‘Nobody blinked’: It could have unraveled after Bell’s long TD, but Blackshirts made sure it didn’t | Football

“I just knew they wanted to give him the ball,” Taylor-Britt said. “I just knew with me playing on the outside they were going to test that one-on-one.”

Outside of Bell’s long touchdown, the Huskers held him and Rondale Moore in check. The two combined for 23 catches for 210 yards, so they made the Huskers work. But neither was able to take over. Moore’s longest catch was 19 yards and he averaged just 6 yards per grab.

“Those guys have some really good wideouts, some really good skill, and you’re never going to stop them, but I thought we did a decent job containing them,” NU coach Scott Frost said.

A big part of Nebraska’s success in slowing down Purdue’s passing game started up front. The Huskers harassed Plummer throughout the first half and sacked him three times. Stille was involved on two of those.

Nebraska held Purdue to minus-2 yards rushing, its best outing in that category since holding Michigan to minus-6 yards in 2013. That forced the Boilermakers to rely on Plummer, Bell and Moore. Plummer dropped back 54 times and was 33-of-47 passing for 334 yards.

Purdue crossed into Husker territory on eight consecutive drives, scoring only three touchdowns in that stretch. Nebraska clamped down when it needed to, especially late in the game.

“We had been playing pretty well all day on ‘D,’ I think, so it really wasn’t doing anything different than we’ve been doing all day,” Stille said of Bell’s 89-yard score. “We just had to stick to our job, keep doing our job to our best of our ability and plays were going to come to us.”