Nebraska Beats Washington: The Good, Bad and Other of the Cornhuskers' 51-38 Win

On Saturday, Nebraska won the best-of-three series against Washington, getting the best of a 51-38 shootout. Nebraska's offense looked sharper than it has all season, while the defense looked just as shaky as it has in Nebraska's previous two wins.

What in the name of Charlie McBride is going on here?

Let's take a look at the good, the bad and the other stuff that happened to see if we can get a better understanding of the 2011 Cornhuskers.

Good: The Offense Goes Click

It wasn’t just the 51 points, although that was nice. It wasn’t just the 464 total yards—309 of them on the ground—although that felt good.

It was the noticeable perception that the Tim Beck offensive experience started to get some rhythm and move the ball.

Nebraska actually started to have drives, rather than waiting around for the T-Magic home run. Take a look at the length in yards of NU’s touchdowns:

3. 25. 1. 1. 6. 6.

There were a number of good things to take away from Nebraska’s rubber-match performance against Washington, but seeing the green shoots from last week’s offensive performance start to blossom this week might be the most encouraging.

Good: T-Decider

This game, more than most, saw Martinez manage the game and himself. You saw Martinez covering the ball as he went to the ground, trying to avoid fumbles. You saw him sliding to the ground to avoid big hits, trying to keep himself upright throughout the season. You saw him go through his progressions, then take a small run rather than force a throw.

No one is going to mistake Martinez for Peyton Manning, but Martinez’s decision-making was a real positive against Washington.

If Martinez can combine his unmistakable talent with good game management, Nebraska’s offense has a much better chance of being special.

Good: Kick-Catch Interference

If you just looked at the final score, you’d think that a 51-38 victory was a relatively comfortable shootout win for Nebraska. But keep in mind that towards the end of the second quarter, NU was the beneficiary of a questionable kick-catch interference flag on a punt.

Without that flag, Washington takes a muffed punt in for a touchdown and has a 24-17 lead in Lincoln. Instead, Nebraska drives the ball down the field and kicks a field goal to give NU a 10-point lead going into the half.

Had the call gone the other way, it’s not impossible to imagine the game spinning away from Nebraska. So that flag (and the two other similar flags NU received during the game) provided a big assist in the win.

Bad: The Defense Goes Clunk

Thirty eight points surrendered and 420 yards allowed. Even more disturbing, the Washington offense was able to keep themselves in the game with quick strikes in the fourth quarter as Nebraska tried to ice the victory away.

For two games in a row, the Blackshirts were anything but dominant. The glaring deficiency was in the secondary; the return of Alfonzo Dennard will certainly make the back four better.

But Dennard’s return won’t magically fix all the defense’s problems. Poor tackling plagued NU for another week and Nebraska has now allowed two consecutive running backs (Robbie Rouse of Fresno State and Chris Polk of Washington) to gain over 100 yards.

Wisconsin’s two-headed tailback monster of Montee Ball and James White, combined with dual-threat quarterback Russell Wilson, seem a daunting task for this defense.

Bad: Kick Coverage

Although Washington didn’t break anything for a score against Nebraska, NU was labored in both punt coverage and kick coverage.

It’s been a source of struggle for some time and Nebraska’s performance against Washington didn’t fill anyone with confidence going forward.

The big play on NU's kick coverage, Washington's fumble, had much more to do with Washington having very young returners rather than anything Nebraska did well (although, having seen that, it makes you all the more impressed with what true freshman Ameer Abdullah has accomplished).

And, for heaven’s sake, when you score 51 points, you’d think you’d had enough practice to do kick coverage well.

Bad: The Return of the Yellow

In Nebraska’s first two victories, NU dramatically cut down on the penalties that haunted them in 2010.

Against Washington, they committed seven penalties for 60 yards.

While not a terrible number (certainly by the standards of Bo Pelini’s Nebraska teams of the past), it is a ghost that NU does not want to see roaming the sidelines in games to come.

And the Trip Through the Looking Glass

Raise your hand if you thought you’d be sitting in front of your computer in mid-September 2011, seeing Nebraska put 133 points on the board in three games—and be worried. Not about the offense, which has been the favorite pastime of the Children of the Corn for the last two years, but about the famed Pelini Blackshirts.

It’s a strange place for Nebraska fans to be, disconcertingly hearkening back to the days when a certain Kevin Cosgrove was roaming the sidelines in Lincoln. Nebraska fans certainly have more faith in the brothers Pelini to fix the defense than they did in Cosgrove, of course.

But after seeing two straight offenses—average offenses, at best—put up over 400 yards of total offense and 67 total points, Nebraska fans can be forgiven for thinking they’ve seen six impossible things before the start of conference play.

The Big Picture

For two weeks in a row, Nebraska fans have been in the odd situation of watching their defense struggle at the end of a game and having the offense come in and secure the victory.

There’s an optimistic and a pessimistic way of looking at that.

The pessimistic way is that the offensive performance, much like last year, was a bit of a mirage that will fade away against more difficult competition in conference play.

The optimistic view is that the Pelini brothers can fix the defense and the offensive performance can hold up to make Nebraska a much more balanced team.

Which of those views will come true, of course, will be revealed in the next few weeks.

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