On3 Roundtable: Nebraska must make Colorado play a Big Ten-style game

The expectations for the Colorado–Nebraska game changed drastically over the course of just a few days last week. A disappointing Cornhuskers loss and an eye-popping Buffaloes victory turn the game from a Nebraska lean to a potential Colorado coronation.

But HuskerOnline’s Sean Callahan knows that there is a path to victory for the Cornhuskers, even if their Week 1 defeat to Minnesota was a disappointing finish. He told On3’s J.D. PicKell on On3 Roundtable that is all about sticking to their conference root.

“They’ve got to just make this as much of a Big Ten style game as possible,” Callahan said. “We saw Scott Frost do that in 2021 at Oklahoma when they play Lincoln Riley, Spencer Rattler and that really powerful Sooner offense. They slowed the pace of that game. In fact, the first quarter, there was only one possession for each team and it was the only time in the Lincoln Riley era he was held under 30 points. That’s the style.”

Nebraska’s opening game versus the Cornhuskers very much fit the mode of a Big Ten affair. The two teams combined for 23 points and only 546 yards of offense. Quarterback Jeff Sims completed 11 of his 19 passes for 114 yards and one touchdown with three interceptions. He also added game-high 91 rushing yards.

The Colorado-TCU game, on the other hand, was a barnburner. The two teams totaled 1106 yards of offense between them — more than double the combined yardage of the Nebraska-Minnesota game — with 57 first downs.

Shedeur Sanders threw the ball 47 times, connecting on 38 passes for 510 yards and four touchdowns, in an electric performance.

It was very much a pass-heavy attack for the Buffaloes as they only gained 55 yards on the ground on 32 carries. That total yardage does include yards lost from four sacks of Sanders.

“They’ve got to just be a Big Ten team coming in there,” Callahan said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you saw extra offensive tackles coming in as tight ends and blockers and just load it up and play a phone booth kind of game. Colorado doesn’t want to play a game like that. They want this to be a seven-on-seven track meet. Nebraska, as you know, is probably not built for that kind of game so they’ve got to figure out a way to dictate the style they want to play here in Boulder.”