feekdogg wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 8:23 am
Well.
First, the bad:
OL. Terrible night all around. I get that there's a lot of new pieces, but the most concerning part is that the left tackle (#69) had an awful, awful night. I only counted 6 guys that played on the OL for sure. They usually rotate in more. Either way, get things figured out and do it in a hurry.
RB-Tyler had a couple of nice runs, but he certainly did not look like a Big 10 feature back. I wouldn't bet on him leading the Gophers in rushing, but again, maybe the OL was why he didn't look great.
Special teams-Game-winner aside, the kick coverage to start the second half was bad. Roughing the kicker penalty can't happen when you've got them backed up to 4th and 22.
AK8. Terrible red-zone pick when you're driving. Just an awful, awful side-armed garbage throw. Receivers didn't do him lots of favors. Way too many drops, but he was inaccurate way too often.
Harbaugh/Simon. Whoever was calling plays. Ish. Especially questionable was when they were actually pushing the Huskers around and decided to run some cutesy WR reverse with Jackson. You do that when you're trying to get the defense off balance, not when you've already got them off balance.
The good:
AK8. Showed good mobility when under duress. Made some tough throws and came through when it counted (even if it took a remarkable catch to get it done).
Daniel Jackson and Corey Crooms: Jackson is the star of the night, but Crooms showed early he can get open early and often. Autman-Bell was dressed, but didn't play. The WR room is deep and looks pretty strong.
The defense: I'll preface this by saying Sims looked like a worse passer than Leidner, but they were able to get after him. They allowed 10 points, and 7 of those came on a very short drive after a long kick return. That's a pretty good evening, considering their best LB and defensive signal called, Lindenberg did not play. The defense didn't deserve to lose that game, and I'm glad they didn't.
The atmosphere: Wow. What a night. I've been in the Bank for lots of games, but none of them felt like that, including Penn State in 2019. Students arrived early and stayed the whole game. I didn't have a seat, so I watched the whole game from the open end zone. That was packed. Would have been a lot more fun to blow them out, but a win's a win and you've got to chuckle about Nebraska firing Scott Frost for losing too many 1-score games, and then coming out and losing a 1-score game (that they easily should have won).