Actually Huskerexpat I would say the game plan did cost us the Purdue game. Asking a first time starter to pass the ball 40+ times isn't a good game plan. I'd put that loss 100% on the coaches and their game plan. If you go back and watch the game when we ran we were doing pretty good and the game didn't start getting out of hand til the middle of the third quarter.
Something to keep in perspective, though - while the playcalling was certainly questionable, Nebraska only averaged 2.9 YPC. That's pretty bad. We tried running but our lines/backs just weren't doing well. And the defense, while not getting much help from the offense that day, also looked abysmal.
The flip side to this, however, is commitment. While NU completed 60 percent of it's passes that day, there were four picks and 19 passes that fell incomplete. That's 19 times a play, essentially, counted for no offensive gain. In order for them to have won that game, I think they would've needed a better commitment to the run alongside a better defensive performance. It's really hard to win games when you're not running the ball well and not playing good defense.
