraska, in comparison, averages 3.7 yards per carry.

Quarterback Will Howard is a danger with his legs, too, in addition to the 1,574 yards and 14 touchdowns he’s totaled in the air.

A former Kansas State quarterback, Howard was a one-time teammate of former Husker Adrian Martinez — and watching those games was Gifford’s first introduction to the player he’ll go against this weekend.

“He controls the game really well,” Gifford said of Howard. “He knows where to get that ball, he’s got playmakers everywhere and he knows how to get it in their hands.”

Chief among those playmakers are Emeka Egbuka and Jeremiah Smith, a pair the NFL-bound receivers who’ve both crossed the 500-yard mark already this season. According to Rhule, Ohio State often runs the ball to set up one-on-one opportunities for its wide receivers later in the game — the exact type of situation that burned Nebraska against Indiana.

“Coming out of last week, we understand how well we have to play in space,” Rhule said.

While it’s up to the players to execute on the field, a large portion of Nebraska’s ability to bounce back will depend on how its coaches set the Huskers up to play. White acknowledged missteps in his game plan for Indiana, saying that he needs to scheme up ways to get more players around the ball rather than solo tackling situations.

Ohio State runs a complex, challenging offense that tries to produce those one-on-one situations, so it’s up to White to devise a way to make sure the Huskers aren’t outnumbered in key spots.

“They’re always motioning, shifting and trading. They try to get numbers advantages out on the perimeter (where) they’ll put five guys to a side and they’ll change pictures on you,” White said of the Ohio State offense. “X’s and O’s-wise you’ve got to at least negate the advantage that they have by numbers; you’ve got to have good leverage on the ball.”

With the wealth of talent present in the Ohio State offense, all the Buckeyes needed was a top-level coordinator to make it all click — and they got just that over the offseason.

No longer enamored with the stresses of being a head coach, particularly when it came to recruiting, Chip Kelly instead sought an opportunity where he could simply build an offense, call the plays and focus on the football.

Ohio State rightly jumped on the opportunity to lock down perhaps the most overqualified offensive coordinator in college football. Since his spread offense at Oregon changed the college football landscape forever, Kelly spent the better part of the last 15 years as a collegiate and NFL head coach.

Now, he’s ready to pick apart the Blackshirts.

“It’s Chip Kelly, right? He’s gonna find a way to run the ball,” Rhule said on Monday.

Closing those angles and playing a team of Ohio State’s quality will require the Nebraska defense to be “physical from the jump” and sound in their technique according to Gifford. While last week’s loss to Indiana is firmly in the rearview mirror at this point, Nebraska will need to apply the lessons it learned from facing another high-powered offense.

The Huskers know just how difficult of a challenge they’re set to face this Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, and they’re hopeful that going back to the basics in practice this week will produce the response they’re looking for.

“If you don’t know what to do and how to do things, it doesn’t matter who you play, you’re not going to play well,” White said. “It always comes back to us being at zero and just building ourselves back up to that point where you’re on the edge and you can just go play.”