On with the review:
Offensive MVP: Who else? Ohio State QB Braxton Miller. The sophomore survived an ugly start, and was nearly unstoppable from the second quarter on. 186 yards, and a TD rushing, 127 yards and a TD passing, and more pertinently for this game: no turnovers. He played himself into Heisman consideration last night.
Defensive MVP: Ohio State CB Bradley Roby. Roby tied Ben Cotton as Taylor Martinez's third leading receiver last night. Credit Roby for being in the right spots, but Martinez threw two incredibly ugly balls right to him last night. And who knows how the game might have been changed without his pick six in the first quarter? Does Nebraska go up 17-0? 24-0? Hard to say.
Special Teams MVP: Ohio State PR Philly Brown. Nebraska was only trailing 11 points when they punted away to Brown early in the 3rd quarter. Brown passed through the first wave of defenders nearly untouched and turned on the jets down the sideline to put the dagger in the Huskers' heart.
Freshman MVP: FB Andy Janovich. The true freshman walk-on from Gretna gets the nod for his overall strong play last night, and for the lack of competition for this award. Janovich made some good blocks, and had a 5 yard catch. There's a bright future for Janovich if he can continue to progress within Tim Beck's system.
Assistant Coach of the Game:
This goes to Ron Brown. Rex Burkhead had a career long 73 yd run, and 119 yards on the ground yesterday. Braylon Heard, Ameer Abdullah, and Imani Cross added 73 yards and 2 TDs and there were no fumbles from the running backs. This loss can't be put on Brown's outstanding running back corps, as they often had to make their own holes.
Play of the Game: Taylor Martinez's pinball 9 yard TD run in the second quarter was not only really sweet, but it briefly put the Huskers up 24-21 with halftime approaching. For all of Martinez's flaws last night, you have to give him props for this nice TD run right after a false start penalty.
Play We Want Back: Braxton Miller's 70 yard run in the second quarter was a sign of things to come for the Husker defense. After such a dominant first quarter, you felt like Miller needed to do something amazing to break open the game, and he did. After cutting into the middle, it looked like Alonzo Whaley and PJ Smith had Miller contained for about a 7 yard gain, but Miller cut right, faking Whaley out of his jock strap, and outsprinted the whole defense down the sideline until Ciante Evans tracked him down at about the 5. The defense never recovered their confidence and were lit up time and again by Miller, Carlos Hyde and the TE seam routes.
I want to see more...
*3-4 sets. Nebraska doesn't have 4 good D-linemen right now, and even though we don't have the best personnel for a 3-4, the two or three times we ran it last night, it seemed like it was always a negative play for the Buckeyes, except for the time at the beginning of the 4th when Eric Martin missed a sack and let Miller escape for a third down conversion.
*Corner blitzes. They worked in the first quarter, but after Miller's long run, Nebraska was too fixated on Miller to try anything fancy. Not that that fixation helped at all.
*Want-to from the defense. Especially on that last TD, the Huskers gave up and went through the motions in the second half. They better get that figured out during the bye week.
*Imani Cross. I think the freshman could have blown through some of those tight holes better than Nebraska's other backs, but he didn't get a chance until the last play of the game.
*Play action out of the Diamond-Bone formation. That sweep to Braylon Heard worked great the first time, but when Nebraska tried again, Ohio State ate it up. The play action scored 3 or 4 TDs for us last year, but we haven't seen it yet this season.
*Goal line creativity. Letting Rex take the snap was a nice wrinkle, and it worked twice, but Beck should have tried a pass the third time, as the Buckeyes D ate it up.
*Pass interference calls go our way. The Buckeyes were pretty...physical with the Nebraska receivers last night and in my opinion, it there were at least 4 or 5 pass interference calls that the refs missed. Bo seemed to agree with me.
*Kyler Reed. Where the heck was the senior TE? He's too talented to be off the stat sheet.
*Performance by the tackles. Buckeye DE John Simon had his way with Jeremiah Sirles and Brent Qvale to the tune of 2 sacks and 5 TFLs. Andrew Rodriguez had several flags against him, and there wasn't a lot of running room on the edges most times. Barney Cotton better light a fire under these guys next game.
I want to see less...
*Gashing runs. Nebraska couldn't stop a QB counter to save their lives last night, and as soon as they started keying on Braxton Miller, Carlos Hyde was getting 6-10 yards per rush. A lot of people are comparing last night's performance to a Cosgrove defense. Seems about right.
*Alonzo Whaley and Sean Fisher against the spread. Yeah, they both played outstanding against Wisconsin, but as soon as the Buckeyes put that third receiver on the field, Whaley and Fisher became huge liabilities because they aren't fast enough to cover the perimeters. I thought that was a lesson we learned against UCLA, but I guess not.
*TE's busting our seams. I counted three play action passes to TEs in the middle of the field that went for a total of 85 yards and a TD. Good job holding Buckeye WRs to 3 catches for 35 yards, but you can't forget the TEs in today's game.
*T-Muggle. Martinez reverted to his old self last night, no more so than on his last interception, a floater off his back foot when he was under almost no pressure. He did a serviceable job running the ball, but he took bad sacks, including another sack-strip, threw three atrocious interceptions, and did nothing to rally his teammates as the mistakes snowballed. Martinez is likely to break all sorts of records this season, but he won't endear himself to any fans' memory with more performances like this.
*Rex Burkhead on the sideline. Not his fault, but this offense isn't the same without Rex. Get well soon Superman.
*Three and outs. This is becoming a weekly theme. I counted 4 three and outs, while Ohio State had one after the first quarter.
*Turnovers. Another weekly gripe. There's really no excuse for it at this point; all 4 can be directly attributed to Martinez. He needs to be held accountable for his bonehead plays. On the defensive side, we need to figure something out to get more than 1 meaningless fumble per game. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
Armchair head coach:
Late in the 1st half, Nebraska gets the ball down 28-24 with 3 minutes left. We're getting the ball back to start the 3rd quarter, but it would be nice to get another score to grab some halftime momentum. Penalties on the kickoff put Nebraska at the 10, and instead of using the power game to get out of the shadow of their own endzone, Beck dials up a zone read, and Martinez fumbles when he's hit at the line of scrimmage. Cotton recovers, but a 3 yard run by Burkhead, and a 2 yard swing pass to Burkhead make it a quick three and out, forcing Brett Maher to punt from the back of the endzone, and give Miller a minute and a half to score another TD that gives the Buckeyes an 11 point lead at halftime. That sequence doomed the Huskers as much as any in this shootout.
Hit of the Game:
Freshman Charles Jackson set the tone on the opening kickoff, chopping down the Buckeye returner at the 15. Too bad Ohio State changed the tune later...
Jennifer's Take (my wife doesn't know much about football, but she still has opinions)
"Why can't they ever just lose, why do they have to suck so bad?"
We're all wondering that.
Song of the Game
"Shattered" by the Rolling Stones
"Don't you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this towns in tatters Ive been shattered
My brains been battered, splattered all over Manhattan"
Mick said it all.
Beer of the Game
Nimbus Brown Ale by Nimbus Brewing Company, Tucson, AZ
I discovered an amazing liquor store in Savannah that has, conservatively speaking, at least 650,000 different beers on their shelves. I kinda threw a mental dart with my eyes closed and picked this beer. I judge brown ales with Newcastle as my baseline, and this one falls a little short. Too earthy, and lacking Newcastle's sweetness, Nimbus isn't terrible but I won't get it again. Hopefully we can say the same about Nebraska's performance.
Best Commercial
There's so much to love about Marisa Miller's Buick commercial. Marisa Miller's in it, it's kinda funny, Marisa Miller's in it...
Last thought
The season isn't over. The optimist in me wants to say "Hey, take away the three interceptions and the punt return for a TD and Nebraska is right in this game." But the cynical side of me can only connect the dots with the games at Wisconsin and Michigan last season and conclude that Bo needs to try something radical with his game plans against mobile QBs, because he's just not getting it done. We're going into the most important bye week in quite some time. Bo needs to show his new boss that he can hold it all together and win a division title. His teams are usually at their best when they're in the corner. Time will tell.
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