Final take: Huskers leave East Lansing with bad taste

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Saturday's 27-22 loss for Nebraska at Michigan State is literally one of the harder football games to breakdown I've seen in a while.

The Spartans (4-1, 1-0) dominated the Huskers (5-1, 1-1) up front for the first three quarters and raced out to a 27-3 lead, but somehow head coach Bo Pelini's team hung around and had the ball in the final minute with a chance to win the game.

It was a wacky finish to what's arguably become one of Nebraska's best rivalry games in the Big Ten the last four years.

The positive you can take out of this is NU didn't quit, when clearly MSU thought they might. The Spartans admittedly let off the gas pedal, and the Huskers nearly made them pay with 19 unanswered fourth quarter points and they were driving to make it six more.

"If we play our game we can play with anybody," junior defensive end Randy Gregory said. "I give them credit, they are the defending Big Ten champs, but I truly believe that we could've and should've beat them and part of that comes with defense and it starts with the d-line. I think we had a pretty decent game overall, there were a couple of plays at the beginning that got us and bad field position."

The defense really wasn't the problem on Saturday, as Gregory said. It was Nebraska's offense that struggled for most of the night. Coming into the game NU was ranked second nationally in rushing yards, averaging well over 300 per game. The Spartans held Hesiman Trophy candidate Ameer Abdullah to just 45 yards on 24 carries.

Nebraska's offensive line flat out got whipped by Michigan State.

The Spartans forced the Huskers to play their style - a backyard Big Ten ally fight and the victim was the offensive line.

I don't care how good Abdullah is, if there isn't blocking up front he's not going to be able to do much and that's what we saw on Saturday.

We also didn't see the NU offense take the field with that aggressive swagger shown over the first five games. They played timid, and it started when they punted from the Michigan State 31 yard line after Gregory intercepted a pass from Connor Cook. That was an early opportunity to get on the board, a gift wrapped score and NU couldn't take advantage of it.

Credit quarterback Tommy Armstrong though. He showed a lot of toughness in the fourth quarter after constantly being hit. After the game Armstrong also had a strong message that this meeting with the Spartans hopefully won't be the last in 2014.

"Honestly, that's not the last time they're going to see us. I can promise you that," Armstrong said. "We plan on going 11-1, making the Big Ten Championship and plan on seeing Michigan State again."

Now on to the post game grade out….

What I saw on Saturday

***There's no sugar coating it. It was a very rough day for Nebraska's offensive line. Particularly Zach Sterup had a hard time at right tackle giving up three big sacks, including one that led to a fumble. He also had a hard time identifying the outside pressure and let the linebacker come in untouched multiple times.

***Michigan State did a very good job of max protecting Cook where they used seven blockers to keep off NU's pass rush. Gregory said he counted just two or three times the entire game where he was blocked one-on-one. It was clear the Spartans weren't going to let NU's pass rush get to Cook.

***I still can't figure out why De'Mornay Pierson-El's punt return in the first half that was going for big yards was ruled a fair catch? Pierson-El did not motion his hands above his head. That could've been a big moment in the game if that return happened.

***I felt like all Abdullah needed to do was break one solid run and things might have turned. The offense never got in rhythm though and his long run was just 9 yards.

***You could tell MSU took it personal that Nebraska ran the ball so well on them the last few seasons. Their No. 1 priority was to make sure No. 8 did not beat them.

***For as poor as Nebraska's offensive line was playing, I was surprised we didn't see any substituting. The Huskers basically played the same five guys the entire game.

***The biggest defensive bright spot was the play of linebacker Trevor Roach, who had 18 tackles and 3 ½ tackles for loss. He has become the Huskers best linebacker. Josh Banderas continues to struggle with open field tackling and has a hard time getting low to make tackles.

***This bye week sure comes at a good time, because the Huskers have several guys that need to get healed up, starting with wide receiver Kenny Bell.

The final grades

Rushing offense: F

This was arguably the worst rushing performance we've seen from Nebraska under Pelini in his seven years at Nebraska. Even with the nation's best back the Huskers had only 47 yards on the ground. It's amazing they even had a chance to win with numbers like that.

Passing offense: C-

Armstrong struggled for most of the night, but was able to get things together in the second half to finish 273 yards passing. He had two interceptions though and failed to get into a rhythm. The lack of protection played a big factor.

Rushing defense: C

Michigan State finished with 188 rushing yards, including 111 from Jeremy Langford on 29 carries. They did a solid job of bottling him and winning in some short yardage situations, but gave up a big touchdown run to Langford for 31 yards, along with a reverse that went for a 32 yard score.

Passing defense: C-

Cook finished 11-of-29 for 234 yards, but the key stat was he averaged over 20 yards per completion. His pinpoint accuracy came up big again on third down and his receivers made plays. It was a big loss not having Daniel Davie and Cook took advantage of it right away going after Jon Rose on his first play for a long touchdown.

Special teams: A-

This was the phase of the game that kept the Huskers in it on Saturday. Drew Brown made his only field goal, the Husker recovered a fumble on a muffed punt and Pierson-El sparked the Huskers with a big fourth quarter punt return. The only negative was a 19 yard punt return allowed by the Big Red.

Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:50 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 TV in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET's Big Red Wrap Tuesday's at 7 pm.

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