What we learned from the Huskers season opener vs UTEP.

how we doing howar Nation well we all should be feeling pretty good right about now coming off of a dominant win there versus utap a little shaky first quarter highs and lows and we'll talk about that but overall um through the rest of the game a very dominant performance the best season opener we've had and as long as I can remember keep in mind the last one the last season opener that we even won was in 2019 versus South Alabama I think that score was like 3521 so as dominant of a season opener as we have had and who knows how long but it's been a long time and uh it feels good it feels good um I mean I know you guys probably feel the same how long since we felt this good about a team our team after week one right now gets a lot harder from here on out on the true test lays ahead next week in Colorado and you guys can say what you want to say about Colorado and what I just encourage everyone to keep in mind is North North Dakota state is not utap North Dakota state is not a lot of the FCS teams that other teams played North Dakota State beats power five teams on a consistent basis in their in their season openers so um for those of you who watch that game and we're like oh yeah Colorado that's an easy Mark you you can't think like that I'm telling you right now so we'll get into all that later on during the week I'm sure Colorado prep and all that stuff right now we're here to talk about that great performance we just saw the victory that we're all celebrating over utop um again you know shaky first start first quarter we come out with a bang go down the field get in the end zone 70 feeling pretty good royola is looking good run game is looking good Dowell um running like a big 10 running back and with all the questions we had going into this game about running backs um to me he looked like the guy and I was like wow that's the guy they've Ru is just playing smoking mirrors and and Dell is going to be our guy then uh defense comes on UTEP comes out with their first drive you know they do a lot of smoking mirrors moving their players around lining up in an odd trip trip sets stack sets and uh does nothing for them black shirts smack them down the way they should three and out right then we turn around and we went three and out okay um then they went on the field and they went Tempo Tempo Tempo they took a shot over the top of the field and they scored and what felt like to me two or three plays I'd have to look back at it but if it felt just like that and it was a 7- seven game and I talked about earlier you know just being concerned after the spring game with how many times our defense was taken off over the top by Rola and and Hinrich and the QBs in the spring game I was like oh man I don't know if that's going to be a concern going in turns out we didn't give up a single point the rest of the game so um it wasn't good that it happened that's the only points we gave up uh look for Colorado to be taking deep shots and they've got threats at Travis Hunter they've got threats at um I forget that other young man's name talented receiver we'll talk more about that later this week though 77 game right we're driving down the field with Dell again who I'm like this is the guy they they they ran it a couple times with rir rir rir and I was like man this isn't this isn't the same it's not working they hand it to Dow boom pops up the middle probably like 10 15 yards and at the end of it throws the ball drops the ball fumble recovered right near the end zone and um damn it if that wasn't like hey here we go with the 2023 aches and pains all over again because now we're negative one in the turnover margin just like like that um Dowell by the way after that I don't think played a single another snap nor he should have right cuz that's what they said going into it you fumble you turn the ball over you're not going to play um so I could be wrong but I don't think he played another snap the rest of the game black shirts turn around though black shirts turn around and give them that safety and and at that point forward it was it was nothing but the Huskers going forward that turned the that think turned the tide of the game I think uh it lit a fire under the offense to Fumble where they're like hey we've we drilled this all fall all spring not to turn over the ball and we just we blew it and then the black shirts bailed them out and I think the energy the belief and everything just came together and man did we lay the smackdown on them the rest of the game which is exactly what you're looking for uh so that's very good um and man it was like what 30 to 7 at half time I think by mid third quarter fourth quarter at the latest we were playing all backups uh which is outstanding when was the last time we've been able to have the luxury no time last year for sure um when was the last time we've ever had the luxury to sit there and play backups and not even the second stringers we had like third four stringers we had a we had a cornerback come in um Johnson I think is his last name and make an interception there late so we have going plus two and turn over margin today remember we were like7 last year overall so we're like plus two today and Johnson comes in makes that interception and Ru was saying in this um postgame press conference that he wasn't even in a lot of the Fall Camp he wasn't supposed to play CU he came in overweight and Rule basically said hey if you weigh you're allowed to weigh 205 if you play weigh 206 in our playe today he showed up said I weigh 205 rule let him in the game and he took it took one away right um it wasn't even a name to Frank to be frank with you guys I was familiar with before then that so the depth on the this team because second third fourth stringers through the rest of the game we still never gave up more points on defense Hinrich looked pretty good coming in there he had the one run uh where I think he could have banged uh it back inside and taken it quite a bit down the field but say he decided to lower the shoulder on an already blocked safety and hit him a little bit more um that's just Hinrich I think he just really enjoys um he really just enjoys contact right physical football player happy to see him having fun out there Graham came in kin you know I think they're trying to preserve that red shirt um grahaman came in you know um we had uh a lot of different rotation on the offensive line there towards the end the defensive line and it was just all around a good dominant effort I I thought the game to be frank with you guys was going to be a lot closer than than it turned out to be um especially up up front I mean I thought at least at least the first half would be pretty close um I thought this would be more like the games we saw last year when we played latch and I think Northern Illinois where we would win like 24 to 14 or 34 to 17 or whatever the scores were but today was just total dominance um and alvano alvano made the one field goal we asked him to make it was only from 20 yards out but uh Alano made the one field goal we asked him to make so can't ask for a better start um there there's plenty to work on the fumble to me is the biggest thing you can't you can't give up the ball especially when that was such a big deal from last year it was such a big deal all fall and spring camp and for us to have fumbled in the first quarter to me was extremely disheartening um but I'm glad things turned out the way they did stuff to work on going forward I'm sure R will work to get them fixed Colorado is going to be a big matchup this week uh but enjoy it Oscar fans enjoy tonight enjoy the rest of the games that are on um and as always go Big Red