Opponent view: Nebraska

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The following are excerpts from an interview with Sean Callahan, publisher of HuskerOnline.com, part of the Rivals network.

GoldandBlack.com: Give us a quick breakdown on how the season has gone so far for Nebraska?

Callahan: It’s been obviously a roller coaster of emotions, starting with the preseason. Nebraska was picked to win the division by the media in the conference for the first time since 2011. That was Year One of (membership in the) Big Ten (for Nebraska). This is Year Nine now for Nebraska in this conference. There were expectations, there was a schedule at least that appeared on paper that was put together to have a very good year. Everyone’s definition of that is different, whether with eight-, nine-type wins or even more. Here we are, Nebraska is now 4-4. They’ve had a very disappointing losses to Colorado and Indiana. They were blown out by Ohio State and Minnesota. You look at the way the schedule has played out ... there were some things about the offense, at least last week, that showed you this is what it’s supposed to look like. They still continue to have those mistakes that are crucial, and the defense has seemingly regressed week to week. Early on in the year, they struggled against the run at times. Now, last week (vs. IU), it was the first time we saw somebody take take advantage through the air. Indiana went for over 350 passing yards. There’s a lot of issues right now. I think a lot of people think this team should be about 6-2 right now. Getting to a bowl seems like a tall task. It can happen with Maryland and Purdue on the schedule. Still, then you got Wisconsin and Iowa. It’s been a rough year for them.

GoldandBlack.com: Do you think Adrian Martinez will play? If not, what does that mean for the attack on Saturday?

Callahan: It seems like he’ll play this week. He’s suited up, he went through warm ups, and they nearly put him in the game Saturday. They had two other quarterbacks play, and they both played really well. Nebraska had two quarterbacks complete a combined 20-of-23 passes. I believe only five of the balls traveled more than 10 yards. A lot of quick, getting high-percentage stuff, screens and quick reads, and Noah Vedral started the game. He’s a local guy, about 20 minutes outside Lincoln. His dad played for Nebraska, his three uncles played for Nebraska, so he's a big legacy guy. He had a really good start. He gets knocked out of the game for awhile, then Luke McCaffrey the youngest of the famed McCaffrey brothers, comes into the game and he looked like a cross between Eric Crouch and Adrian Martinez. He is as fast of a quarterback as Nebraska has had since Adrian Martinez. He really did some things to the run game. He threw a perfect screen pass to Wan’Dale Robinson as far--as the timing and read of it--that led to a big play. He threw a great touchdown pass. That’s probably the deepest position on this team right now. The quarterbacks helped the offense put up over 500 yards last week, which was a real promising sign. With that said, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we see Martinez back. He’s coming off what appears to be some sort of leg or knee injury, a minor sprain. This will be now four weeks between contact when you go Purdue Saturday to when the injury happened. It’s something to watch. (As of_Today (Monday), I would guess we would see Martinez.

GoldandBlack.com: What does the defensive unit do well and what are its vulnerabilities?

Callahan: When teams want to try run straight at them, they stop that. You heard (Indiana coach) Tom Allen after the game say that. He goes “Look, we saw how big and strong they are and we weren’t going to be able to even run our big running back Stevie Scott right at them. It would be like trying to ram into a wall.”

So, what the weakness appears to have been is the linebackers. Nebraska does not really run a true nickel or dime. They don’t go into it very often, as far as bringing in additional defensive backs. JoJo Domann is a former safety, turned outside linebacker. They call him a "nickel," but he’s really a linebacker. They will keep four linebackers on the field a lot, if not all the time. I thought Indiana put a good blue print down that I think Purdue will probably try to follow this week. They’re just going to try to match up those linebackers. Nebraska ran a lot of Cover Three drop-zone defenses. Obviously, you can’t go man-to-man with your linebackers a lot in those situations. They were just picked apart. I think the linebackers, according to Pro Football Focus, were targeted in coverage at least 15 times on Saturday and they gave up close to half of the 350 yards passing. A lot of it was quick, underneath. The linebackers in general just made bad reads and took bad tackling angles. That’s where I bet Jeff Brohm would use a similar tact this week where he’s not going to put (Jack) Plummer in a lot of real high-risk situations. Just try and throw the ball out of space and make Nebraska’s linebackers make plays.

GoldandBlack.com: Anything to note on special teams?

Callahan: It’s maybe been the worst in the special teams I’ve seen in my time around Nebraska, so far. It has been just a train wreck in a lot of areas. Saturday, they got their kicker back for the first time all year. He’s been out with some sort of leg or hip flexor injury. Barret Pickering kicks, and the first kick he misses. It was really low. He made his second, but they had a kickoff go out of bounds. They had a 19-yard shank punt. The punting has been really inconsistent. The return game has been next to nothing for Nebraska as far as their primary return guys. Their kick efforts have not been great. They’ve allowed a lot of times this year guys to the 40- or 50-yard line at least once a game. There’s been a lot of holes with special teams. It’s played a factor for Nebraska in some of these games.

GoldandBlack.com: What are a couple keys for Nebraska if they want to leave West Lafayette with a win?

Callahan: It’s the offensive tempo we saw last week. They came out with the best tempo they played with all year. Indiana had guys going down with what would appear fake injuries. You had guys just falling down, well after the play ended, to stop play because the tempo was going so well at times. There were at least five or six instances where Indiana players just dropped to the ground before the snap to stop the play. The tempo was good last week. If they can continue that tempo again, they will put up points and yards. They’ll find it. The running game has been somewhat of an up-and-down deal. Wan’Dale Robinson now has kind of established himself as their main running back with the suspension of Maurice Washington who is gone for the foreseeable future. If you’re not familiar with Wan’Dale Robinson, he’s kind of a clone of Rondale Moore. They’re from the same area, same trainer, pretty similar names, they use them the same way. When Purdue fans see Wan’Dale Robinson, they are going to see a lot of Rondale Moore out of his game. Defensively, what will Nebraska come out with schematically? Jeff Brohm is a great spread coach, he’s going to spread out Nebraska, he’s going to find matchups after a week where Tom Allen just torched them last week with Indiana’s offensive game plan. What will Nebraska do differently this week knowing that Purdue has a pretty similar spread approach? Jeff Brohm is one of the best out there.

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