The 38-17 score will mislead most who did not watch.
Nebraska may have won by a 21-point margin, but the contest was anything but comfortable until deep into the 4th quarter.
North Dakota, an FCS opponent, drove 80 yards in 16 plays to end the first half with a touchdown that tied it at 7-7.
The Fighting Hawks also tied Nebraska at 17-17 after an interception and short TD drive with about 19 minutes remaining.
If this is how NU performs against a Missouri Valley Conference opponent, how will they possibly withstand Big Ten teams with better talent and coaching?
Scott Frost answered a halftime question from BTN about how the team was executing with a short response: “It’s bad.”
At the break, UND had more yards rushing and passing, more first downs, sacks, and taxed the Blackshirts by running 16 more plays.
It’s how Nebraska responded to adversity that should give at least some hope to the hopeless Husker fan.
One might have assumed the mood in the Big Red locker room would have been tense or heated.
According to the players, it was anything but.
EDGE Garrett Nelson, one of only two active captains on the day, explained his halftime message to his teammates.
“We don’t need to panic, just keep doing your job,” Nelson said. “I was talking to some people last week with Northwestern. They said, ‘You were trying to go out there and win the game yourself. You need to make the plays that you train to do to help win the game.’ There’s a difference. I wanted people to learn from my mistake, so I was telling our guys not to panic.”
Wide receiver Trey Palmer echoed that sentiment. “It was just calmness. Just execute. Everybody’s got their job to do, do your job and everything else will fall in line.”
Javin Wright, who partially blocked a punt, said, “We just kept our hearts up. We’ve been through this. You gotta keep the faith. The leaders we have kind of calmed them down real quick, and it was easy for us to just click in the locker room and try to get our stuff together.”
The second half was a much more consistent performance from both sides of the ball.
Nebraska outscored North Dakota 31-10, more than doubled their yards rushing and passing, and more than doubled their first downs.
Nelson produced a sack-fumble that Stephon Wynn recovered. Ochaun Mathis also picked up his first sack as a Husker.
They were not impervious to struggle, though. Casey Thompson threw an interception right to a linebacker in underneath zone coverage, setting the Hawks up at NU’s 8-yard line. The turnover came just three plays after a UND field goal cut made it a seven-point game at 17-10.
Two plays later, North Dakota punched it in to tie it at 17.
Again, a positive response from the Huskers.
From that point forward, UND only managed 55 total yards on their final four possessions, never reaching farther than Nebraska’s 44-yard line.
Meanwhile, the offense kept rolling, answering with another quick TD drive to take the lead right back at 24-17.
Despite a 3-and-out on the next possession, the Huskers marched 89 yards on 11 plays the next time they had a chance. Eight of those were run plays, including the last six of the drive.
That’s how you close out a game.
“Halftime was good, positive,” tight end Nate Boerkircher said. “We were excited to go back out, and we were confident, and I think that it showed.” Boerkircher caught a touchdown pass in the 4th quarter, the first of his career.
With the obvious caveat of North Dakota’s lower division status, it was nice to see this edition of Nebraska football assert themselves.
Concerned about the offensive and defensive lines? So am I.
Can the Blackshirts hold up against Big Ten offenses in November? I’m skeptical.
As for September 3rd against North Dakota, they were presented with a challenge, and they passed the test.
In a season where incremental progress is a must-have, that’s something.