Keep calm and carry on

Memorial Stadium will be as raucous as anyone can remember Saturday. Here are three keys to Nebraska-Colorado.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska ran 61 plays with the lead during last week’s 40-7 win over UTEP. Maybe it wasn’t the first sign that things might be different in 2024 but mark it down as one of the biggest signs from Week 1.

In one game, the Huskers played from ahead for nearly 25% of the time (270 snaps) they had the same advantage over 12 games last season. In 2017, the year that began the nosedive Nebraska is still trying to pull out of, the Huskers played just 183 snaps with a lead. The 2024 Huskers got a third of the way to that total last week.

The win over UTEP looked different for a lot of reasons, but if it felt different—more calm, less chaotic—that was probably the relative novelty of playing 73% of the offensive snaps¹ from a position of strength. This is so obvious it doesn’t need stated but so often overlooked that maybe it does—it’s good to be ahead. It always works in a game where few things always work. The team that leads is gravity rather than subject to it, pushing rather than falling.

It would work again this week, even against a Colorado program that takes pride in upending traditional football truisms. Not just talking about roster construction here, but on the field, too. The Buffs won a one-score game last week with just 23 minutes of possession against North Dakota State. Under head coach Deion Sanders, they’ve won while allowing more than 250 rushing yards (TCU, 2023). They’ve won while converting 30% of their third down attempts (Colorado State, 2023). They’ve won while giving up eight sacks (Nebraska, 2023).

Colorado can be a conundrum in that way. Most of the time classic football works against the Buffs—they’re 5-8 under Sanders—but sometimes they short-circuit the system.

How do the Huskers avoid that fate? How do they get a lead and lean on the Buffs?

Let’s break it down.