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Nebraska plays the second of back-to-back Big Ten West Division road games on Saturday, when the Huskers take on the Northwestern Wildcats. Nebraska will come into the game looking to pick up its first victory of the 2018 campaign. The Huskers dropped a 41-24 decision at No. 16 Wisconsin on Saturday night. Nebraska will take offensive momentum to Evanston after surpassing 500 yards of total offense for a second straight Big Ten game.
Saturday’s matchup at Northwestern will mark the Huskers’ third road game in four weeks to open Big Ten play. However it will come in a stadium that has been friendly to Nebraska. Following the Northwestern contest, Nebraska will play four of its next five games at home at Memorial Stadium.
Northwestern comes into the game with momentum following a 29-19 victory at No. 20 Michigan State last Saturday. The win improved Northwestern to 2-1 in Big Ten Conference play and 2-3 overall on the 2018 campaign. The Wildcats used a high-powered passing attack to key the victory, throwing for 373 yards. For the season, Northwestern ranks third in the Big Ten in passing, averaging 293.8 yards per contest.
Date/Time: October 13, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. CDT
Location: Ryan Field, Evanston, Ill Capacity: 47, 330
Surface: Grass
Opposition Blog: Check out Inside NU for everything Wildcat.
Series Record: Nebraska leads the all-time series 7-4.
TV: The game will be televised on ABC with Play-by-Play by Mark Jones, analyst Dusty Dvoracek and Molly McGrath on the sidelines. It can be WatchESPN with a login from your cable, satellite, or streaming provider.
Radio: Look for your local radio station on the Huskers sports radio network. The audio can also be streamed live for free at huskers.com The crew will be: Greg Sharpe, Matt Davison, and Ben MacLaughlin.
More streaming options: The official Husker app is available on iTunes as well and Google Play. The game audio can be streamed on the TuneIn app for free (search for the Husker IMG Sports Network.
Weather: At kickoff it will be sunny and 46 degrees. The wind will be from the southwest at 8 mph.
Odds: Northwestern is favored by 3 to 4.5 points.
Trivia
Since joining the Big Ten Conference, Nebraska is 3-0 in matchups with Northwestern in Evanston. The Huskers most recently defeated the Wildcats at Ryan Field in 2016, picking up a 24-13 victory.
Quotables
Coach Frost on his team’s preparation:
“I think we had our best of week practice ever again. So, if our goal is to get better day by day, it’s been a good week. We’re not super deep so we can’t just run these guys into the ground. I think we’ve gone far enough making some improvements that we can afford to let the guys recover a little bit, and we’ll try to be smart the rest of the year.”
Frost on his belief that this was the team’s best week of practice.
”I’ve said a few times I think the Purdue game was a real turning point for us from a culture standpoint. Everybody seems happy, seems to be fighting together, seems to get what it takes to do the little things the right way, to give yourselves a chance. The detail has been better, the efforts been better. Understanding what we’re trying to accomplish scheme-wise is getting better. There’s a lot of things that the guys have improved.”
On the Huskers’ defensive approach against a Northwestern team who ran the ball only eight times in a win over No. 19 Michigan State last week.
”I don’t want to say they’re going to be one-dimensional because they’ve been a really good running team before. I don’t know how much of the run versus pass ratio for them (was) their situation or how much of it was the teams they were playing. We’ve got to be good against the run. Wins start with being able to run the ball and stop the run. I don’t really think they’re going to be one-dimensional. If they are (one-dimensional) then we need to do a good job in the pass game, and they’re really efficient at that.”