While some of UTEP’s fans didn’t show Nebraska football nearly enough respect leading up to the Week 1 matchup, give the Miners’ head coach this credit. Scotty Walden has only positive things about the Huskers in the weeks before the two teams faced off.
In fact, several of his comments read like was legitimately jealous of what the Cornhuskers have and what Matt Rhule is doing when it comes to trying to turn the program around. In particular, Walden said last week that he thought the Huskers culture was “elite.”
For a little while at least, it was clear that UTEP’s culture was good enough to go punch for punch. In the end, they weren’t able to stick with the Huskers and things got out of hand in the 40-7 win.
After the game, Walden had a good idea how the game spiraled out of control to the point where the Huskers were able to go from tied to losing by 33 points.
Nebraska football made UTEP think too much
“Early in the game, we got them in a 2nd and 30. We had them backed up. We can’t let them convert that. That’s not winning football,” Walden said.
“I didn’t have the right personnel on the field. We had a package in there that we wanted to put pressure on and we didn’t have the right guys on the field.”
It was another play that Walden felt really took the wind out of his team’s sails.
Raiola’s second touchdown, a go-up-and-get-it ball to Jahmal Banks, basically ended the game.
“The go route before half is the one that hurts,” Walden said. “I don’t like that one, where we have two guys in coverage. But overall defensively, it’s hard to evaluate because we had them on the field so long.”
In the end, Nebraska football had enough plays that simply wore UTEP down and its head coach seemed to understand that.