World-Herald columnist Tom Shatel offers his key observations from Nebraska’s 28-25 loss to the Northwestern Wildcats on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.
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DEFENSIVE PRACTICE JERSEYS
One of the things about handing out Blackshirts based on merit, or performance, is what to do with them when you get a clunker like Saturday. What do you do now? Take them away? They probably won’t. But the Blackshirts should feel strange wearing them this week.
ROUGH DAY FOR REX
This just in: Rex Burkhead is human. Who knew Kryptonite was purple?
MARTINEZ SHINES, OFFENSE DOESN’T
Offensive coordinator Tim Beck will get some attention this week, but there aren’t a lot of good plays you can call when the offensive line takes the day off. And the fumbles and drops. Those are on Beck’s tab, too. There wasn’t much urgency in the way NU played, and that showed on offense. Its early play seemed to say, “No problem, we’ll figure it out later.” Then the Wildcats kept the ball 34 minutes. The irony was that this happened on the day Taylor Martinez zipped throws in and out of tight spots and looked like a passer.
