Southern Mississippi at Nebraska

Now, the fact that Southern Miss lost Saturday at Nebraska should neither be ignored nor should the reasons why it lost be downplayed. When Mullens is not on the field, that means that Huskers Junior quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. will be on it. Armstrong Jr. has 898 passing yards and 55 rushing yards on the young season.

Nebraska dominated the first half, leading 22-0 at halftime. Nebraska executed 11 plays of 20 or more yards against the Southern Miss defense.

He racked up 118 yards through the air, the fifth time in his career and second this season that he has eclipsed 100 yards.

The reality is that Brown was crucial for the Huskers against Southern Miss.

It’s evident the Nebraska secondary is poor.

Put the run and pass numbers together and the Huskers rank 114th in average yards allowed per play (6.45). Westerkamp has a touchdown in all three games so far this season and has a total of 15 catches for 233 yards for those three touchdowns. The Huskers are going to have to gut it out in the middle of that defense with a bye week nowhere near.

Reilly’s average gain per catch: 19.8 yards. USM fell to 1-5 all-time against Nebraska, but this game was much closer than the score indicated.

The blueprint is officially out. Smith is easily the most elusive player on the offensive side of the ball. Southern Miss has amassed fewer yards than 10 yards on the ground once since 2010 (2014, against Louisiana Tech). Let’s take a look at five things we learned about the Golden Eagles in this week four game. Joshua Kalu leads the Cornhuskers with 23 tackles, Freedom Akinmoladun has four sacks and Nate Gerry has two interceptions. If Akinmoladun wasn’t able to get to Mullens a second time, we could be having a whole different conversation. He is now sitting one reception outside of the top 10 for career receptions at Nebraska with 90. Now here was Southern Mississippi moving down the field in the last minute with a chance to tie after Nebraska had blown most of a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter.

State holiday: Nobody has to go to work on Monday because Nebraska called a fullback trap. Those drive stalls allowed the Golden Eagles to stay within striking distance. Ogle then netted the pass into the upper corner, her second goal of the year. The bad officiating overshadowed one of the best plays by the Huskers defense.

The Golden Eagles have made it a point of emphasis to improve offensively inside the red zone. The Golden Eagles converted the recovery into a 19-yard scoring strike from Mullens to Martin 1:08 later to trim the Nebraska edge to 29-21 with 12:26 left. But until the Huskers put on film that they can clamp down on the pass, expect the tests to keep coming and coming.