The Huskers did what was expected of them Saturday in the home opener.
They beat an FCS opponent, the North Dakota Fighting Hawks, by multiple possessions. But if you were to only look at the box score, it would be deceiving as to how the game actually play out.
The Big Red drew first blood on their first drive, scoring on an efficient eight play, 87 yard drive that ended in a 19 yard rushing touchdown for Anthony Grant.
But that would be the only bright spot for the Husker offense in the first half. NU would only have three more drives with a total of 16 more plays, including a turnover and a missed field goal.
North Dakota would join the Huskers in a struggling offense and both teams would trade three-and-outs and sloppy mistakes.
The Huskers led 7-0 until North Dakota’s gritty 16 play 87 yard drive that took nearly seven minutes off the clock and practically ended the first half and tied the game up at 7-all.
Scott Frost was not pleased with his offense at the end of the half.
“Its bad man,” Frost told the Big Ten Network. “We don’t have anything going. We got a couple sacks that cost us drives.”
The Huskers came out firing on all cylinders to start the second half. Their first drive ended in a touchdown pass from Casey Thompson to tight end Nate Boerkircher.
On the next possession, Blackshirt captain Garrett Nelson stepped up for NU in a big way, producing a strip sack fumble that would turn into three Husker points via a Timmy Bleekrode field goal.
But just 90 seconds later, after a Casey Thompsion interception and a big run that was caused by a blown blitz from the secondary, North Dakota tied up the game at 17.
The Huskers would bounce back big time off of the stellar play of Anthony Grant. Grant would break off a 46 yard touchdown with under 3 minutes to go in the third putting the Huskers up 24-17.
From that point on they would never look back. With a combination of great complimentary running back play from true freshman Ajay Allen and a couple of really clutch throws from Thompson, the Huskers would pick up a 38-17 victory over the Hawks.
Allen would pick up his first collegiate touchdown in the fourth quarter and Chancellor Brewington picked up a touchdown with two minutes left in the game.
Grant was the star of the game. He ran for 189 yards on 23 attempts and totaled two touchdowns.
Thompson may not have had the Memorial Stadium debut you dream about, but he had a solid game going 14/21 throwing for 193 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
The offense totaled 437 offensive yards. 244 of them were courtesy of the run game. The offensive line allowed 3 sacks, one of which resulted in a turnover. Trey Palmer led all receivers with 82 yards on 4 receptions. The Blackshirts held North Dakota to 306 yards if total offense and forced one turnover. Garrett Nelson was tied with Isaac Gifford with 8 total tackles. Ochaun Mathis totaled his first sack of his Husker career, the defense had two total.
“This team can be great a team,” Frost said after the game. “It’s not right now, and that was my message to them.”
Frost is not wrong. This is what the story of this team has been. This team has a lot of talented players, and highly regarded coaches but it also has a lot of new pieces for a program to handle at once. It will be a process for this team to get where they ultimately want to be.
There was some carryover of some mistakes that were made in Ireland. The Blackshirts missed multiple open field tackles and had a blown blitz that caused the long 63 yard run. The offense at times looked out of rhythm and had a couple of drops.
But for every negative you want to point to a positive can be rebutted with. Considering where the game was played and the quality of the opponent you could take this game with a grain of salt.
But a win is a win, something Nebraska hadn’t accomplished in 11 months.