Quarterback: Jake Locker was off from the beginning and never really got comfortable. The interception on the first possession rattled him and he never recovered. To be fair he was hurried most of the day and his receivers were covered for the most part. That being said he didn't help himself with his lack of touch and accuracy. On the positive side of things he did have a 7 yard TD run in the first quarter and a 33 yarder in the second half. Jake has problems reading past his first or second progression. He was completely confused by this defense. Grade: F
Running Back: Polk and Callier both continue to play well. The Huskies picked up 175 yards on the ground and could have picked up more if the game was closer. You could say that Sark didn't concentrate enough on the run early but Washington was behind almost the entire game. Grade: B
Receivers: The talented group wasn't able to break free much yesterday but Jermaine Kearse did have that long touchdown pass. Give credit to Nebraska because they have the best pass defense we will see this season. They made some great plays on the ball. You also can't dump this all on the receivers because Jake wasn't delivering the ball very well. Grade: D
Offensive Line: I thought Erik Kohler did a pretty good job in his first start for the Huskies. The Huskies were able to run the ball but they never gave Locker enough time in the pocket to give his receivers a better chance of getting open. The Nebraska defense line decisively won the battle. Grade: D
Defensive Line: I thought these guys would do better against the run game but you could tell that by midway through the second quarter they were gassed. Nebraska was way too physical for these guys and they wore down quickly. The pad level was way too high and are guys were pushed back most of the day. Haouli Jamora had eight tackles with one for loss. Look for him to be starting as soon as the SC game. Has anyone heard Cameron Elisara's name called this year? One positive was the defense sacked Martinez three times with two of them coming from this unit. Grade: D
Linebackers: Cort Dennison sitting out with a concussion was a huge loss. This defense can't function against a quality opponent like Nebraska without Cort in the middle. Mason Foster had a team leading 13 tackles. Garrett Gilliland started his first game and while he didn't embarrass himself out there but the absence of Dennison was felt. With Cort out you are missing around a dozen tackles and the most cerebral kid on the defense.Hemakes the guys around him better and we missed that yesterday. Grade: D
Secondary: These guys made another young quarterback look good. Guys were wide open early and Martinez took advantage of it. He only passed 11 times and completed 7 of them but those completions were for an average of over 20 yards each with a long of 55. The biggest concern was simply tackling. These guys weren't wrapping up very well and it resulted in some big plays through the air and on the ground. Grade: F
Special Teams: The TV announcer called it the worst return coverage he had ever seen from a BCS team. Our kickoff coverage is terrible and it gave Nebraska a short field to work with. Washington was starting at the 20 all day and Nebraska was starting near mid field. Way too many missed tackles and poor angles. On the positive side Kiel Rasp had an excellent day punting the ball and our return teams fielded the ball a lot better but never came close to breaking one. Grade: D
Coaching: Washington came out flat for the third straight week and a lot of that has to do with this team being way too tight. There is a lot of pressure on these guys to start winning and I sense that the psyche of the team is pretty fragile right now. The interception on the first possession took a lot of steam out of them.
I really don't have a problem with the way the coaches called the game on offense or defense. This game was lost the old fashioned way. Nebraska was the better team and they came out and manhandled us physically on both sides of the ball. We didn't tackle well on defense and we didn't execute well on offense. This team can play a lot better than this but for some reason they just didn't put it together against the Cornhuskers.
Obviously there was a talent deficiency going on all over the field but the bottom line is the coaches didn't have the team ready to play. Grade: D