Football is finally back, folks. Week 0’s kickoff is an annual tradition, but Illinois and Nebraska football faced off for the earliest conference battle in Big Ten history and there were plenty of storylines to follow throughout the game.
Would Scott Frost’s team come out prepared and show that they’re not going to disappoint yet again this season? Would the offense be explosive? Would the defense finally turn it around? How would Adrian Martinez fare after getting in great shape? Would Bret Bielema’s return to the Big Ten be a welcome one, or a harsh one?
All of those were answered on Saturday afternoon and for the most part, Nebraska was held in check and didn’t look like it was a team ready to take that next step.
Disappointing is the perfect word to describe Nebraska’s first game.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the loss at Illinois in the opener.
3. The defense needs a lot of work
Erik Chinander’s defense took a step in the right direction last season, ranking sixth in the Big Ten and No. 50 nationally, allowing 386 yards per game, but it looked rough against Illinois.
Although the Cornhuskers didn’t give up a ton of yards to the Illinois offense, they still crumbled in key situations and allowed backup quarterback Artur Sitkowski do basically whatever he wanted all afternoon long. When Brandon Peters went down with an injury, it seemed like the Cornhuskers caught a major break, but they didn’t take advantage.
Sitkowski picked apart the defense for 124 yards and two touchdowns on 12-of-15 completions as he didn’t miss a beat coming in cold off the bench.
The defense rebounded nicely but allowing about 170 rushing yards and a high completion rate to shaky backup quarterback was just not ideal.
That’s not going to cut it against Oklahoma in three weeks.