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Putting Northern Illinois away early, Scott Frost’s Nebraska Cornhuskers cruised to a 44-8 win on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.
Improving to 2-1 on the season, sophomore quarterback Adrian Martinez accounted for three touchdowns – two passing, one rushing – and classmate Maurice Washington added 81 yards and two scores on just seven touches.
Leading 10-0 at the end of the first quarter and 30-5 at the half, the Cornhuskers embraced the concept of playing without fear.
Mitch Sherman, a Nebraska football beat writer for The Athletic, shared an interesting response from Frost postgame:
Nebraska coach Scott Frost says maybe he needed to “learn a lesson” from his assistant coaches and the outside about playing with no fear of failure. It was especially evident during the final drive of the first half, when the Huskers rushed down the field to go up 25 points. pic.twitter.com/rGLme4kTG9
— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) September 15, 2019
The drive Sherman is referencing covered 87 yards in six plays and ended with Martinez hitting senior Kanawai Noa for a 27-yard score.
“That’s the way I want our team to think,” Frost said of the decision to get aggressive right before half.
“If we get the ball back with 40 seconds, we want them to think score. For them to do that, we need to do that.”
While it came against a Mid-American Conference opponent, Nebraska’s offense was humming on all cylinders on Saturday. Accumulating 525 yards of total offense, the Cornhuskers averaged over eight-yards per play.
Their first Big Ten game of the 2019 season, Nebraska travels to Champaign to face Illinois on Saturday (8:00PM ET, BTN).
A graduate of Bowling Green State University, Rydquist has been contributing to Saturday Down South and Saturday Tradition since 2019. He can be found on Twitter @TeddyRydquist.