10 things we learned from Nebraska's press conference

Nebraska head coach Scott Frost and several players met with reporters on Monday for their weekly press conference inside Memorial Stadium to preview this week's home showdown with Northwestern.

Here are 10 of the most interesting things we learned from the day...

Each player who took the podium for Monday’s weekly press conference had very little interest in dwelling on the debacle that was Nebraska’s 48-7 loss to Ohio State.

In fact, some Huskers downright refused to talk about it much at all.

Instead, head coach Scott Frost and his players were only focused on discussing the next challenge at hand with this week’s home game against Northwestern. The Ohio State game was one NU just had to forget, and from the sound of things the team is well on its way to doing so as best as it could.

Frost said Monday morning was “a great practice” and felt like the Huskers were eager for another opportunity to bounce back in an important Big Ten West matchup.

"The guys are excited," Frost said. "Everything they want to accomplish is still right in front of them. I told my guys to put that one behind us fast. We need to be focused on this week and concentrating on practicing as well as we can to get ready for this game."

After throwing three interceptions in the first four possessions of the game vs. Ohio State, quarterback Adrian Martinez has been under the microscope of criticism more than ever in his young Nebraska career.

The true sophomore never seemed comfortable against a relentless Buckeye pass rush and playmaking secondary, and he finished the night 8-of-17 passing for a measly 47 yards to go along with his three picks.

But from what Frost said during the game and afterward on film, Nebraska’s problems were hardly solely on Martinez’s shoulders.

“I can’t believe he needs to be defended if you know football and watch that game," Frost said. "There’s a lot of things that needed to be fixed. It’s just the nature of the game that the head coach and quarterback can get all the praise and the blame, and I think he knows that.

"He fought and made some good plays for us Saturday. He’s going to make some incredible plays for us going forward, that’s just the ups and the downs of the game. Adrian’s going to be just fine.”

On a night where highlights were hard to come by, one positive from the Ohio State loss was Nebraska bringing back some old fashioned I-formation and double-wing looks to its running game.

The Huskers had good success when they threw in the wrinkles midway through the first quarter, marching down the field with fullback dives, I-back tosses, and speed options before an unlucky bounce ended the drive with an interception.

Frost, who helped NU win a national championship running power football as a Husker quarterback, said his team had been working on those types of plays for a while and finally saw the opportunity to break them out in a game.

Based on the success they had, Frost said to expect those be incorporated more and more into the offense going forward.

"We have some personnel that I think can run it," Frost said. "You can’t run that stuff unless you’ve been working on it. We’ve been working on it for a long time. Some of the things we’re running fit the defense that they gave us. I thought the guys went out and executed that well. We had a whole drive that we put together with that stuff...

"We’ll see more of that stuff going forward. I want that to be a piece of what we’re doing. It’s part of what Nebraska has been built on and the fabric of what we are, what we need to get back to a little bit. We have the right personnel to do it. So, we’ll pick our spots but it certainly looked pretty good on the first time out.”

Turnovers have been a serious issue for Nebraska all season, and Saturday was more of the same in the Huskers struggling to stay out of their own way.

After three more interceptions vs. Ohio State, NU is now up to 14 turnovers committed on the year, which are tied for the second-most in all of FBS. Only New Mexico State (14) and Hawaii (15) have given the ball away as much.

Looking at the situation as a whole, though, Frost and his players said there wasn’t any one overriding theme behind Nebraska’s ball security problems.

“A lot of it is ball security and then another piece of it is throwing interceptions and that is - as far as interceptions are concerned - that is just isolating that play depending on my read, whatever may have happened during the play, the throw," Martinez said.

"When it comes to fumbles, that is something that we work on every day in practice. It is a conscious effort to be better at ball security and that goes for me and that goes for all the rest of the offensive guys.”

Frost has only been a part of one Nebraska-Northwestern game, but it was one that is impossible to forget.

The Wildcats managed a 99-yard game-tying drive in the final seconds of regulation and then won in overtime to hand Frost and the Huskers their sixth straight loss to open the 2018 season.

It served as the latest wild finish in a series that has featured some of the crazier endings since Nebraska joined the Big Ten. The Huskers lead the all-time series with Northwestern 7-5, but the teams are tied 4-4 since 2011.

In those eight games, the home teams have only won twice – last year’s comeback in Evanston, and Jordan Westerkamp’s Hail Mary touchdown catch in 2013.

Five of the past meetings have been decided by three points or less, with the last two going into overtime.

"I've only been a part of one of them but I am astute of what's happened around here and seeing all the close games that have happened between Northwestern and Nebraska, including last year," Frost said.

"Hail Mary's and overtime games. They're just such a well-coached team year-in and year-out. They're disciplined and they’re smart. They’re not going to beat themselves. Those kinds of teams end up in a lot of close games. If we're in one, we need our guys to respond well."

Nebraska’s loss to Ohio State was bad in a lot of ways, but the real story of the season will likely be told over the next two weeks.

While winning the Big Ten West seems like a steeper challenge than ever right now, those prospects will be heavily influenced by how the Huskers respond in their upcoming games vs. Northwestern and at Minnesota.

Being 5-2 overall and 3-1 in conference play (3-0 in the division) would put NU in a pretty good spot going into its first bye week. Two losses, however, would basically make the season about just scrambling to make a bowl game.

“It’s extremely important in this part of the season that we’re going in to pay attention to the details, understand what has beaten us in the previous games, and to not take any opponent lightly," cornerback Dicaprio Bootle said.

"It’s extremely important for us to do the little things right and go out every day and practice with the right intent, so that on game days, when we see something we don’t like, we can adjust to it. Or if we’re doing everything right, then it will show. It’s extremely important for us to be completely dialed in."

Nebraska’s coaching staff has been saying for months that it needed to get more wide receivers involved in the passing game beyond the usual suspects like JD Spielman and Wan’Dale Robinson.

Through the first five games, though, not much progress has been made in that regard.

Spielman and Robinson have totaled 38 catches on 62 targets this season. The rest of NU’s wideouts have combined for a mere 10 receptions on 24 targets.

Frost mentioned a couple receivers he wanted to try and get more involved starting this week in true freshman Darien Chase and senior Jaron Woodyard. Chase has played in two games and has one catch for 13 yards on two targets, while Woodyard hasn’t played a single snap all season.

“I hope so," Frost said when asked if more receivers would get involved. "Darien needs to keep getting his chances. I think the more chances he gets the more plays he’ll make outside. I think we’ll give Jaron Woodyard a little more of a look this week. We need some more guys playing out there, and we’re just going to have to force feed them and bring them along.”

Nebraska’s offense needs all hands on deck right now, but it’s struggled to keep one of its most dynamic weapons on the field the past couple of weeks.

Running back Maurice Washington was forced to leave the games against Illinois and Ohio State due to injury, including missing almost the entire second half vs. the Illini with a head injury.

The sophomore then seemed to re-aggravate an ankle injury vs. OSU that he also suffered the week before and played just 17 of the Huskers’ 56 snaps, getting just one carry in the second half.

Frost said Washington was too important to the offense to have watching from the sidelines, and NU needed to do whatever it could to keep him healthy the rest of the year.

“Maurice is a factor," Frost said. "When he’s on the field we need to keep him on the field. He’s been nicked up a little bit a couple of times. He’s heading in a good direction. We just need him to be reliable and be there for all four quarters for our toughest games, and if he is then we’re going to be a better team.”

Nebraska will be making some unique history on Saturday, as it announced that it will feature its first ever Spanish radio broadcast for the Northwestern game.

The Spanish call will be available on Huskers.com, on the Huskers app, and over the radio on Lobo 97.7 FM serving Omaha, Lincoln and eastern Nebraska and Le Grand 93.3 FM serving Grand Island and the central part of the state.

It will mark the first non-English broadcast of a Husker football game for Nebraska athletics and the Husker Sports Network.

“I think that’s awesome," Frost said. "I took three years of Spanish in high school. Liz Hodtwalker was my Spanish teacher in Wood River. My favorite class probably in high school. If you don’t use it, you lose it, so I don’t remember as much as I should now, but I think there’s a lot of residents in Nebraska where Spanish is their first language.

"Nebraska’s one team, one heartbeat and one state, one heartbeat. I think it’s great that we are going to broadcast the game that every Nebraska fan can enjoy it.”

A potentially major domino fell in the highly debated issue of paying student-athletes for the use of their image and likeness on Monday, as the governor of California signed a bill to allow college athletes to hire agents and make money from endorsements.

There are still several steps to go before the NCAA would change its rules on that issue, but Monday’s news definitely pushed things closer to a major shakeup in the business of college athletics.

Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos has been vocal about his stance against paying college athletes beyond the perks they already receive. Frost, however, seemed to have mixed feelings on the topic when asked about it on Monday.

“That’s awfully political and I don’t want to get into it too much, but I hope that at the end of the day college football and college athletics survive in a way that allows opportunities for all students that want to compete to compete," Frost said.

"I think there’s obviously some points that could be made for athletes being compensated for all the work they put in, but I hope it doesn’t destroy opportunities and competitive balance in other things that make our sports fun to watch and what they are. It’s a slippery slope, and I hope there are smart people that can navigate it and it ends up in a good place...

"I just think one thing you have to be smart about, if you start paying players there’s only so much money to go around and people see a new facility we’re building and other things that schools have and think there must be money, and there is but once you start paying a football player you have to pay every student-athlete and that’s an awfully big drain on our budget depending on how much is paid.

"I’m not sure there is a lot of places that can afford that kind of commitment, and I think it really puts the fabric where college athletics are right now in a precarious position. Like I said, I’m not smart enough to figure all those things out, but I hope there are people to help navigate through this.”