Nebraska football beats Purdue: Report Card

Nebraska coaches gave Emmett Johnson a chance, and he made them look like geniuses. Johnson started to get the bulk of the carries in the second half, ripping off runs of 9, 11 and 16 yards to finish with 50 yards on eight tries. Dante Dowdell had five carries for 9 yards in the first half. Jacory Barney was electric — he had 66 yards on four runs, including a 25-yard touchdown run on an end-around. 

For a while, Nebraska’s best offensive weapon was a Purdue pass interference penalty. Dylan Raiola was savvy in drawing them over and over again to extend drives. Raiola finished with 257 yards and a touchdown, and he continues to keep the ball out of harm’s way. He completed 63% of his attempts. Raiola’s passes over the middle of the field in which he floats it just over a leaping linebacker and into his receiver’s hands are becoming one of his trademarks.

Purdue’s Devin Mockobee gets all of the attention, but Reggie Love III is no slouch. On this day, though, neither had much success against the Blackshirts’ interior. The Boilermaker pair combined for 74 yards on 23 plays — that’s an average of just 3.2 yards per carry. Give credit to the big guys up front, but also to the Huskers’ linebackers who crashed into running lanes early and often.

John Bullock had a pick-six to put an exclamation point on a huge second half for the Huskers. He said afterward that it was the first time he’s had the ball in his hands since high school! Malcolm Hartzog had one of the better plays of the entire game, breaking up a pass deep down the field that was in the hands of a much taller Max Klare, who stands 6-foot-4, 240 pounds. Hartzog is 5-9, 180.

Man alive. Nebraska’s first missed field goal of the game was simply that, a miss. The other two were blocked as a result of low snaps — one by both of NU’s long-snappers — that had Brian Buschini trying to dig footballs out of the turf. Nebraska. Simply put: the Huskers need to figure this out immediately. John Hohl is already inexperienced — the choppy operation before the ball meets his foot is too much to overcome.

Nebraska continues to take its sweet time when it possesses the ball in the red zone at the end of the second quarter as if it actually thinks Purdue is going to move the ball all the way down the field in less than one minute. The Huskers had a few costly false starts, but the big one is an offensive pass interference call on Thomas Fidone that negated a touchdown. That call was bad. Later, Matt Rhule received an unsportsmanlike penalty for slamming down his headset.

It felt like Nebraska was a bit heavy-handed in calling pass plays in the first half. Offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield has made Barney a priority, and it was great to see him get four carries. You know who else got a carry? Carter Nelson. The true freshman wide receiver took a handoff at the 1-yard line and nearly leaped over the pile for a touchdown. A fun wrinkle for sure, but it would have been nice to see one of NU’s running backs that made the trip get that chance.

My guess is Nebraska fans aren’t going to be thrilled with this one because of the choppy first half. And that’s fair. But scoring 28 straight points in 23 minutes of game time is impressive, no matter who you’re playing.