The 2011 season got off to a successful start on Saturday for the Cornhuskers of Nebraska as they rolled Chattanooga 40 to 7. Nebraska only rolled up 364 total yards but most of those went to soph QB Taylor Martinez. Martinez threw for 116 yards and ran for 135 yards and 3 TD. With the first game out of the way Bo Pellini and the Cornhuskers now set their sights towards the WAC’s Fresno State.
Fresno State took a tough assignment in week one as they traveled to Cal to take on Jeff Tedford’s Golden Bears. From a total yardage standpoint the Golden Bears dominated this match-up 413 to 210. The Golden Bears also won on the scoreboard 36-21 to help Buffalo transfer Zach Maynard win his first game as starter. Fresno must face the Huskers with the fear of starting off 0-2 and Ole Miss and Boise State looming in their rear-view just a couple of weeks away. To get the Cornhuskers take on this game we chatted with our Nebraska guy, Brandon Collard, to get his take-aways from the Chattanooga game and his thoughts on what the Cornhuskers need to do to beat Fresno.
Nebraska debuted it’s new offense against Chattanooga with a 40-7 win on Saturday. What did Nebraska do well offensively?
Well I can happily report that the Nebraska offense has receivers that can now, apparently, catch a football! This is a vast improvement over last year’s team which featured more drops than any other team I have ever seen in my life. Other than that? Meh. It looked like more of the same things I watched last year, with Taylor Martinez doing Taylor Martinez things (in a bad AND good way, I will give him credit where credit is due) and just an overall stagnation of the offense down in the red zone. You can get away with that when you are playing Tennessee-Chattanooga, but when you get to the Wisconsin’s and Ohio State’s of the world then those things will come back to haunt you time and time again. It is more of the same as last year, to be completely honest with you, and I know I should give it time, but I am afraid of it not changing up enough in time.
Which players pleasantly surprised you with their first game performance on offense?
There were only two players whom really surprised me with their play on the offensive end, last game, those being wide receiver Quincy Enunwa and place kicker Brett Maher, that’s all. I know that it seems kind of bad to say that your number two receiver and the kicker were your best offensive players, but this is completely true. Enunwa impressed me by catching every ball which touched his hands, and I know that sounds bad, but compared to last year it is like having Larry Fitzgerald on your team.
Brett Maher is my second standout from this unit because he, so far, has replaced Alex Henery and Adi Kunalic very well. I was impressed with him because the reason Nebraska kept two kickers on the roster, was that they both filled a positional need and they NEEDED two in order to stay at a level with the other team. Maher, through one game, has shown the accuracy that Henery had from distance and the ability to pin a team back with his booming kickoffs. If he can keep this up through the rest of the year, then he will prove to be an excellent asset to the team in multiple aspects.
On the flip side, which players surprised you on defense?
The player that stood out the most on the defensive side of the ball for me was Cameron Meredith. I mentioned in my preview that I expected big things out of him this year in an effort to take pressure off of LaVonte David and Jared Crick, but I didn’t expect him to come out as inspired as he did on Saturday. Everything he did from the first snap until his small injury in the second half was completely disruptive, and he was always around the ball no matter where it was on the field. He may not have made a lot of tackles, but he fed people into other people for tackles and completely disrupted the flow of the offense.
Coming out of week one what are your biggest concerns with the Huskers?
The biggest concern I have for the Huskers going forward for the rest of the seasons are the same things I mentioned via twitter and to other people whom I know. The offense HAS to get more consistent or this is going to turn out to be just as disappointing of a season as it was last year. I don’t need Taylor Martinez to be Vince Young, Michael Vick, Eric Crouch or Tommie Frazier; I need Taylor Martinez to be a game manager. I need him to be what Trent Dilfer was to the 2000 Ravens, we all know that the defense is going to be there, and as long as the offense can just get a lead it is going to be hard for any team to come back because of how good the defense is going to be. I also think (based on the prior thing I said) that they should do away with the no huddle because they should be milking as much clock as they possibly can. If they can get the offense down to that type, then they will be in good shape, if they keep trying to out think what they are doing then it’s not going to work.
What does Nebraska need to do to win on Saturday against Fresno State?
Nebraska needs to play to their strengths and not have any mental mistakes which they had a few of in the UTC game. They need to work on getting the offense in sync; even if they, likely, won’t do what I want them to do they need to get something together before they hit the Big 10 schedule. Those are the two things that Nebraska has to do to get the win on Saturday, I am a believer in the defense and special teams so now all they have to do is get the offense on the same page and this should be a blow out win for the Cornhuskers. If they don’t, then we could have another South Dakota State game on our hands.
Nebraska vs Fresno State can be found on the Big Ten Network on Saturday at 7pm EST.
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