Five burning questions heading into Purdue week

After stumbling through the first seven games of the season, Nebraska has officially reached its 2017 breaking point.

Sitting at 3-4 overall and having just suffered back-to-back blowout home losses, the Huskers have little, if any, room left for error the rest of the year if they want to preserve any chance of making a bowl game.

Even more, they now only have five more chances to potentially save head coach Mike Riley's job for another season.

The bye week couldn't have come at a better time for NU physically, but the real value may have been giving the team a chance to take a step back and mentally prepare for a season-defining final stretch over the next five weeks.

Nebraska enters this week as 6.5-point underdogs on the road at Purdue. It's a must-win situation against the Boilermakers, and really, for almost every game the rest of the way.

One of the few positive glimmers for Nebraska over the past few weeks has been the steadily improving play of junior quarterback Tanner Lee.

Starting from the second half of NU's win over Rutgers, Lee has now completed 63-of-104 passes for 869 yards, seven touchdowns, just one interception, and has only been sacked two times.

Those numbers are a far cry from where Lee was earlier in the season, where it was hard enough for him not to spot opposing teams with pick-six touchdowns, let alone lead a consistent offensive attack.

He still needs a lot more help from his running game and his receivers, as 25 of his incompletions on the year have been dropped passes, roughly 10 percent of his total misses.

It doesn't get much worse for a defense than what Nebraska went through in its past two outings.

The Huskers were physically dominated by Wisconsin's power running game to the tune of 466 total yards, 353 of which coming on the ground with freshman Jonathan Taylor posting the third-highest single-game total by an NU opponent in school history with 249 yards.

Things then got even worse a week later against Ohio State, which racked up 56 points, 633 total yards - the fourth-most allowed in school history - an opponent-record 41 first downs, and scored touchdowns on its first eight drives of the game.

Nebraska now ranks 94th nationally in scoring defense, 76th in total defense, 69th in run defense, and 74th in pass defense.

As things currently stand, the Huskers are on track to post statistically their worst defensive season yet since Riley took over in 2015. Can defensive coordinator Bob Diaco and his staff right the ship the ship?

It's a question that's been asked for weeks, but there might soon finally be an answer as to what Tre Bryant's status will be for the rest of the season.

When Riley spoke with reporters during the bye week, he said they were “closer to some resolution” on a potential medical redshirt for the sophomore running back. Riley also made it sound the the decision would ultimately be up to Bryant.

The reality is that Bryant was already dealing with issues from a pre-existing knee injury well before he re-aggravated it against Oregon and has been out ever since.

Bryant tried to get back to work leading up to the Ohio State game but couldn't even make it through a full practice. That leads one to believe that this week could very well be his final attempt to play again this season.

Nebraska clearly has a lot of work to do on both sides of the football following arguably their worst overall performance of the Riley era against Ohio State.

But what have been the biggest priorites for the coaching staff since that loss?

The defense obviously has been a major issue the past five and a half quarters, and Riley noted that the one of the biggest problems was players simply not being in the right positions to make plays. Will some lineup changes come as a result?

Offensively, Riley again stressed the need for consistency, especially in running the football. Do the Huskers ty to emphasize the power run game more than ever this week against a Purdue defense that ranks only ahead of Illinois and Maryland in rushing defense (168.6 yards per game)?

Another interesting hypothetical is whether Riley would decide to take over Nebraska's play-calling duties for the rest of the season? Riley was asked if he had considered that option during the bye week, and his answer certainly didn't rule it out.

“I wouldn’t talk about it publicly unless I’ve talked about any kind of changes with our staff,” Riley said. “What we have talked about is, basically, find a way to help our team do the things I’ve just mentioned, which is score more points offensively.”