Five burning questions heading into Ohio State week

Nebraska snapped an eight-game road losing streak and started off Big Ten play 1-0 with a win at Illinois. Now Ohio State comes to Lincoln for a nationally-televised matchup.

Here are five of the biggest questions still facing the Huskers going into the week...

When the tweet came out shortly after 11 p.m. CT that ESPN’s College Game Day would be making a return to Lincoln for the first time since 2007 for next week’s home game vs. Ohio State, Nebraska fans seemed to be equally nervous as they were excited.

It’s understandable that NU fans might be a little hesitant about having the national spotlight zero in on the Huskers again, as things haven’t exactly gone well when that’s happened in recent years.

The last time Game Day was here 12 years ago, USC ran Nebraska out of Memorial Stadium in a 49-31 blowout that felt much worse than the 18-point margin.

The last time the Huskers played in a Game Day matchup at all was in their first-ever Big Ten game in 2011 at Wisconsin. That ended in a 48-17 drubbing by the Badgers.

More often than not, Nebraska has wound up embarrassed whenever it’s been on the national stage. Will head coach Scott Frost and staff change that course? Or will Saturday serve as another black eye for the program with the entire country watching?

Nebraska was able to rally from a 14-point deficit and snap an eight-game road losing streak at Illinois, but it potentially came at a cost.

Star running back Maurice Washington, who provided some of the only life on offense in the first half, left the game early in the third quarter with an apparent head injury.

The sophomore went to the locker room and underwent concussion protocol, and he wasn’t even allowed to return to the sideline the rest of the night.

Washington was tweeting from the locker room during the game – something I’m sure the coaches were thrilled about – so he didn’t seem to be reeling from his symptoms too badly.

However, he will have to complete and clear the standard concussion protocol over the next few days to get the green light to return for Ohio State.

Washington is one of the Huskers’ most dynamic and productive players, and they desperately need him at full strength against one of their most daunting challenges of the season on Saturday.

The only positive of Washington being out and junior Dedrick Mills getting dinged up with a minor shoulder injury was it essentially forced Nebraska to feed Wan’Dale Robinson the football.

The heralded true freshman lived up to every bit of his recruiting hype in his first real opportunity, getting the ball for a total of 28 touches for a combined 186 all-purpose yards.

Included in that were a team-high eight catches for 79 yards and two touchdowns and 19 rushes for 89 yards and another score.

Robinson proved that not only was he physically capable of handling that type of workload, but he also probably needs to be that involved going forward.

He’s too good of a player not to be a focal point of Nebraska’s offense, as he’s only going to keep getting better with every touch he gets.

Saturday night was probably Nebraska’s worst all-around special teams performance of the season, which is saying something considering the team’s issues at placekicker over the first four games.

It wasn’t just walk-on Lane McCallum and the kicking game – which had another blocked extra point and a key late missed field goal – that was a problem at Illinois, though.

The Huskers’ return game was non-existent, as they lost four yards over three punt returns and only ran back one of Illinois’ seven kickoffs for 18 yards.

Kickoff specialist William Przystup didn’t record a single touchback on any of his seven attempts and had one ruled out of bounds for a penalty after a heady play by the Illini return man.

The coverage teams weren’t any better, only pinning one of four punts inside the 20 and giving up a whopping 32.3 yards on six kickoff returns.

Ohio State is as good at it gets on special teams, which were a big priority under Urban Meyer and continue to be so under Ryan Day.

The third element arguably cost Nebraska an upset win in Columbus last year, so there’s no understating how important improving those areas will be this week.

The final score at Illinois would have a lot more lopsided had Nebraska not continuously shot itself in the foot with penalties and turnovers.

In all, the Huskers lost four fumbles – the most turnovers in a game of the Frost era – and committed a season-high 11 penalties for 119 yards.

Nebraska has now been called for 29 penalties over the first four games, which are only fewer than Illinois (29) and Michigan State (31) in the Big Ten.

NU is also up to nine lost turnovers on the season, the most of any FBS team two more than any other Big Ten team (Michigan is next with seven).

Ohio State is a team that will exploit that type of mistakes to no end, so it goes without saying that the Huskers need to clean up their play in a major way.