The individual defensive stat sheet lit up with career bests for members of the Nebraska secondary.
Four players had career highs in tackles. Those same four combined for six other career bests in fumbles recovered, fumbles forced, interceptions, pass breakups and quarterback hurries.
Talk about your positive spin — none of those four players had ever started a game before Saturday, either.
The poster child of inexperience would be senior walk-on Matt O’Hanlon, who had never played a defensive snap at Nebraska. He started at free safety.
“I was stoked,” O’Hanlon said of his reaction late last week when told he’d start. “I went home and called my parents, and they were stoked.”
O’Hanlon, a career special-teams contributor who once had three tackles in a game, contributed with five stops in Nebraska’s 47-24 season-opening victory against Western Michigan.
O’Hanlon played the entire game — special teams, too.
“My legs were totally exhausted by the end of the third quarter,” he said.
Those two things — O’Hanlon’s late emergence into a starting role and the fact nobody came in to give him a blow — are exhibits A and B of the unsettled state of Nebraska’s secondary.
Perhaps not surprising, then, were the mounting mental errors and busts as the game progressed — Western Michigan had a pair of 50-yard completions in the second half. The Broncos threw for 342 yards and had a 61 percent completion rate.
“The mistakes can be corrected,” Nebraska secondary coach Marvin Sanders said. “They can be corrected by me coaching it better and by the guys executing it better. It’s a combination of both.
“You never make an excuse, but you understand that you had four first-year guys back there.”
Nebraska started in a nickel package; only junior strong safety Larry Asante had ever started a game.
Sophomore Eric Hagg started at nickel and sophomore Anthony West, as expected, started at one cornerback spot. Sophomore Prince Amukamara, though, started in place of returning starter Armando Murillo, a senior who’d injured his back last week and didn’t play on defense. He’s expected to return this week.
And O’Hanlon suddenly overtook the slightly more-experienced Rickey Thenarse. The move came Tuesday — the day after Pelini’s well-publicized grumble about a bad practice.
“Me and Rickey both had troubles on (that) Monday,” O’Hanlon said. “We had installed a bunch of new stuff for Western Michigan on that Monday in meetings. We came out in practice, and it was kind of a whirlwind for us.
“We both made a lot of mistakes, but I guess Rick might have made a couple of more mistakes. I’m not sure, exactly.”
Sanders said it was simply a matter of O’Hanlon better understanding the scheme for last week.
“He seemed to, at that time, have a better grasp of it,” he said. “And he worked hard, so he kind of deserved to have that first opportunity.”
Thenarse played on special teams but injured his shoulder and didn’t return. Nebraska was also without junior safety Major Culbert. Sanders said Culbert was available but had missed too much practice because of a sore ankle.
“He had missed so much and just wasn’t quite comfortable with what we were doing yet,” Sanders said. “But hopefully, now that it’s been a couple of weeks, he’ll be back in full swing.”
O’Hanlon, a graduate of Bellevue East, hadn’t played a defensive snap in a game since his junior year of high school. Even then, he played mostly corner.
“One thing about Matt is he’s really starting to study the game, really starting to get a good grasp of our scheme, and he works hard,” Sanders said. “That’s what I’m looking for. He made some mistakes, but the key is he understands those mistakes.”
Will O’Hanlon retain his starting position? That’s a question that could be asked of each member of the secondary, every week.
“I want guys to earn it every single week. I don’t like complacency,” Sanders said. “I don’t want them looking over their shoulder, either. That’s not what I’m saying. But what I want them to do is understand what it took to get them there, not be complacent
