Reasons For Optimism – Ohio State

Like most of you, I’m sure, I was very encouraged by how the first half went. Offensive and defensive lines not only stood up to Ohio State’s but at times looked better, Martinez, for the most part, made the smart play over the big play, and Luke is as electric as advertised (without somehow looking like he’s trying to be electric, which I’m always amazed by athletes who do that). So I thought I would look at some numbers from the game to see if there actually was improvement and reasons to be optimistic. Since it’s the first game, I only have two options really, in-game comparisons and compare to last year. As the season goes on we will certainly get a better understanding of who we are and who Ohio State is. As my username implies, I’m looking at the positive side, I’ll let someone with a username like PissyPederson or PeliniThePessimist to look at the negatives. So here are five reasons to be optimistic from the game:

1. Ohio State only allowed 17 points in 4 of their 10 Big Ten games last year – Rutgers, Penn State, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship. Yes, 17 still led to a blowout loss, but not many even got that far last year.
2. Ohio State beat five 8-win Big Ten teams last year by an average margin of victory of 25. They beat 8 overall if you include their non-conference. Their Big Ten overall average margin of victory was 33. These first two aren’t really about Nebraska obviously, but show that Ohio State is really good. Yes, they are a different team this year with a lot of new faces, but many of those faces will turn out to be first rounders as well. So I looked at the game thinking that what wasn’t good against Ohio State may still be ok or good against the rest of our schedule, but what did work against Ohio State will probably work against everyone else. So positives for Nebraska specifically:
3. We averaged more than a yard per carry better than Ohio State (5.8 vs. 4.5), and two full yards better than we’ve averaged over the past four years against Ohio State (3.65 with a high of 4.7 last year). Yes, Ohio State was able to pass the ball way too easily, but they want and tried to run the ball. Naysayers will point to Adrian and Luke having a lot of those yards, especially Luke’s big run on the first drive, but QB runs and chunk plays part of Scott Frost’s offensive scheme.
4. Even if it’s only for 160 yards, Martinez had an 80% completion rate, and showed improvement in decision-making and choosing the safe play more than he did last year. The only throw I was nervous about was the deep ball to Vokolek. And yes, take some heat off the pass to Warner in the end zone, but Kade needs to catch it anyways.
5. While it is only one game, we are currently third in the Big Ten for yards per play (6.6), against what will probably be a Top 2, maybe 3, defense in the league.

I know we have some other great data guys who post on here, so I look forward to the things they put out! Go Big Red!

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