Having had their fill of drama for this early in the season, tens of thousands of relieved Nebraska fans walked out of Memorial Stadium giving thanks for transfer running back Anthony Grant.
Grant calmed a virtual ocean of troubled waters Saturday in Memorial Stadium, where he became the first Cornhusker to rush for 100 yards in back-to-back games since Devine Ozigbo had three in a row in October 2018. Grant rushed for 189 yards, including 139 in the second half. He scored two touchdowns, helping the Huskers emerge with a 38-17 win over FCS opponent North Dakota, who tied the game just before halftime, and had many of in the crowd of 86,590 reaching for their antacid tablets early and often.
After the Fighting Hawks erased a 10-point deficit to tie the game again at 17 with 4:22 remaining in the third quarter, Grant eased the drama, bursting over the left side to score on a 46-yard run less than two minutes later to regain the lead.
Grant, the junior college transfer from New Mexico Military Institute, emerged from this game as the clear No. 1 ball carrier; he gives Nebraska a home run threat at running back for the first time since Ozigbo graduated. Nevertheless, coach Scott Frost seemed a bit wary of overreacting to Grant’s performance.
“There’s no need to clear space to retire his number or anything right now,” Frost said, “but he had a good day.”
Nobody’s ready to forget about Roy Helu Jr., who wore No. 10 before Grant did, but Grant brings some of the same things to the table that Helu did. We’ll leave it at that for now, except to say that if the Husker offensive line can get at least one yard of downfield push, as it finally began to do as the game wore on, Grant makes good decisions about where to attack the defense.
In the game’s final eight minutes, Mark Whipple leaned on Grant and true freshman Ajay Allen, at one point calling 11 consecutive running plays as the Huskers pulled away, ending their seven-game losing streak by closing things out with their running game. Doing it against an FCS team is certainly nothing to write home about, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Rushing for 244 yards is a decent start, as is giving your running backs 35 carries.
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After Grant gave NU a 24-17 lead, two other transfer players stepped to the forefront as Ochaun Mathis and Trey Palmer made big plays early in the fourth quarter. Just finding someone who can make plays late in the game is a big step for Nebraska.
Mathis got his first sack of the season to stop a potential game-tying drive, and after the Hawks punted the ball deep, Palmer made a magnificent third-and-14 catch of a fluttering 31-yard pass by Casey Thompson to get the Huskers out of the hole. Grant and Allen closed out the drive from there.
This used to be the kind of game where Nebraska’s second- and third-team players got double-digit snaps. Not so on this day; the second-team defense got on the field for just three snaps on the final series.
The Blackshirts’ main downfall was their failure to get off the field in the first half against the Hawks, who outyarded Nebraska 173-147 and had an 11-10 edge in first downs during the first 30 minutes. North Dakota absolutely wanted to hold the ball against the Huskers, and it did just that, running almost seven minutes off the clock on a 16-play, 80-yard drive to score its tying TD with 13 seconds remaining before the half. There were way too many third-down completions by North Dakota quarterback Tommy Schuster, a tough-minded competitor who won’t be mistaken for Tom Brady anytime soon, and too many missed tackles for the Blackshirts, who still looked jet lagged from their Ireland trip, and the Hawks gobbled up more than 20 minutes of possession in the first half alone.
Drama? My word, there was way too much of that sort of thing for Husker Nation. Defensive captain Garrett Nelson figured the same thing, telling his teammates at halftime to learn from his mistakes. Nelson figures he tried to do too much by himself in the season-opening loss against Northwestern, and he urged everyone to just take a deep breath. “We don’t need to panic, we just need to keep doing our job,” he said. “Doing what we need to do in the sense of running to the ball, being physical. That’s how you win football games.”
Will that lesson stick? A normal week of practice and a visit from a faster Georgia Southern team will be the next test. The Huskers have a lot to learn, but they’re 1-1. Just breathe easy for a while.
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