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McKewon: Nebraska paved road back from losing with stick-to-your-ribs football – Rutgers ribs, too

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Eyman Big Red Truck Recap with Sam McKewon: Nebraska vs. Rutgers

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Given Nebraska football made a little history Saturday in its 31-0 win over Rutgers, notching its first shutout of a Big Ten foe since joining the league, it may well look, years from now, like it was easy.

The stat sheet says so — NU gained 286 more yards, had 16 more first downs, 19 more plays and four more tackles for loss.

But when it’s been a month since your last win, and it’s the first game with new offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas, and his headset issues, early in the game, left the quarterback calling a few plays on the opening drive? The Huskers had to fight through a little hell to get back to feeling heaven.

The road back was paved through Piscataway, New Jersey, with run plays. For an afternoon, you might even say Nebraska looked born to do it. Power plays with pulling linemen. Quarterback keeps. Full-house backfields and I-formations. Three tight ends in some formations. Stick-to-your-ribs football — and to theirs, for that matter.

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“That’s who we are,” coach Matt Rhule said. “That’s what we want to be.”

Forty-three totes — a high in Big Ten play — for 237 yards, with eight ballcarriers involved. Jamal Rule got 22 of them for 103 yards. Quarterback Anthony Colandrea, the interim for the interim playcaller during the first quarter, had nine for 66 yards.

Over three hours, Nebraska (6-4, 3-4) built a lead that couldn’t collapse in the fourth quarter, even when a fake punt pass ended in the kind of short-hopped throw you’d see during first pitch at a baseball game. Both sides of the ball for Rutgers (2-8, 1-6) was exhausted, Scarlet Knights, offense and defense, laying on the turf.

“When you’re running the football and they’re having to call timeout because guys on the other team are getting banged up — some of our guys are getting banged up — it takes a tremendous toll,” coach Matt Rhule said after his team snapped a four-game losing streak. “The more you can be on the field, the more you can do those things.”

For a weekend — that started with Nebraska’s plane taking off just before a nationwide ground stop at America’s airports — Rhule’s team survived some of its self-inflicted wounds (more pre-snap penalties) by leaning into an offensive identity it lost in the final weeks of playcaller Dana Holgorsen’s tenure.

Rhule fired Holgorsen after a lackluster month of scoring and got more involved in the offensive operation, meeting with Colandrea as he left the field — Thomas, Colandrea’s position coach, went to the press box to call plays — looking into the eyes of offensive linemen on the bench, being more engaged, in general, during the week of preparation, when he took the ideas of every offensive assistant — plus fullbacks coach Ron Brown — and poured into Thomas’ plan.

“I was more involved,” Rhule said. “‘This is what I want the football team to look like.’ We’re going to run the football, we’re going to playaction it, we’re going to build the plan all week.”

So NU’s opening touchdown drive — a 16-play, 94-yard monster of a march eating up most of the first quarter — started with seven runs, most from Rule, whose ankle looked the healthiest it’s been in weeks. He went over 100 yards for the first time in league play.

“Running the ball was definitely an emphasis going into this game,” Rule said.

Colandrea’s passing benefited, too. He completed 16 of 25 throws for 192 yards — 12 yards per completion — and two scores, both to tight ends. Luke Lindenmeyer caught the first on a 15-yard crosser, while Carter Nelson, on his best day as a Husker, caught a 13-yarder in the back corner of the same end zone by the fourth quarter.

“Plays are plays,” Colandrea said. “We’re running the same plays.”

But the mentality of running the ball first, Colandrea noted, was a little different.

In front of an announced 36,435 fans at SHI Solutions Stadium — the actual attendance appeared much smaller than that, Rutgers was ripe to be run over. The Scarlet Knights allowed 186 rushing yards per game coming into Saturday, and their injury tent had routine visitors Saturday.

“You play a violent game,” RU coach Greg Schiano said, “people get injured.”

Including Rutgers’ starting quarterback, Sean Ashenfelder, who is actually the team’s No. 3 quarterback. When he went down in the second quarter, after a Jahsear Whittington sack, No. 2 quarterback, AJ Surace, trotted onto the field.

Surace broke his ribs last week against Wisconsin and couldn’t adequately throw the ball with any velocity. Nebraska intercepted two of his passes, including one, by Caleb Benning, that came in the Husker red zone, with NU still ahead only 14-0.

For the afternoon, Rutgers completed 7 of 16 passes for 42 yards. It’s the lowest opponent total and fewest number of completions in the Rhule era. Missing its top wideout, KJ Duff, Rutgers was hamstrung in ways few Big Ten teams are.

Over the last month, Nebraska’s biggest obstacle was its own mistakes. It didn’t avoid them entirely on Saturday. Not always clean. Not entirely pretty. But totally physical and, by the scorebook, dominant. Not a bad way to qualify for a third straight bowl game.

“It wasn’t perfect,” Rhule said, “but it was certainly a step in the right direction.”

sam.mckewon@owh.com, 402-540-4222, twitter.com/swmckewonOWH

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