Tad Stryker: Relief Granted

Having had their fill of drama for this early within the season, tens of hundreds of relieved Nebraska followers walked out of Memorial Stadium giving thanks for switch operating again Anthony Grant.

Grant calmed a digital ocean of troubled waters Saturday in Memorial Stadium, the place he grew to become the primary Cornhusker to hurry for 100 yards in back-to-back video games since Devine Ozigbo had three in a row in October 2018. Grant rushed for 189 yards, together with 139 within the second half. He scored two touchdowns, serving to the Huskers emerge with a 38-17 win over FCS opponent North Dakota, who tied the sport simply earlier than halftime, and had a lot of within the crowd of 86,590 reaching for his or her antacid tablets early and sometimes.

After the Preventing Hawks erased a 10-point deficit to tie the sport once more at 17 with 4:22 remaining within the third quarter, Grant eased the drama, bursting over the left facet to attain on a 46-yard run lower than two minutes later to regain the lead.

Grant, the junior faculty switch from New Mexico Army Institute, emerged from this recreation because the clear No. 1 ball provider; he provides Nebraska a house run risk at operating again for the primary time since Ozigbo graduated. However, coach Scott Frost appeared a bit cautious of overreacting to Grant’s efficiency.

“There’s no have to clear house to retire his quantity or something proper now,” Frost mentioned, “however he had a great day.”

No person’s able to overlook about Roy Helu Jr., who wore No. 10 earlier than Grant did, however Grant brings among the similar issues to the desk that Helu did. We’ll depart it at that for now, besides to say that if the Husker offensive line can get at the least one yard of downfield push, because it lastly started to do as the sport wore on, Grant makes good choices about the place to assault the protection.

Within the recreation’s closing eight minutes, Mark Whipple leaned on Grant and true freshman Ajay Allen, at one level calling 11 consecutive operating performs because the Huskers pulled away, ending their seven-game shedding streak by closing issues out with their operating recreation. Doing it in opposition to an FCS group is actually nothing to write down dwelling about, however you’ve acquired to begin someplace. Speeding for 244 yards is an honest begin, as is giving your operating backs 35 carries.

After Grant gave NU a 24-17 lead, two different switch gamers stepped to the forefront as Ochaun Mathis and Trey Palmer made huge performs early within the fourth quarter. Simply discovering somebody who could make performs late within the recreation is an enormous step for Nebraska.

Mathis acquired his first sack of the season to cease a possible game-tying drive, and after the Hawks punted the ball deep, Palmer made an impressive third-and-14 catch of a fluttering 31-yard cross by Casey Thompson to get the Huskers out of the outlet. Grant and Allen closed out the drive from there.

This was once the sort of recreation the place Nebraska’s second- and third-team gamers acquired double-digit snaps. Not so on at the present time; the second-team protection acquired on the sphere for simply three snaps on the ultimate collection.

The Blackshirts’ fundamental downfall was their failure to get off the sphere within the first half in opposition to the Hawks, who outyarded Nebraska 173-147 and had an 11-10 edge in first downs through the first half-hour. North Dakota completely wished to carry the ball in opposition to the Huskers, and it did simply that, operating nearly seven minutes off the clock on a 16-play, 80-yard drive to attain its tying TD with 13 seconds remaining earlier than the half. There have been means too many third-down completions by North Dakota quarterback Tommy Schuster, a tough-minded competitor who gained’t be mistaken for Tom Brady anytime quickly, and too many missed tackles for the Blackshirts, who nonetheless regarded jet lagged from their Eire journey, and the Hawks wolfed up greater than 20 minutes of possession within the first half alone.

Drama? My phrase, there was means an excessive amount of of that type of factor for Husker Nation. Defensive captain Garrett Nelson figured the identical factor, telling his teammates at halftime to study from his errors. Nelson figures he tried to do an excessive amount of by himself within the season-opening loss in opposition to Northwestern, and he urged everybody to simply take a deep breath. “We don’t have to panic, we simply have to maintain doing our job,” he mentioned. “Doing what we have to do within the sense of operating to the ball, being bodily. That’s the way you win soccer video games.”

Will that lesson stick? A traditional week of apply and a go to from a quicker Georgia Southern group would be the subsequent take a look at. The Huskers have lots to study, however they’re 1-1. Simply breathe straightforward for some time.