Dedrick Mills (from left), Luke McCaffrey and Travis Vokolek look to the sidelines for directions during Saturday's game against Northwestern in Evanston, Ill.
JOHN KONSTANTARAS, POOL VIA NORTHWESTERN ATHLETICS
Nebraska's Myles Farmer returns an interception against Northwestern on Saturday in Evanston, Illinois.
JOHN KONSTANTARAS, POOL VIA NORTHWESTERN ATHLETICS
Nebraska head coach Scott Frost and his coaching staff are going to have a week full of them, in addition to getting a handle on how to correct mistakes made in a 21-13 loss to Northwestern and prepare for a shockingly winless Penn State team coming to Lincoln on Saturday.
And yes, the calls that need to be made extend well beyond the quarterback room.
Frost didn’t want to talk about his quarterback situation much past why he made the switch from junior Adrian Martinez to redshirt freshman Luke McCaffrey late for essentially the fourth quarter against the Wildcats. He said his team needed, “a spark.†He cautioned not to read much into it beyond that for the longer term. He said the right things, basically, sympathizing with Martinez, a two-time captain who “has poured his heart and soul†into Nebraska football.
It was senior running back Dedrick Mills’ summation of McCaffrey’s play in the fourth quarter that hit the nail right on the head.
“Luke was a good spark because Luke is more, to me, when it comes to tempo, he can move the ball more productive and faster,†Mills said. “He looks to the sideline, gets back, everybody is set up and he snaps the ball quick, so it’s just all about getting the defense on their toes and making them tired, and that’s what Luke brought to the game.â€
It harkened to a comment Frost made about McCaffrey when the 6-foot-1, 205-pound quarterback was making a hard charge at Martinez for the starting job in the weeks before NU’s season opener.
"Our offense moves exceptionally well when he's at quarterback. He finds a way to make a lot of plays work,†Frost said in October.
Indeed, McCaffrey's pace is palpable when he's at the controls, and Nebraska moved the football when he was in the game. He played 27 snaps at quarterback in the fourth quarter and the Huskers had 162 yards (6 per play). Martinez played 61 snaps and totaled 280 yards (4.6 per play). Circumstances matter, of course, and the bottom line is that NU mustered only 13 points — seven gifted by the defense — with Martinez in the game and none after McCaffrey took over.
What to do moving forward? It's not an easy call.Â
Quarterback, though, is not the only place where the staff has decisions to make.Â
What will the Huskers do at receiver? Freshman Marcus Fleming is clearly a dynamic player — five catches for 75 yards is the best performance by an NU pass-catcher so far this season — and Zavier Betts gave a glimpse of his tantalizing skill set. Junior Omar Manning will work in more, too, one would think, after playing just a handful of snaps and having his only target batted down near the line of scrimmage.
Is it time to turn the young players fully loose? If Nebraska does, it will have to live with the growing pains — a downgrade in perimeter blocking, occasional raised hands when the alignment isn’t clear or a signal gets missed.
The easy thing is to say, "Go for it," out of frustration, but then you've got to live with the volatility that comes with more youth on the field.Â
“Listen, nobody is more impatient right now than me,†Frost said after the game. That sounds like a coach who might consider shaking up the depth chart more substantially.
The conversations will happen defensively, too. Redshirt freshman Myles Farmer had two interceptions in the first half and barely played in the second after Deontai Williams returned. Quinton Newsome is a good corner and he’s gaining experience fast.
“We talked about it at half with the defensive staff and I told them I’d just as soon those guys kept playing in a rotation,†Frost said of the young defensive backs. “Those guys definitely deserve to play.â€
That rotation didn’t really happen. It was mostly Williams and junior Cam Taylor-Britt down the stretch.
Some decisions are pretty simple. Sophomore Luke Reimer should and will play a lot going forward with Collin Miller and Will Honas (as long as he gets healthy). Redshirt freshmen Bryce Benhart and Ethan Piper will continue to be regulars on the offensive line. Nick Henrich’s role likely will continue to expand as he gets used to playing outside linebacker, but Nebraska has a rotation that’s working rather nicely at that position. If a young running back can emerge, he could help solidify the backfield, but none has yet — in part because Ronald Thompkins didn’t make the trip this week.
At quarterback, receiver and in the secondary, though, Nebraska’s coaches have tough decisions to make at 0-2 with young talent waiting in the wings but also a team that needs to find a way to be less mistake-prone and more disciplined.
Notes
* A bit of context on how Nebraska has struggled to score even though it hasn't really struggled to move the ball.Â
One measure of offensive efficiency is to look at yards per point. It's not perfect — no single stat is — but it gives a look at how effectively teams turn yardage into scoring. Here are two excellent offensive teams, two unspectacular offensive teams, a division foe and Nebraska. Keep in mind that with the way college football is this year, everybody's played different numbers of games. With NU and the Big Ten teams, there's still a relatively small sample size at work.
The lower the number, the more efficient.Â
* Ohio State (3 games): 11.04 yards per pointÂ
* Alabama (6): 11.77Â
* Boston College (8): 14.07
* Kentucky (6): 14.14
* Purdue (2): 15.31
* Nebraska (2): 27.07
* Reimer and Farmer both had a play they probably want back on the first drive, but each played some darn good football afterward. Reimer got crack-blocked on Drake Anderson’s 41-yard touchdown and then, when Anderson broke to the sideline, Farmer didn’t take a good enough angle to get Anderson out of bounds.
We know what happened after that — Farmer had two interceptions later in the first half and Reimer led the team in tackles with 10 (1.5 for loss) and added a strip sack for good measure.
* A nice bit of play-calling: Nebraska’s two fourth-down conversions on its first scoring drive of the day. On fourth-and-1 early in the drive, Chris Hickman motioned across and blocked for Martinez on a quarterback power play.
On the next fourth-and-1, Hickman came on the same motion and gave the same look, but then ducked behind the linebacker level into a route. Martinez didn’t throw him the ball, but easily picked up the first down with his legs on a rollout. Nice sequencing and something that NU probably had identified for its first pair of fourth-and-short calls.
* Nebraska’s shuffled offensive line played fine at times, but did not have the same caliber outing overall that it had against Ohio State. Northwestern’s front seven is no joke, and Earnest Brown IV, in particular, was a handful for the Huskers. Sophomore center Cameron Jurgens’ loss to injury was felt not only because of his caliber of play but also because senior guard Matt Farniok is better at guard than at center. That’s not a knock on the senior, but he hasn’t played center much in his career.
If Farniok's there in any of the weeks ahead, expect him to continue to settle into the spot. But the sooner Jurgens is back, the better for Nebraska.
* A couple of Nebraska’s outside linebackers are rounding into form. Senior JoJo Domann and junior Caleb Tannor both occasionally appear to miss an assignment, but both are playing significantly better than they did a year ago. Domann is hard to handle when he comes off the edge and is particularly good in tracking down the ball carrier. He’s still prone to overpursue or give up the back side, but seems to be doing it less frequently in the past.
Photos: Nebraska falls to Northwestern in Evanston
Dedrick Mills (from left), Luke McCaffrey and Travis Vokolek look to the sidelines for directions during Saturday's game against Northwestern in Evanston, Ill.
JOHN KONSTANTARAS, POOL VIA NORTHWESTERN ATHLETICS