Oklahoma: What did we learn?

Guy Chamberlin said:
Best four quarters of football in the Frost era. 

I know there's a lot of s#!tting on the coaches and team for mistakes, but the playcalling, schemes, and confidence were on display against the #3 team on the road -- on national tv -- every quarter, with Nebraska having the ball trailing by 7 with :57 to go. I can't possibly fault Frost or Martinez for not pulling off that miracle, because it's pretty easy for a good team to defend. (fwiw....the 1971 Game of the Century ended much the same way).

Bad calls went both ways, and Nebraska hung with Oklahoma without getting a single turnover.

Stupid OL mistakes, but ultimately not bad OL play, given Adrian's numbers and an effective if not dazzling running game. 

A rare game where both offense and defense played well enough to win . That leaves only special teams and I think that's covered in this thread. 

If I came in cold and watched this game looking for my new quarterback, I'd take Adrian Martinez over Spencer Rattler.  

I see some b!^@hing about individual plays and old patterns, but there's a helluva lot to build off this game.

It's not hard to imagine a letdown against some of the lesser teams on our schedule, but we'll see when we play those games.

In the meantime let's just run with the fact that Nebraska exceeded virtually everyone's expectations. 
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Man I hope you are right.  A maddening game in some ways but as a whole you can't argue with the results as far as I'm concerned.  I didn't think it would be a game in the 2nd half before hand. 

Martinez had the best game from a decision making standpoint in his career I thought today.  Wow.  He looked like a pro today and was hitting/finding guys .  Making smart decisions.  Putting the ball in really good places.  I don't count the 4th down ok we're going for it int.  Can we look forward to this Adrian Martinez the rest of the season?

The o line.  Penalties and sacks aside...they were able to give Martinez some time at times also and were opening up some run lanes against a pretty stoud OU defense.  But the mistakes...  Can this line build off the good things they did at times but also clean up the mistakes???

Nebraska special teams is in full on crisis mode.  Will this ever truly be addressed by Frost?  

D played great today.  Just hoping they can keep it up as we get into the thick of the B1G schedule.  

 
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I just think we saw the limitations of the team and coaches as they come into a game as fired up and confident as they could ever be.  It might as well have been a bowl game they were prepared and ready for.  And they lost a game full of their mistakes that they well could have won with fewer of those mistakes.

 
Head Coach Scott Frost said:
Impressed with how tough our guys played, especially Adrian but I'm not sure we're ever going to move on from this 'comedy of errors' we see every game.
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God dammit coach, ya can’t be giving up

hope like this, at least not publicly. Ya fought hard today. Unfortunately, you, and the rest of us have been duped by a former all conf kicker and a homeless bum masquerading as our offensive line coach. 

 
Notable mistakes:  Both teams with 70 yards in penalties, but Oklahoma can garner all the penalties they want I guess.. but ours lose us games.  And our our kicker, my gawd.. what?  Two of those kickers... we lost points that would have taken us in a whole different direction in that game.  Our D did amazing for what they were up against.

 
I am hoping the stretching of the field with our WR continue.

I liked the chip that the OL played with today, obviously they are not at the point where they can play fired up and not commit mistakes.

Desperately need an edge rusher, 44 is not bad but he gets locked up a lot.

Liked 14, ran with some steam at points.

All in all, it's far more than I expected but they NEED to follow it up against MSU...otherwise it's just an abnormality 

 
We learned that NU is capable of playing well - at times, and in certain aspects of the game.  The offense moved the ball better than I thought they would.  The defense slowed OU down more than I thought they would.

We also learned that NU Special Teams continue to be an abomination.  It is mind-boggling how this aspect of the team can lose so many games.  Why can’t they fix it?  
 

We also learned that the Illinois loss is going to be a dark cloud that hovers over the entire season.  NU will struggle to get 4 more wins and bowl eligibility.  I’m afraid they will win 3 more…

 
It's awesome how effective Johnson was today. He only averaged 3.8 YPC but we was really well-utilized by the staff. His number got called because of his speed and it worked.

If you didn't get chills on the bomb to Betts or the 21 yard TD pass to Manning, you gotta check your pulse, cuz you dead. Those plays were so awesome.

We were three kicks away from beating a Top 5 team on the road. I have been screaming "SPECIAL TEAMS!" since the middle of 2019. There are improvements in some areas but we have to be there in all phases.

 
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Toe said:
I was surprised to see him at the start. Toward the end of fall camp, Frost said it was a 4-way competition, but everything I'd heard made it sound like Johnson was a distant 4th.
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I am not sure what's going on with the RB room, other than the guy who practices the best each week gets the majority of the touches. Rahmir did play well. It will be interesting to see what happens down the road. It sucked to see what happened with Ervin. 

 
Oh...and that route that Vokolek ran in the 3rd quarter and the way Adrian sets up that play. That is what you build on.

I don't give a s*** how good Michigan State is playing right now; if we bring this set of plays and energy we brought today against them we'll win by two scores.

It is almost hilarious how good our offense can actually be when you have receivers ready to go for games like Toure, Manning, Betts, Martin, etc. We were missing this so much in 2019 & 2020 that it boggles the mind.

Nobody would have thought that Martinez throws for 76%, 289 yards and a passing TD in this game preseason. Including me. Huge props to him.

 
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Undone said:
Oh...and that route that Vokolek ran in the 3rd quarter and the way Adrian sets up that play. That is what you build on.

I don't give a s*** how good Michigan State is playing right now; if we bring this set of plays and energy we brought today against them we'll win by two scores.

It is almost hilarious how good our offense can actually be when you have receivers ready to go for games like Toure, Manning, Betts, Martin, etc. We were missing this so much in 2019 & 2020 that it boggles the mind.
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Frost did a good job staying patient with those play calls and then sprung them at the right moment.

Michigan State will be a test next week, and it's important for NU to take good things out of this week and build on it. 

 
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