Saturday was a sobering reality of where this season is most likely heading. So what’s next for Nebraska?

Saturday was a sobering reality of where this season is most likely heading. So what’s next for Nebraska? We hit on that and more as we start your Monday off with the Weekly Rundown column.

You have to feel pretty good about these things right now:

Some interesting texts to Alberts cell phone Saturday night: Nebraska Athletic Director Trev Alberts was not in Memorial Stadium on Saturday. Alberts was attending the wedding of his son which was previously scheduled well before he took the NU job.

One can only wonder the type of messages he was receiving about the football game against Purdue and if he found a minute to sneak away and watch any of Saturday’s football game.

I’m sure there’s a lot going through the mind of Alberts right now, who has done his best to show Scott Frost and his staff support, but after games like Saturday, you wonder where things are at now.

Wisconsin vs. Minnesota will decide the West: With Iowa’s loss to Wisconsin on Saturday, and both the Badgers and Minnesota winning again, it’s become clear the Big Ten West will most likely be decided on Nov. 27 in Minneapolis.

An uneasy week in Lincoln: Unfortunately over the last 20 years, I’ve covered a lot of weeks like this in Lincoln. As the calendar turns to November, here we are again. This season has taken a big turn over the last few weeks, and it will be interesting to hear what comes out of North Stadium.

NU lost on Saturday for the third time this year as a favorite. The Huskers have been favored in six of their nine games, and currently have a 3-6 record.

One score losses: It’s the stat that won’t go away. For the sixth time this season Nebraska lost a one-score game.

These were my surprises of the week:

9.3 yards per play on 30 first down snaps: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a stat like this. Nebraska produced 279 yards of total offense on 30 first down snaps on Saturday. They had just 120 yards on all of the second, third and fourth down snaps combined.

NU’s average third-down distance on 14 snaps was 7.9 yards. Once again, the Huskers found a way to produce a once in a hundred game type stat.

The disappearance of Jaquez Yant: Running back Jaquez Yant produced the two longest runs of the game on Saturday of 18 and 33 yards. He only played 12 total snaps in the game.

Kicker Chase Contreraz: The Iowa Western football program started playing games in 2009. Former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne played a hand in helping get their program launched.

Who knew it would take until 2021 before a Reiver player would ever make a contribution on the football field at NU.

However, something else to watch in the 2022 recruiting class is the Huskers could end up offering a kicker. Charlie Weinrich, out of Blue Valley (Kan.) Stilwell, came to NU this weekend on an unofficial visit. I’m sure his offer could depend on how things go here down the stretch with Contreraz.

Questions still surround these things:

NU’s poor run defense vs. Purdue: The Boilermakers had one of the nation’s worst rushing offenses, yet they still found a way to get a consistent 3 to 4 yards on 22 different first down run calls.

Those second-and-7 and second-and-6 situations led to a lot of quick easy throws for Jeff Brohm’s ball-control offense. Of all the things in Saturday’s game that surprised me the most, seeing Purdue get a steady diet of 3 to 4 yards a pop on first down in the run game was right up there.

Scott Frost’s offense in the Big Ten: The Nebraska offense under Scott Frost can produce a lot of home runs and wow moments at times, but it also has far too many lapses. The Big Ten resembles more of what you see on Sunday. It’s a ball control league. A line of scrimmage league.

Sometimes it feels like the Huskers have to catch lightning in a bottle to have what we saw against Northwestern. In games that they were favored in against Illinois, Minnesota and Purdue, we saw far too much inconsistency in games where the Huskers arguably had the talent advantage on the field.

The front four pass rush: At times Nebraska produced pressure against Purdue with their front four, but it’s just not enough to make a difference. When Aidan O’Connell was “kept clean” in the pocket he was 23-of-28 for 171 yards according to PFF. It was death by paper cut as he hit short pass after short pass down the field.

Moving forward, this has my attention:

Recruiting: We saw Nebraska make five new known offers on Saturday to 2023 and a 2025 targets. It was the most aggressive we’ve seen NU be on the recruiting trail this entire cycle, especially considering every offer came to prospects from Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri.

Ohio State vs. Nebraska point spread: The Buckeyes are now listed as a 14.5 favorite over Nebraska on Saturday in Lincoln. I think that number caught some folks by surprise, as many dejected Husker fans after Saturday expected the Buckeyes to be favored by over 20 points.

Remember this, though, all six of the Huskers’ losses have been by 8 points or less. Even Oklahoma, who was a 22.5 point favorite in Norman won by just 7. There’s something about this Husker team that has played to the level of their opponent all year, and I think that 14.5 number is accounting for that.

QB Adrian Martinez: The fourth-year starting quarterback was booed by Husker fans on Saturday after his third interception. He had four on the day. How will Martinez respond to this?

Frost has also said he is going to ride Martinez all the way through the end of the season. That alone probably tells you the gap between Martinez and the other quarterbacks is significant right now. Not very many coaches would play a QB with an injured jaw, ankle, or one that threw four interceptions in a game if the backup was capable.

We’ve known this though since 2019. Frost stuck with an injured Martinez at Purdue instead of starting or playing Noah Vedral. That loss cost NU a bowl trip in 2019. It also led to Vedral’s decision to transfer knowing if he couldn’t play in that situation, he was never going to see the field. Vedral and his Rutgers Scarlet Knights just beat Illinois on Saturday.

2024 QB recruit Dylan Raiola: The Husker legacy out of Dallas has added recent offers from Texas, Alabama and Ohio State. Raiola appears to be a program-changing type of recruit, but has the ship already sailed for the Huskers with these new offers?

Memorial Stadium on Saturday: What will the scene look like in Memorial Stadium on a cold 11 a.m. morning for Ohio State? I’m sure Alberts will be watching this closely as well.

Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET’s Big Red Wrap-Tuesday’s at 7 pm.