LINCOLN, Neb.—Nebraska has won four out of five games, and coach Bo Pelini doesn’t want to stop now.
After beating Kansas State 56-28 on the road Saturday, the Cornhuskers are off until their Nov. 28 home game against Colorado.
“I would like to play straight through, but it doesn’t work out that way,” Pelini said. “I think it comes at a good time for us because we are nicked up a bit and we could use a couple of days off. This will give us a little extra preparation time and can give us a good jump on recruiting heading into the summer.”
Nebraska’s win over the downtrodden Wildcats was thorough and convincing.
The Huskers (7-4, 4-3 Big 12) ran for 340 yards, their top total of the season and most against a Big 12 opponent since piling up 352 on the ground against Kansas in 2002. Nebraska has run for at least 160 yards in each of the past five games.
Quarterback Joe Ganz continued his assault on the record book, accounting for 365 yards of total offense—270 passing and career-high 95 rushing.
His rushing performance was the best by a Husker quarterback since Jammal Lord ran for 109 yards against Texas A&M in 2003.
Ganz’s 3,351 yards of total offense in 11 games is a single-season school record, bettering the 3,165 yards by Zac Taylor in 14 games in 2006.
Ganz also became the second player in school history to pass for 3,000 yards in a season. He pushed his season total to 3,103, trailing only Taylor’s NU record of 3,197 yards in 2006.
“I thought we had a really good plan on knowing how they were playing us,” Pelini said. “Joe was able to hurt them with his feet and that helped open up our running backs, too. I thought our line did a really good job with the whole game.”
Receiver Nate Swift, who broke Johnny Rodgers’ record for career receptions earlier in the season, is on track to break the 1972 Heisman Trophy winner’s mark for career receiving yards after catching four balls for 98 yards.
Swift is just 43 yards from Rodgers’ NU record of 942 receiving yards in 1972 and 45 yards shy of Rodgers’ career mark of 2,479.
Nebraska’s defense recorded four sacks, upping its season total to 25. The 2007 defense had just 13 sacks.
Nose tackle Ndamukong Suh and defensive end Zach Potter each had a sack, and each has 5.5 for the season.
But Pelini wasn’t totally satisfied with the performance.
“To me, allowing 28 points means we were sloppy,” he said. “We aren’t playing in the way I envisioned our potential, and that is something we have to keep working towards.”
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