Final take: Huskers not built for November

As I was driving to the stadium on Saturday morning the famous song "Dancing in September" by Earth, Wind and Fire came on the radio.

"Do you remember the 21st night of September? Love was changing the minds of pretenders while chasing the clouds away...

"Ba de ya - say do you remember. Ba de ya - dancing in September. Ba de ya - never was a cloudy day.

"Ba de ya - say do you remember. Ba de ya - dancing in September. Ba de ya - golden dreams were shiny days."

As I thought about it, those words almost sum up Nebraska's season in a nutshell. On Sept. 21 the day after the Huskers beat Miami things were never higher this season. The offense and defense were rolling and things were right on track to contend for a Big Ten title.

Then the calendar turned to the month of November. The weather changed and most importantly the style of play from the Huskers opponents changed. If Saturday's 28-24 loss to Minnesota and last week's 54-29 loss at Wisconsin have taught us anything, it's that the Huskers aren't built to win Big Ten football in November.

Unlike the teams NU saw over the first nine games of the season (other than Michigan State), the Badgers and Gophers don't run spread offenses. They play physical, traditional Big Ten power football. Next week the Huskers will get their third straight dose of it from Iowa.

This is a style of football that requires your defense to play with discipline, fundamentals and toughness. All things we haven't seen from Nebraska the last two weeks. Instead of putting the pressure on the quarterback to complete passes, they are putting it on your defense to make tackles.

"I'd say just the fact that they want you to make more of the mistakes. If they open up a little bit, the quarterback can make a mistake, missing their route," sophomore safety Nathan Gerry said when talking about Minnesota and Wisconsin's style of play. "When you get the ball like that, they're hoping we just miss a tackle. We missed our key where someone didn't get over, cut back play or what not. That's probably the toughest part is they just bank on you making an error and that's one of the things we did today was made a couple errors. I felt like we weren't self-disciplined as a team, all 11 players at all times."

When you play pass-happy spread teams you can get away with playing undisciplined. When you play a team that runs it 53 times for 281 yards and four touchdowns it requires your players to make 53 open field tackles and not cheat gaps or assignments.

Time after time that's what we saw on Saturday. Nebraska knew what was coming but they still couldn't stop it.

"There were different guys making different errors," head coach Bo Pelini said after the loss. "If you play undisciplined and don't handle your responsibility, you're going to struggle. It happened way too many times when we were there.

"We have to make some changes because we didn't play very well. There are a couple positions that played horrendous. Especially on defense. Offensively we did some good things at times. Obviously turning the ball over twice inside the 5-yardline is going to cost you. And it did."

Now it's back to the drawing board for Pelini in his team. They have to get ready for a road game on short rest at Iowa.

If anything these last two weeks have told me long term something has to change both offensively and defensively for the Huskers to be able to win in November.

I don't feel like talent is the issue. It's a matter of figuring out who you are. Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa have a better understanding of that, where that's not the case for Nebraska.

That has to change long term, because every November the Huskers will end the season with key division games against Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

"We're not good enough right now," Pelini said. "We're not playing well enough."

Now on to the post game grade out….

What I saw on Saturday

***Pelini took the fall for the crucial second-and-1 play action decision that resulted in a sack and took away the opportunity for the Huskers to add to their 24-21 lead at the 8 minute mark in the fourth quarter. I didn't like the call obviously, but the offensive line also should never get beat off the edge like that either.

***Credit Minnesota for seeing Nebraska's struggles last week against the zone read. Wisconsin didn't run a lot of it against the Huskers (the didn't need to), but NU still had problems with it when they did. Nobody has run the zone read like that at Nebraska, and I think it exposed their ability to play with discipline.

***On a day where Nebraska's offense was going to be limited on big plays, Gerry's 85 yard return off a blocked field goal should've been enough to win this game. That play put the Huskers up 21-7. To get outscored 21-3 after that and 56-10 to the last two weeks in the second half is inexcusable.

***It was a shame to see Senior Day go down like this. Kenny Bell and Mark Pelini both left the game with injuries, while Ameer Abdullah is not 100 percent, but still gave the Huskers nearly 100 yards.

The final grades

Rushing offense: C+

Nebraska got 174 yards on 38 carries, but realistically they need to be somewhere in the 250 range to win this football game. Abdullah gave them nearly 100 yards, but just couldn't pop that one long run this offense needed.

Passing offense: D

Armstrong was better than last week, finishing 12-of-19 for 223 yards, but freshman De'Mornay Pierson-El's two fumbles inside the 5 yard line killed the passing grade today. Those two fumbles cost the Huskers 10 to 14 points.

Rushing defense: F

Minnesota dominated the line of scrimmage and had their way on early run downs the entire game. The Gophers had 53 rushing attempts for 281 yards and controlled the time of possession. There were just too many missed tackles in space and assignment errors.

Passing defense: D

The Gophers didn't throw much, but when they did they were effective. Their eight completions when for an average of 16.9 yards, including a handful of big plays on third down that led to eventual points.

Special teams: B+

The Huskers got a huge touchdown off a block field goal and also a 30 yard field goal from Drew Brown. Sam Foltz averaged 43.5 yards on four punts, but I down grade them to a B+ for the lack of return game the Huskers got today.

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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