Poor execution dooms Lee, NU offense in loss

Nebraska coach Bo Pelini had a veritable laundry list of complaints regarding his team's offensive performance after NU's 31-10 loss to Texas Tech Saturday afternoon.

"We didn't execute from the beginning to the end," he said. "We didn't make plays. On offense, we didn't come off the ball, we didn't catch the ball, we didn't make the right reads at quarterback and we didn't run the ball effectively."

As is always the case, the story begins with Nebraska's quarterback conundrum.

Zac Lee's stat line doesn't read as poor as it did against Missouri, but the junior quarterback struggled to stretch the field against the Red Raiders and turn advantageous field position into points.

Lee connected on 16 of his 22 pass attempts, but completed only two passes for more than 10 yards. He hesitated in the pocket at times and missed open receivers, which led to Lee being sacked five times on the night.

"He's got to squeeze the trigger, and my job is to help him learn from it," Watson said. "I just don't think he was seeing it well, and he maybe overanalyzed it a little bit. I'm not going to take anything away from Tech, but there were still a lot of options out there to take advantage of."

Center Jacob Hickman sees things differently. The senior center said blaming NU's offensive woes on Lee is unfair and sought to shoulder some of that criticism.

"It's not the quarterback's fault, I can assure you of that," Hickman said. "Getting Zac hit that many times early on and getting him out of the pocket, it's going to throw him off his rhythm."

With nearly 11 minutes left in the third quarter, Lee was replaced by true freshman Cody Green - a move Watson said was meant to "get Zac's feet under him a little bit."

Lee re-entered the game for one drive and completed eight of 11 passes for 44 yards on two drives, but his jump ball to receiver Niles Paul in the corner of the end zone fell incomplete on fourth and goal from the 14-yard line to end his night.

Green returned and provided a small spark for NU's offense. He engineered a scoring drive that was capped off with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Khiry Cooper, but Green also completed only seven of 16 passes and threw a interception on his last play of the day.

Watson said he was pleased by Green's ability to lead the offense with poise when he took over.

"Cody did some good things," Watson said. "He really competed and made some nice throws. He does a nice job with his composure, and I liked that."

As for where Green and Lee stand going into the week's practices – a topic that will undoubtedly be heavily debated across the state – Watson and Pelini agreed they would evaluate tape of the game and consider their options.

"Absolutely," Pelini said. "We're thinking about a lot of changes, at every position."

Green downplayed the idea of a battle for the starting job and said he has confidence Lee will respond well after a difficult outing.

"Everybody has bumps in the road, and today wasn't Zac's day," Green said. "He can go out next week against Iowa State and just light the world up. That's the type of player he is, he'll bounce back from this."

NU's running game might be an even bigger emphasis when Nebraska takes on ISU next week. Husker backs combined for a season-low 70 yards rushing on the day, and Pelini said he's looking for a marked improvement in his ground attack.

"The first thing I want to see is I want to start seeing us being able to run the football and consistently seeing us knock somebody off the football," he said. "We're going back to work there."

Roy Helu Jr. had 16 carries for 68 yards against Texas Tech, but continued to struggle with a chronic shoulder injury. His backups, Austin Jones and Marcus Mendoza, combined for a mere three yards on two carries in replacement of injured I-back Rex Burkhead.

The emphasis to establish a run game was there, Watson said, but once NU fell behind 21-0 during the second quarter, trying to catch up with the Red Raiders was more important than grinding it out on the ground.

"We do need to run the ball more, there's no doubt about it, but you can't shoot yourself in the foot and get behind like that," Watson said. "We still stay committed to trying to get that run game going, but when you're behind like that you've got to be smart. You can't sit there and do it all day."

Finding the correct balance of run and pass has been elusive for NU in its past two games, and Hickman said establishing an offensive identity will be necessary as Nebraska prepares for the second half of its season.

"We saw it last year. Once we did it, it really changed the way our offense performed," Hickman said. "We obviously don't have that yet. We need to find our identity and we need to find it fast."

Watson is ready for that challenge and said there's plenty to improve on in the week leading up to Iowa State.

"We're not happy with where we're at, not at all," Watson said. "We don't beg off from it, though. We're full-grown men and we've got to fix it. We will fix it."

maxolson@dailynebraskan.com