Nebraska Threshes Bowling Green

Well, that's not good at all.  I know, Nebraska is in the Big 10.  And I know this game is set up to lose. Still, Nebraska is not a powerhouse Big Ten team and we were thought to be 25 point underdogs.  We have 4 times (I think) post-Jinks won against teams when we were that kind of dog.  Further, we have had some tough battles in P4-5 games that later made us wonder why we couldn't beat Kent.

This was not that.  We doubled the point spread, and were beaten as badly as you can be in the first half of the game.  We did put together a nice drive in the 3rd quarter, but the 4th picked back up again for Big Red and the final was 56-7.  We were thumped.  For the first half, it felt like the Memphis game in Jinks' 1st season, when we gave up 70 two games in a row.  At the time, Jinks told his staff "they were lucky to still be working."

No point in going through the game narrative that we usually do.  Or even the stats, which I will anyway.   The special teams matrix is based on my system I used a few years ago, but got tired of calculating each week.  Now, AI can do it for me.  (It's a zero-based system with points for positive plays and negative points for negative plays, but average plays (like a 30-yard FG) are 0.  Full rubric here.)  The most significant special teams play was the blocked punt, where Coach said Kingston was just too slow getting the ball out of there.

Statistic	Bowling Green	Nebraska
Yards per rush	2.7	7.8
Yards per completion	8.4	10.8
Completion %	62.5%	81.3%
Yards per play	3.5	8.3
Third-down conversions	2/12 (16.7%)	5/8 (62.5%)
Red-zone efficiency	1/1 (100%)	4/4 (100%)
Turnovers	2	1
Special Teams Index	-3	+4
Explosive plays	4	12
Yards on explosive plays	60	289

No surprises here.  BG had a good completion percentage but were forced to work close to the line of scrimmage.

Coach George looked a little shell-shocked in the post-game presser.  He did not have his usual swagger, that is for sure.  He said the usual things...we will get it together, etc.  I swear he said "it's always darkest before the dawn," which is never something you want to hear.  Also, Nebraska pressured us up the middle, and he mentioned specifically that we had trouble at center and at guard.  That will need to be fixed, because every team will pressure us right up the middle.

So on we go.  It's dark, Coach was right about that.  It's Iowa State, South Florida and the Miami...an 0-5 start is certainly very possible.  Which makes 6-6, you know, hard to see.