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Red Report: Tempo needs to be ‘a weapon’; third-down troubles; belief in Mills | Football



Get off the field: For as much improvement as Nebraska’s defense has shown in the first two games, there’s one pesky stat that isn’t where the Huskers want it currently: third downs.

Ohio State and Northwestern have combined to convert 15-of-29 so far, along with all three fourth-down tries.

“Going into this game we had talked about three-and-outs, so that was the main focus on three-and-outs and turnovers because we didn’t do too many of those things during the first game,” senior safety Marquel Dismuke said.

Nebraska did have four three-and-outs, but also gave up conversions on six of Northwestern’s last 11 third-down tries.

“There’s a few situational things we need to do just based on where we’re at on the field,” defensive coordinator Erik Chinander said. “There’s also been a lot of third-and-mediums, or whatever you want to call them. Not in that 7-plus range. We need to do a little bit better job on first and second down to get them into a longer third down.

“There’s probably some things where I can help the kids a little bit on that and get them into some different stuff. Maybe take a few more chances as a play-caller. But that’s one area that we really need to evaluate and improve on a little bit.”

Belief in Mills: Through two games, senior running back Dedrick Mills has 84 rushing yards on 28 carries, for rate of just 3 per carry. That’s well below the 5.2 he averaged in 2019, his first season at Nebraska.



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