Nebraska Cornhuskers: 4 things we learned in Week 1 loss vs Ohio State

Big Ten football returned this weekend and the Nebraska Cornhuskers weren’t able to supply what would have been a monumental upset over the Ohio State Buckeyes in Week 1.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers dropped their season opener in Columbus, Ohio with a 52-17 loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes in the opening weekend of Big Ten football.

The Buckeyes really started to run away with it in the second half as they outscored the Huskers 28-3 in the final two quarters as Cam Taylor-Britt and Deontai Williams were both ejected for targeting and will miss the first half of next week’s game against Wisconsin.

While the Huskers started the season with a loss for the second time in three seasons under Scott Frost, there were certainly some positive takeaways.

Unbalanced Offense

Nebraska showed a strong run game right from the start with 66 rushing yards out of 75 total yards on their opening drive that ended with a 10-yard touchdown run for the Huskers. Both Adrian Martinez and Luke McCaffrey were greatly efficient running the ball, combining for 157 yards on 21 carries, however, both fumbled the ball once.

Ball protection has been a big issue for Martinez, whose fumble on Saturday was returned for a touchdown and was the 21st fumble of his college career. On the positive side, the two fumbles from the two quarterbacks were the only two turnovers for the Huskers. Other than that, it was a pretty clean game for the Huskers offense.

Martinez spent the majority of the first three quarters as the quarterback, with the exception of McCaffrey entering for part of a drive in the first half as Martinez dealt with some equipment issues.

His decision-making was good, but he had major struggles finding open receivers. McCaffrey came in and slotted in as running back and wide receiver several times, which worked pretty well. In his time as quarterback towards the end of the game, he did well and completed four out of five passes.

This biggest worry of the game was the disappointment of the receivers. Newly named captain Kade Warner is one of the very few experienced options, yet he didn’t have any catches and wasn’t able to connect with Martinez when he was wide open in the endzone early in the game.

Nebraska’s leading receiver was Wan’Dale Robinson, who had six catches for 49 yards. Whoever their big targets are going to be, they need to make themselves available more frequently and create a true threat for big plays in the air. The Huskers certainly need to develop a greater trust in their receivers to be more productive in future games.

While the rushing game showed great promise, the passing game has a lot to improve on to make the Nebraska offense more balanced.