Tuesday notebook: For Blackshirts, it's all about finishing

No team ever wants to be considered the best 0-6 team in college football, but if that title were to go to anyone, it would almost have to be Nebraska.

The Huskers have found about every way possible to lose games this season, with Saturday’s overtime loss at Northwestern being the toughest to swallow yet.

Senior linebacker Luke Gifford is amazed that the team he’s seen execute so well in practices has yet to be rewarded with a victory yet, and based on some conversations with opposing players, he’s not the only one.

“When you talk after the game to other teams and they’re like, ‘I don’t know how you guys are 0-6. We watched you guys on film,’” Gifford said. “It’s happened almost every week. It’s frustrating, but you just got to keep going.”

Nebraska’s offense has gone through its share of issues all year, but overall the defense seems to have lived up to expectations and then some. But after giving up a 10-point lead to the Wildcats in the final minutes of regulation, including a game-tying 99-yard touchdown drive, that frustration has grown higher than ever on Gifford’s side of the ball.

“As a defense, we have to have the mentality that it’s not going to happen again, let’s finish this,” Gifford said. “I think that’s really where we’re going to make a jump this weekend. It’s just that mentality to finish it, instead of worrying about what could happen…

“There’s a lot of pressure and things are going fast, and you’ve got to make a play. That’s where the fundamentals go away a little bit. Great teams don’t have that disconnect.”

Defensive coordinator Erik Chinander said his unit played 55 minutes of good football at Northwestern, but a handful of critical assignment and alignment errors ended up erasing all of that.

Even so, Chinander agreed that Saturday was the closest the Blackshirt had come yet toward putting together a full four quarters or quality play.

"It'll benefit us in the future, but in the present, it's an awful thing to have," Chinander said. "But they're really, really close. They're getting really, really close. That's encouraging. I'm going to going with this team. This team is very close. We have wins on the horizon, we have really good games on the horizon.

"It seems like we're finally turning the corner in practice and meetings and the culture of the team right now."

- Robin Washut

No one could ever say Carlos Davis doesn’t try to make plays when he’s on the field for the Huskers.

The junior defensive lineman has made plenty of plays in his career, but one that he’d surely like to have back was a costly roughing the passer penalty against Northwestern quarterback Clayton Thorson while the Huskers had the Wildcats pinned back on their own 1-yard line.

Nebraska defensive line coach Mike Dawson says he knows Davis’ intentions were good, but they continue to try to limit those types of mistakes to make sure it doesn’t happen again. In fact, they have tried to coach the defensive line to zero in on one specific part of the quarterback to hit in those scenarios.

“It’s just a fine line," Dawson said. "He’s trying to be aggressive, he’s trying to get after the quarterback. I think he’s anxious and hungry to make a play and I think that part is great. However, in this day and age, and this is something we talked about it with Freedom when it happened to him, had had the same call on him against Purdue.

"With Freedom’s, if you watch it he got pushed in the back and kind of thrown into it and all of that stuff. But we made a big point about that deal. You cannot hit the quarterback with any part of your body in the head. Just in this day and age, you can’t do it. They call it from Pee Wee football to the NFL. I think everybody is going to call that call and it’s an easy call.

“What we try to get them to do is try to get them to go towards the throwing arm. You want to be off from the middle of the body so you stay away from the head. We actually really try to pinpoint it to attack the throwing elbow so you’re not going and trying to hit down the middle of the body.”

Dawson went on to say he knows Davis was not trying to be malicious on that play, but as the game evolves so too must the players in order to make sure those types of plays don’t happen again.

“(Davis) is a guy, all he wants to do is win for this team, and I don’t think it was a, ‘Oh, I’m going to be malicious and get a personal foul here,’" Dawson said. "I think it was, 'I’m going to be aggressive, I’m going to put my hands up to try and bat the ball down, and I just kept on going,' and his force went into him.

“Not only Carlos has to learn from it; we all have to learn from it as a defensive line so that error doesn’t happen again. Once is too many, now we’ve had it twice. Now we’ve got to be smart; we can’t hit these guys in the head. We’ve got to be smart, hit the arm, be on the side of the body instead of down the middle of the body and be in that strike zone area that everyone talks about.

“The game changes. I think you’ve seen it evolve over time from leather helmets to face masks all the way up through. The rules change, and I think it’s in the best interest of the game and the best interest of the players and we’ve got to be smart with it.”

- Nate Clouse

There’s no beating around the bush: senior Nebraska safety/nickel Aaron Williams had a rough day on Saturday.

In all, Northwestern targeted him 10 times in coverage according to Pro Football Focus, and he allowed 10 catches for 189, with 83 of those yards coming after contact.

Most of the damage was done by Flynn Nagel, who had seven catches for 163 yards on Williams for two touchdowns. Williams was also penalized four times, with two of them being declined because the gain was greater than the penalty yardage.

With all of that said, going back to work this week wouldn’t necessarily be easy, but secondary coach Travis Fisher was impressed with how Williams responded on Monday and Tuesday.

“He’s responded well,” Fisher said. “That’s one of the things I told him after Monday’s practice. I have no question about if you are a tough football player and the things you have to do with your body to get prepared for a football game. I totally respected the way he approached Monday’s practice, and I had to give him a handshake.

“The way he approached Monday’s practice showed me he was mentally tough, and that’s what is very important to me, and I’m proud of him for that.”

Fisher also added that sophomore safety JoJo Domann made the trip last week to Northwestern, and there’s a decent chance we may see him play this week against Minnesota.

“JoJo made the trip and JoJo will be on the field,” Fisher said. “He’s ready to go and in good spirits. If he’s making the trip, you’ll probably see him in the game.”

- Sean Callahan

Isaac Armstrong stood in the hallway on the sixth floor of Memorial Stadium’s press box on Monday surrounded by cameras and voice recorders.

To say the scene was surreal for the junior walk-on punter would be an understatement.

If you would have told me three weeks ago I would have been up here with people in my face, I probably would have thought you were crazy,” Armstrong said. “It’s the way it goes.”

Yet there he was, Nebraska’s new starting punter who has taken full advantage of every opportunity he’s gotten since replacing scholarship junior and three-year starter Caleb Lightbourn midway through the Wisconsin game.

The former Lincoln (Neb.) Southwest product has averaged 48.0 yards per punt, including an NU-best 59-yard boot, and has put three of his seven attempts inside the opposing 20-yard line.

His best punt yet came at the biggest moment, too, as he pinned Northwestern down at its own one-yard line with the Huskers leading by seven and just 2:02 left in regulation. Obviously even 99 yards weren’t enough to keep the Wildcats out of the end zone, but Armstrong more than did his part.

“It’s a dream come true, starting for this university, growing up here,” Armstrong said. “To see things go in my favor was really exciting.”

Armstrong said his rise has been somewhat bittersweet because it came as a result of Lightbourn’s struggles. Armstrong said he’s made it a point to encourage his friend and teammate as much as possible even after surpassing him on the depth chart.

“Throughout the years, our relationship has been pretty strong,” Lightbourn said. “Always competing with each other but always pushing each other to be the best.

"Over this transition, he’s been really supportive to me, and I know he’s not going to hold anything against me and he’s going to keep trying to get better, and I’m going to keep trying to get better. We’ll both just keep improving.”

- Robin Washut

For a guy who unexpectedly moved his way into Nebraska’s starting lineup only three weeks ago, Kade Warner is quickly becoming a fixture in the wide receiver rotation.

Despite not playing in the first three games of the season, the redshirt freshman walk-on has caught a pass in each of the last three outings and is up to five receptions for 33 yards on the year.

Those numbers might seem minuscule, but Warner’s five grabs already rank fourth among NU’s wide receivers and are just two shy of Mike Williams for third place.

“It’s awesome to see a staff that practices what they preach, and they tell us if you go out there and if you make plays, you’re going to get a chance to play,” Warner said. “I guess I’ve shown them that and shown this staff that I work hard enough, and they trust me out there on the field. I’m going to keep working to continue that.”

Now that he’s cemented himself in Nebraska’s starting lineup, Warner has made it a point to learn as much as possible from top wideouts Stanley Morgan Jr. and J.D. Spielman.

While Morgan and Spielman aren’t easy on him at times, Warner knows it’s because they are equally as demanding of their fellow receivers as they are of themselves.

“They for sure have toughened me up a bit,” Warner said. “They make sure that I know I’m a freshman. They make sure that I know I have a lot of growing to do. Their advice isn’t just verbal, it’s how they play and it’s the way they practice.

“Even after breaking records, they come back Monday, new week, practice as hard as they can. It’s really inspiring to see players like that work as hard as they do.”

- Robin Washut

Despite the loss Saturday to Northwestern, there were a lot of positives with the way the Huskers defensive front seven played.

Akinmoladun called the game their best performance of the season up front.

“Everybody was locked in,” Akinmoladun said. “I’m pretty sure this was the shortest tape that we had to do a lot of corrections.

“Looking at everybody’s face they knew what they put out there on the field. Even now though, we still have that mindset that we are going to get better no matter what. No matter the record we are going to keep being happy to have the opportunity to play football again.”

Carlos Davis said the feel right now is much different than a year ago.

“I think it’s easy to be hard on ourselves and get down and fold, but I don’t see that from this team,” Davis said. “That’s the biggest difference from last year. When we were losing last year, guys were giving up and throwing in the towel.

"That’s not even an option with this team. We just have to keep growing and focus on the positives and focus on the negatives and keep this thing going, because it’s going to turn around.”

- Sean Callahan

***Chinander said safety Antonio Reed suffered an injury in the loss to Northwestern, and Reed was not in pads following Tuesday’s practice.

***Chinander said he was very disappointed to lose freshman defensive back C.J. Smith to injury because Smith was on his way to taking on a big role both on defense and special teams to end the year.

***Chinander said he showed the defense the game film and isolated all of the little assignment and alignment mistakes they made on Saturday and how much they ended up costing them. He said the first alignment error they had in that game came on Northwestern’s first fourth-and-10 conversion late in the fourth quarter.

***Chinander said NU had to get much better in man coverage going forward, and the staff would be using some different players in their man-to-man defensive calls. Smith was one guy who was set to help there, but now NU would turn to guys like Cam Taylor, Braxton Clark to play more and also would use Deontai Williams more on the perimeter in man.

***Asked which players he felt were playing “winning football” this season, Chinander pointed to guys like Mohamed Barry, Gifford, and Carlos and Khalil Davis. He added that Reed was playing one of his best games before his injury, and Bootle would be included in that group but he’s committing too many penalties.

***Defensive back Ethan Cox was wearing a yellow practice jersey on Tuesday, signifying his jump to the second-team defense.

***Fisher said he’d like to add 4-6 players to his group in the 2019 class. He said some of those could include JUCO recruits, but they would have to be the right fit on and off the field.