Nebraska Football: 3 takeaways from Huskers win over Buffalo

Huskers still need big improvements

Nebraska football was only credited with one turnover and the defense was pretty sound, even though the three points allowed are a little deceiving.

Buffalo missed three field goals just like Nebraska did. The Bulls racked up more than 350 yards of offense and over 100 on the ground, although the average was just 3.3.

However, Buffalo converted 11 third downs. That’s a big number and if some of those kicks were good or if any of those drives had turned into touchdowns, Nebraska would have had a dog fight on its hands in the fourth quarter.

The other glaring issue, besides the fact that the Huskers continue to struggle inside the opponent’s 30-yard line, was the lack of a running game.

You don’t expect the kicking issue to happen again because Connor Culp, who went 0-for-3 against Buffalo, was 26-of-33 for his career prior to Saturday.

Back to the running game: Nebraska posted a solid day, at least at first glance with 220 yards on 41 attempts. But, if you take Martinez out of the equation, Nebraska ran the ball 32 times for just 108 yards — that’s only 3.3 yards per carry.

That’s not going to be good enough to hang with Oklahoma and the better teams in the Big Ten. Gabe Ervin carried 10 times for 56 yards and scored twice. Hopefully, he can build on that because Markese Stepp has been a huge disappointment.