Best Position Group of the Nebraska - Northwestern Game: Defensive Line

Hello Corn Nation!

My name is Jackson Bokenkamp, and welcome to my first article as a part of the Corn Nation Family. I’m a second-year student at the University of Oregon from Kearney, Nebraska, and I bleed Red!! I have a podcast called ‘Corn Boys Podcast,’ and currently, I’m working on my writing skills. I’m looking forward to writing and giving my Husker thoughts to you all!

On Saturday, we watched a true Big Ten West-style game. Arriving at this game, we expected Nebraska to run the ball on a porous Northwestern run defense. We also believed Northwestern would try to get the ball out quickly to the perimeter to avoid testing the #3 run defense in the country. However, just a few plays into Northwestern’s first drive, we found out why they would have to run it against this defense: The Nebraska Front 7.

Brendan Sullivan immediately found pressure in his lap as he dropped back to throw the ball. The overpowering strength and toughness of the D-Line and Linebackers and Tony Whites’ ability to dial up several confusing blitz packages made Brendan Sullivan’s life hell. This resulted in a 1-dimensional Northwestern rushing attack.

Since the Northwestern offensive was forced to make it happen on the ground, they lacked explosive plays and found themselves non-existent in the endzone. On the final Northwestern drive, the Blackshirts sent successful pressures four consecutive times to win Nebraska the game.

Although Nebraska’s offense wasn’t pretty, it did just enough to let the front 7 go out and win a second straight Big Ten conference game for the Cornhuskers.

The narrative was just as evident from the box score if you couldn’t watch the game. On the day, Nebraska had 8 sacks and 13 tackles for loss, a team-high since 2019. The star on the line today, Nash Hutmacher, the Polar Bear, recorded a season-high 2.5 sacks on the day. The rest of the sacks and tackles for loss were a wholistic team effort, where old guys like Luke Riemer, Issac Gifford, and Ty Robinson all got home, as well as young guys like Cameron Lenhardt, Princewell Umanmielen, Jamari Butler, and JUCO transfer, scout team player, James Williams who all emerged as homewreckers, a good sign for the future of Husker Nation.

The Huskers now look ahead to the Purdue Boilermakers at home at 2:30c as they seek their 5th win of the season.

Thank you so much for reading my first article. Let me know how I did and how I can improve in the comments. I can’t wait to write about more Husker wins in the future!