San Jose State Takes Some of the Shine off Nebraska

It was a game that most Husker fans knew, in their heart of rebuilding hearts, had to come sometime. Adversity, the going getting tough. Few, however, thought it would come this week.

Off a mostly impressive win against Western Michigan, Nebraska was supposed to use San Jose State—a team with some proven defensive players and a quarterback who was good on paper but making his first start—to build on that week one performance. Improved running game, fewer defensive lapses, more blitzes, bigger final margin of victory, that's the way it was supposed to play out.

But in today's college football few games seem to go according to plan. Until Niles Paul returned a kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter, a play that energized the team and eased angst statewide, the Spartans had quite simply outplayed Nebraska on their home turf.

How bad was it? If you were to look at the final statistics independent of the score you'd think you might be looking at a loss:

--Overall, Nebraska was outgained on the day, 353 yards to 315 but through the first three quarters it was even worse with SJSU holding nearly an 80 yard advantage over the Cornhuskers.

--For the first time in his career as a starter, Joe Ganz didn't throw for more than 300 yards or a touchdown.

--The running game continued to confound with 99 total yards. While Roy Helu Jr. looked electric in spots, Marlon Lucky was largely absent despite the late touchdown, carrying the ball 7 times for 25 yards. Nebraska needs him to be a playmaker.

--Until the fourth quarter, where Nebraska enjoyed an average starting field position of the SJSU 43—as opposed to the average starts of the Nebraska 24, 15 and 15 through the first three quarters respectively—the deciding factor looked like the Spartans inability to kick the football. San Jose State left an entire touchdown on the field, missing an extra point and two field goals.

--Perhaps most galling, Nebraska committed 12 penalties totaling 103 yards including a second quarter stretch that saw three consecutive illegal procedure penalties.

And that's just the paper trail. For anyone who watched the game there were red flags popping up all over the place—missed tackles, uninspiring offensive line play, opposing receivers catching the ball in space, the overall ineffectiveness of the offense. At one point during the second quarter I jotted in my notebook that this game felt and looked a lot like a game from last year and as painful as that is to write it was much worse to think it not even halfway through the second game of the season.

That said, it is still just the second game of the season. Despite all the doom and gloom Nebraska did win by the same 23-point margin that they did last week, Bo Pelini did move to 2-0, the defensive line did make some big plays and Niles Paul, even with just two catches, did arrive on the scene as a serious weapon.

They say that the moment you drive a new car off the lot its value decreases. You could say the same about preseason expectations. The Western Michigan game moved a lot of things from the theoretical to the tangible realm. With no games to go on, all you have are questions. With one game to go on you have some potential answers but nothing is final yet.

That remains the case, but if you could still sniff the new car smell after week one, week two might've been the first scratch in the paint. It's nothing serious, nothing that can't be fixed but damn if it doesn't change the way you look at your new car every time you open the door.