Beating the Smart Kids

     "I beat the smart kids. I beat the smart kids. Ow, I bent my wookiee." -- Ralph Wiggum
     The Huskers road tripped for the first time, this year. Traveled up to Evanston, Chicago, but not really, and played on a field that looked like it was airlifted from a derelict lot from south of the Dan Ryan. Dear Northwestern Board of Regents, with all the money you save from not paying taxes on that stretch of lake-front property you own, you can afford a decent grounds keeping crew. I see Field Turf in your future, seriously.
     Nebraska went in and took care of business. It wasn't flawless, but it was effective. A win and one that covered the spread is good enough in my books. Yeah, I was a bit off on my score prediction, but losing two fumbles in the opponents end zone complicates things.
     Lets get the flaws taken care of, first. Two fumbles. Both into the Northwestern end zone for touchbacks. Both would have resulted in scores. 14 points off the board. The first one was a heartbreaker. Terrell Newby had just busted loose on a great 50-yards run, launched himself, lunging for the goal line, on the third play of the game. He lost his grip on the ball just before breaking the plane, and instead of delivering a standing eight count in the opening minutes of the game, the defense had to trot onto the field.
     I appreciate his effort, he was trying to be Superman, unfortunately the ball turned into Kryptonite at just the wrong moment.
     The other fumble I'll credit to the Northwestern defense playing to the whistle, never giving up. Devine Ozigbo had crashed into the line, was churning his way inside the one, in a classic pile-up of big nasties concentrated in a small space, when one of the defenders ripped the ball from him and another defender fell on it, just inside the goal line. Maybe his forward progress had been stopped. Maybe Ozigbo relaxed, because he thought he was down. Either way, the Wildcats dodged another bullet and kept the game in reach.
     There were a few bad snaps, one flew over Tommy's head. One rolled up to Tommy like a lost puppy. There were a couple of other snaps that Tommy had to make a reflex roll to handle. I suspect the green sand that Northwestern tries to pass off as grass as much as I suspect an amped up Dylan Utter, the center. They got settled down, for the most part, but might have to have a few extra moments of Zen in practice, this week.
     The penalties, only four, for 60 yards, so four big ones. The one on the kick return gave up a bit of field position, no biggie. The facemask after a big pass completion, ouch, quit it, but not too horrible. Freedom got called for hands to the face on a 2nd and 8 play that resulted in an incompletion. Instead of 3rd and 8, Northwestern got a first down. The drive ended in an interception, so the penalty wasn't a killer. The worst one was in the fourth quarter. Nebraska was putting together a classic, heart stomping, kick to the guts drive to finish the game. On 3rd and 9 from the Northwestern 26, Tommy found Newby on a screen, who finally got stopped inside the 10. Oops, Nebraska gets called for a chop block, and now has 3rd and 24 from the Northwestern 41. Essentially a 30 yard penalty and removal from scoring position.
     Northwestern helped with some penalties of their own, at least one drive extender and two drive killers, so it pretty much evened out.
     One more negative, Clayton Thorson torching the defense for a 41-yard touchdown run off of, yep, the zone read. He finished with 43 yards rushing, which means the defense was knocking him backwards a lot more than he was going forward, but still, tired of 6-4, 220 pound dude looking like Cam Newton, but just against Nebraska.
     On to the positives. The defense played pretty well, the 41-yarder, notwithstanding. They contained Justin Jackson, sacked or disrupted Thorson a lot. They only  allowed 13 points, which is the big picture, after all. The yardage allowed wasn't great, but yards don't always translate into points. The defensive backs also picked Thorson off, twice, which pushed the turnover margin back to zero.
     Another positive was that Drew Brown, the kicker, outscored the Northwestern kicker 6-1. A whiff on a short field goal, and a doink on an extra point, plus a pass on a fake field goal that was unsuccessful, and Jack Mitchell had a rough night. He kicked off to the end zone, well, all three times..
     Which brings me to the next positive. The offense. They only scored 24 points, left 14 in Northwestern's end zone. They also generated 556 yards, but, see above.Tommy missed Wetserkamp on one attempt in the end zone that resulted in a field goal.so they could have easily scored 42.
     The ground game had some moments, but was a bit inconsistent. Despite that inconsistency, they still ran for 310 yards, and 6.6 per pop. The Committee for I-Backs got 29 touches for 165 yards. Pretty decent numbers if it had been one running back. Then add Tommy's 132, most of which resulted in very positive yardage, and no wonder the Northwestern defense looked gassed,
     The really big positive was Tommy. Of those 556 yards, Tommy generated 378 of them, that's 68% of the yardage. He went 18 of 29 and had a QBR of 144.7 and a TD, missed on at least one other TD pass, and most importantly, threw zero picks. There was one that was close, and two that got batted down, at the line, but he made good decisions on throwing the ball away when he had to, and not forcing it.
     Keep in mind, going into the game last night, the Nebraska-Northwestern games have been decided by less than 6 points, five out of six games. Make that five of seven, now.
      Next week is Illinois, in Lincoln, for a bit of a revenge game. Nebraska might even crack the top 15, and is 4-0 for the first time since 2014. OK, not that long ago.
     Bring on the Illini
     Go Big Red.