Five burning questions heading into Illinois week

After picking up an impressive home win over Northern Illinois, Nebraska turns its attention to its Big Ten opener. Here are five of the biggest questions still facing the Huskers going into Illinois week...

Saturday’s win over Northern Illinois was a shot in the arm for Nebraska, but it came at an expense.

Starting left tackle Brenden Jaimes, whose 23 consecutive starts are the longest of any current Husker, left the game in the third quarter with an apparent right leg injury.

Frost would not disclose any further information on Jaimes’s status, but the injury was severe enough that Jaimes laid on the turf for several minutes and had to be helped to the locker room by NU trainers.

Sophomore Broc Bando took over at left tackle to finish the game and held his own, and if Jaimes is unable to play this week at Illinois, Bando would be in line to make his first career start in just his third career appearance.

Nebraska suffered another big blow on the defensive side of the ball when playmaking sophomore Cam Taylor-Britt, who got the start at safety in place of the injured Deontai Williams, went down with an apparent shoulder injury in the second quarter.

Like Jaimes, Taylor-Britt was down on the field a long time before heading straight for the locker room. He eventually returned to the sideline without a helmet but did not see the field again.

Given that Taylor-Britt moved to a No. 1 safety spot due to Williams’ injury, the Huskers’ depth at the position suddenly becomes a looming concern entering Big Ten Conference play.

Senior Eric Lee Jr., who initially replaced Williams in the opener and started at Colorado, will likely get the call opposite Marquel Dismuke should Taylor-Britt miss any game time. After that, walk-on Eli Sullivan – who has played well in his opportunities – would be in line for a big jump in playing time.

With sophomore Barret Pickering out with an undisclosed injury, Nebraska’s placekicking situation has been an adventure over the first three weeks, to say the least.

Senior punter Isaac Armstrong got the start at kicker for the second straight game on Saturday, but after two blocked field goals and a blocked extra point, the Huskers went even further down their bench to find a replacement.

Sophomore walk-on defensive back Lane McCallum, who was a scholarship kicker at Air Force in 2017, came in and connected on all three of his PATs and looked pretty capable in the process.

Frost praised the former Norfolk (Neb.) standout after the game and said McCallum would continue to get more opportunities at kicker going forward.

It remains to be seen how close Pickering is to returning to action, but if he’s forced to miss a fourth-straight game this week, could McCallum take over as the new starter?

McCallum was an All-State kicker for Norfolk H.S. as a senior and holds the school’s record for points scored in a career (354), making 120-of-123 extra points and 20-of-31 field goals.

One of the biggest issues Nebraska’s offense had through the first two games was the inability to establish any sort of consistent running game.

While the Huskers had a few big perimeter runs, they had gotten nothing in terms of grinding out yards between the tackles. The Northern Illinois game was a good step in the right direction, though.

Behind a career-night from Dedrick Mills (11 carries for 116 yards and a touchdown), NU rushed for a season-high 238 yards and four touchdowns on 7.2 yards per carry on Saturday.

There were still the big plays on the outside, but Nebraska’s interior rushing was much better. Overall, the Huskers had 11 carries between the tackles for 104 yards (9.4 ypc), three first downs, and a touchdown.

Mills’ emergence definitely helped in that regard, and the offense needs to continue to thrive in the power run game going forward.

One of the more interesting comments Frost made after the Northern Illinois win had to do with his admission that, for whatever reason, he may have lost some of his aggressiveness as a play-caller in the first two games.

“We preach to the guys - and maybe I needed to get the lesson from outside and from my assistant coaches last week - we preach a desire to excel and no fear of failure all the time, and if we want the players to be that way, we need to be that way as coaches,” Frost said.

“That means calling what we need to call, rolling the dice, letting them play, being aggressive. That’s the way I want our team to think.”

It was an encouraging sign of introspection for Frost, as it showed that he saw what many Husker fans had noticed in Nebraska not attacking enough offensively to put opponents away.

Other teams had started to pick up on it too, as ESPN college football analyst Adam Rittenberg tweeted on Sunday that other coaches had told him “they’ve noticed a lack of aggressiveness from Frost as a play-caller.”

Frost and his staff were brought to Lincoln to score points in bunches, even at the risk of taking some gambles. Saturday night showed a lot more of that mentality, which could be just what Nebraska needed.