Time of possession woes coincide with Nebraska’s five-game losing streak

It’s one of the simplest strategies in football — the longer you hold the ball, the less time your opponent has to score.

Yet, Nebraska has still found itself on the losing end of the time of possession battle in every week of its five-game losing streak.

Nebraska currently ranks No. 123 out of 131 FBS schools in time of possession, although it’s worth noting that a low time of possession doesn’t necessarily equal a losing record. Top-25 teams Oklahoma State, Tennessee and Mississippi join NU in the bottom 10 time of possession teams nationally thanks to their fast-paced offenses that drive down the field quickly time and time again.

It’s not hard to see that’s the intended strategy for Nebraska, too. The Huskers have put together several lightning-fast touchdown drives this season, most notably during their game against Purdue where the Huskers had a trio of second-half touchdown drives that only took one minute to accomplish.

But, when those quick drives result in three-and-outs or quick punts instead of points, it’s a recipe for disaster — and it’s a major contributing factor to Nebraska’s five-game slide. In its most recent loss, Nebraska controlled the ball for 23 minutes compared to Wisconsin’s 37 minutes of possession, and the Badgers also ran 21 more plays than Nebraska did.

“That’s a lot of snaps when a team’s running the ball at you because eventually they’ll start leaning on you,” Nebraska interim head coach Mickey Joseph said. “We gotta get all three phases to go and we gotta keep the ball on offense to give them a chance. That’s not just on them, that’s on the entire scheme of things.”

Indeed, the entire scheme is the culprit for Nebraska in this instance. And what makes NU’s recent time of possession woes so troubling is that it wasn’t always this way during the 2022 season.

Perhaps the warning signs were there in Nebraska’s first two games of the year when Northwestern had over eight minutes more time of possession than the Huskers did, and the next week when North Dakota held the ball for 12 minutes longer than Nebraska.

However, Nebraska’s time of possession evened out as the Huskers won the time of possession battle in each of their next four games. That meant very little in losses to Georgia Southern and Oklahoma, but Nebraska held the ball for nearly 10 minutes more than Indiana did followed by a three-minute gap against Rutgers the next week.

Then, everything changed, starting with a game against Purdue where the Boilermakers held the ball for roughly 43 minutes, compared to just over 17 minutes for Nebraska. Of its 13 drives against Purdue, none chewed up even three minutes of clock, with an average one-minute possession in the second half as Nebraska tried to get back in the game.

That same trend carried over to Nebraska’s last four games. Illinois won the time of possession battle by 16:26, Minnesota had 9:22 more of the ball than NU did, Michigan represented an 11-minute difference and finally, Wisconsin had 14 more minutes with the ball than Nebraska did on Saturday.

“When you play against a team that is going to run the ball a lot, and they want to manage the clock and they have a good running back and a good running game, it’s also important for us to be able to sustain drives,” Nebraska quarterback Casey Thompson said. “We just have to get first downs and move the chains, and we did a good job of that; they had almost double our plays but we were still winning the whole game, so that means we were more efficient with less plays.”

Indeed, Nebraska’s 8.8 yards per completion against the Badgers is a respectable mark — but 2.2 yards per carry is far from it. It’s no coincidence that Nebraska has failed to reach 100 yards rushing in three of the games during its five-game losing skid. The Huskers also had under 30 rushing attempts in every game except its loss to Michigan, a contest that was out of reach for most of the second half.

Many factors go into Nebraska’s time of possession struggles. Quarterback injuries, play-calling, a lack of offensive rhythm and offensive line issues all played their part during Nebraska’s five-game losing streak.

And once again, an inability to hold onto the ball cost Nebraska dearly, to the tune of a 15-14 loss to Wisconsin in a game where the Huskers didn’t trail until the final minute of the contest.

“Especially throughout the third and fourth quarter, in a long game like that, it’s important for us to have a run game,” Thompson said. “We have to be able to sustain drives, whether it’s a run or pass play.”