Michigan is 5-0 on the season and if they want to get to 6-0, they'll need to get through Lincoln unscathed on Saturday night. How worried should they be? Luckily we have FFFF here to tell us, starting today with the Nebraska offense. The Huskers put up 56 on Northwestern last weekend and have the fanbase riding high. Adrian Martinez is still around and this is definitely a Scott Frost offense now. Let's take a gander at what it looks like: 

The Film: Unfortunately, for the offense, we had to use Nebraska's most recent game against Northwestern. The reason is that the Huskers recently reshuffled their offensive line and so even though the MSU tape may be against a much better opponent, it's actually less useful than the Northwestern tape. And I say that despite knowing, as you will see in these clips, that Northwestern is really, really bad. Like, Hard To Believe That They're This Bad After Going 7-2 Last Season bad. So there's only so much that can be learned from this tape due to that limiting factor, but also the OL change was significant enough that we have to go with this tape. There's also less tape to examine as a result, since Nebraska took their starters out late in the third quarter. All this said, we will do what we can with this. 

Personnel: The picture. 

Nebraska still has Adrian Martinez at QB and you're going to hear a ton about him in this piece. He's in his fourth year as the starting QB, which means he'll have faced Michigan twice in his career, with his first appearance being featured in the main photo for this article. The RB room in the game I watched was really split between two players, Jacquez Yant and Rahmir Johnson. Yant hadn't been used heavily this season and then suddenly erupted in this game and you'd have to think his nature as the Hot Hand means he'll feature in a starring role this Saturday. Johnson has been a mainstay this whole season and leads the team in (non-Martinez) carries. Markese Stepp and Sevion Morrison also got carries in this game. 

At WR Samori Toure is the clear #1 option, followed by speedster Zavier Betts and big outside receiver Omar Manning. Old Friend Oliver Martin has been averaging a catch or two per week, and Levi Falck got two catches in the game I saw. Nebraska likes to use two TEs quite a bit, with 6'8" Austin Allen being a humongous and favored target, in addition to a key blocker, while Travis Vokolek is also a used blocker, though not quite the receiving option. 

The reshuffled offensive line looks like the following: Teddy Prochazka at LT, notable because the 6'8" lineman is an in-stater and top 250 recruit but is also a true freshman starting at left tackle. He was the big change that was made after the MSU game. Turner Corcoran has kicked out to RT after previously starting on the left side, which has demoted the much-maligned Bryce Benhart to the second string after Benhart was relentlessly abused by the Spartans. Nouredin Nouili has now made two starts at LG, while veterans Cam Jurgens and Matt Sichterman are starting at their usual spots of center and right guard, respectively. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: WE HUSK SOME CORN]

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Spread, pro-style, or hybrid: I think this first table should make it abundantly clear what the answer here is. Below is the distribution of plays and formations up through the final few minutes of the third quarter (when UNL lifted their starters):  

Yep, not a single play under center for the Huskers. This is a spread offense built heavily around the QB running game. Martinez's legs are featured in the offense and they are central to a lot of what Nebraska tries to do, whether it's from the read option (which is one of the offense's base plays) or from the actual option pitch play like it's 2007. Mixing in the pass and the play action pass is how they build on top of Martinez's run game. I should note that the distribution between run and pass in this game was pretty extreme because Northwestern could do absolutely nothing to stop the run, so here's a look at the run/pass distribution in the preceding five Nebraska games this year: 

- Illinois = 39 run, 32 pass

- Fordham = 65 run, 30 pass

- Buffalo = 41 run, 20 pass

- Oklahoma = 38 run, 25 pass 

- Michigan State = 50 run, 36 pass 

This is a team that wants to run the ball, and they will throw more if they fall behind early/are engaged in a competitive game (sounds like Michigan, to some extent). Here's a look at the distribution of play types based on down in this game: 

Not really any clear trends here to be discerned, but the overriding point is pretty clear: this is firmly a run-first spread team. The one divergence from an air raid type of spread offense is the use of the two TEs, Austin Allen and Travis Vokolek. Playing in 12 personnel (2 TE, 2 WR, 1 RB) is fairly common for Nebraska, although they will also line up a TE in the slot to give the appearance of going four wide a decent bit. 

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? Given everything I've just said, this should be a pretty easy question, and the answer is not Manball. Nebraska never goes under center and they don't really have many beef packages in their playbook. The base set looks something like this: 

Martinez in the gun, one RB, one TE (in this picture, it's Austin Allen), and three WRs. When they go with two TEs, it can often look like this: 

There we have Austin Allen lining up as a receiver, and then Vokolek in a more traditional TE spot. And then sometimes they trot out with four wide (one of whom you can't see in this picture): 

But, as I mentioned earlier, one of the receivers in this formation is normally a TE lining up in the slot. In this case it's Vokolek lined up in the slot off the right end of the line. So, Basketball on Grass. 

Hurry it up or grind it out: Somewhere in between the two, but closer to hurry it up. No one will mistake Nebraska for a whizbang Chip Kelly offense, but they are also not a molasses-slow team. They are interested in running the ball and are satisfied with draining the clock that comes with that, but they tend to run plays with between 10 and 20 seconds on the play clock, typically with a happy medium of 15 seconds. It is not uncommon for Nebraska to run a play with 25 or 30 on the playclock either, though, with tempo being very much within this team's repertoire. 

Quarterback Dilithium Rating (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Let's go with a 9. As mentioned previously, Martinez's legs aren't just something that Michigan needs to watch out for, it's what the whole offense is built around. And he's an extremely dangerous runner. Probably not on Denard's level, but Martinez is the best running QB the Wolverines will see this season, by a considerable margin. Speaking of Martinez....

Dangerman & HenneChart: These two are going to be linked because this week's Dangerman is none other than Adrian Martinez himself. Nebraska has a revolving door at RB, a questionable OL, and a number of different receivers who are targeted, so there really was only one option, and it's the player that the whole offense flows through. A QB is always an important position no matter the offense, but Martinez is even more important than the average QB is to an offense, because he is the key to unlocking both the passing game (duh) and the running game. 

Let's start in the running game. Nebraska builds in a read for Martinez on most plays, and Northwestern's continued inability to figure this out is a big reason why they got bulldozed and Big Red's starters got to leave the field by the third quarter. If your edge defenders cannot make this difficult for Martinez, as NW's #91 here doesn't, Nebraska is content to do this to you over and over again: 

And then if your edges overcorrect and start locking onto Martinez (as NW's #91 does here), they'll hit you with the give: 

The old school option pitch, as was previously stated, also appears in the offense as a way to confuse the edge defenders: 

In that play you can see the pre-snap orbit motion from the eventual ballcarrier, which is another wrinkle in the offense that Nebraska likes to pepper in there. In all three of those plays, it is the threat of Adrian Martinez's legs that make the plays work, either allowing him to punish the defense if the edge defenders go for the back, or being enough of a threat to make the edge guys follow him, opening up lanes for the backs. Michigan's DEs/OLBs will need to be as sharp as possible when it comes to understanding QB reads if they want to stop Martinez. 

Sometimes on short yardage situations Nebraska doesn't give a Martinez a read, they just have him take the snap and trust him to find a hole, JT Barrett style: 

Northwestern definitely didn't make it difficult for Martinez to find those holes in this game. They also go to the QB run in non-short yardage situations sometimes too, if the defense has cleared out the box to account for having four receivers lined up outside: 

As you may expect, axioms about not losing QB contain very much apply here. There were no true scrambling situations in this game to clip, mostly because Northwestern's defensive showing can best be described as "pathetic", but the threat of the scramble when Martinez drops back to pass is always there. All of Nebraska's run concepts go through their QB and his ability to hurt the opponent with his legs. 

As for the passing side of things, Martinez isn't quite as good of a passer, but he's not bad. His stat line for the season is 6 TD to 2 INT with 9.8 Y/A, which is a marked change from the dink and dunk nature of past QB's on Michigan's schedule (Dylan Morris, Noah Vedral), as well as the turnover machine that is Graham Mertz. Martinez showed a lot of the good and bad that he has to offer through the air in this game. Here's the chart: 

Martinez is a college QB in that he is capable of making some high quality throws but there are also a number of accuracy duds thrown in. Let's start with the good: 

That's not the easiest throw to make and he fits it in perfectly. Martinez can also make those sorts of throws on rollouts: 

Arm strength isn't an issue, and the downfield passing attack is very much functional. That was a 38 yard strike to Samori Toure, who is now averaging 21.0 yards per reception this season on a team-leading 23 catches. Nebraska can punish you down the field. However, Martinez isn't always that dead-on accurate, especially if he doesn't set his feet: 

In other cases, Martinez just straight up misses when a receiver is open and he's not on the move: 

That's a chunk play if Martinez throws just a slightly better ball. I acknowledge that he doesn't quite get to step into it because the LG Nouili is being driven back a bit, but it's a throw that needs to be made. 

I thought Martinez's reads in the passing game were as sharp as those in the running game, but also Nebraska was playing Northwestern, which means the receivers were almost always open no matter where he went with the ball. Therefore, the source of the problems that popped up in the passing game tended to just be inaccuracy from Martinez. It's reasonable to expect that continue this weekend, because Martinez is no Justin Fields when it comes to downfield accuracy. What may be different is the amount of time Martinez gets to throw, which we will discuss below. 

In totality, Martinez is the dangerman because as he goes, so goes the offense. His legs allow the running game to work and his passing ability downfield is crucial to hurt teams who want to key in on the run. If Martinez isn't functioning, or he doesn't have much time to work with, the Huskers' offense is in a lot of trouble. 

Overview

We took our time talking about Martinez, but how about the rest of the team? You got to see a number of the playmakers that Martinez likes to go to in the above clips. I noted Samori Toure as a deep threat option out of the slot previously, and I'll also shout out Zavier Betts, who you saw receiving the option pitch from Martinez and taking it 85 yards to the house. Betts has terrific speed, and Toure was an excellent player at Montana who transferred to Lincoln in the offseason. Those two are probably the two receivers to watch out for the most, although I'll throw the humongous TE Austin Allen out there as another name to know as a passcatcher, though he didn't have one in this game. He did show up as a blocker in some of the previously shown clips. You can scroll back up and see #11 setting a block in space on the option pitch TD. 

As for the RBs, the emergence of Jacquez Yant in the Northwestern game complicates the depth chart. Yant is a walk-on back who is the bigger variety, 6-2, 245. He broke a long run against the Wildcats but it seemed to me that it was more about NW's ineptitude and lack of athleticism than anything Yant did: 

Does not scream "blazing speed" to me. Rahmir Johnson is the one RB who has gotten consistent work this entire year and he appeared in this game a decent bit. He's a pretty significant change from Yant as a much more slim and speed-based RB. He carries the ball in the second clip in this piece, the one where Martinez fools the edge on the read option give. That one showcased his speed well, but here's a play where it might have been nice for Johnson to have a little more muscle: 

If they roll with Yant and Johnson again this weekend, it's a decent speed and power mix, even if I think that Yant's success against NW was mostly a mirage. 

The last area of the game that needs to be discussed is the offensive line. It was difficult in this game to really say anything negative about Nebraska's revamped OL because Northwestern is atrocious. There was very little pressure on Martinez and the Husker run game gashed the Wildcats over and over again. However, a trend that's pretty consistent across this season and what necessitated the OL shift is the consistently bad pass protection at tackle. On Saturday Nebraska is likely to be starting a true freshman at LT and a RS freshman at RT. Corcoran, the RT, has accumulated a horrendous PFF grade for pass protection this season and there were some glimmers of that problem in this game, even if NW's ineptitude prevented it from popping up in full force: 

#69 RT to bottom of the line

If that's Aidan Hutchinson pass rushing instead of a Northwestern player, Martinez is probably laying flat on his back. Here's a blitz that Nebraska has a little trouble picking up: 

There are definitely vulnerabilities here for Michigan to exploit just by virtue of having real talent along the defensive line. I had only good things to say about Nebraska's run blocking, but again, contextualizing the opponent is important: Northwestern sucks. Against better competition, the OL has struggled to regularly open big holes between the tackles. Their RBs were under 4 YPC against both Oklahoma and Michigan State, which is another reason for the OL juggling. The OL shift worked against the doormat that is Northwestern, we'll see if it holds up against a Michigan DL that just whipped Wisconsin. 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

This is going to be quite the test for Michigan's ends. They didn't handle the read option game of Noah Vedral all that well against Rutgers, but that was a few weeks ago and it features much more prominently here. You have to believe that Mike Macdonald has spent the entire week in practice drilling the read option into the heads of his defensive linemen. Still, it will be interesting to see how some of the younger linemen (Mike Morris and David Ojabo notably) handle this more mental component of the game. 

Building off of that, the game needs to be won on the defensive line for Michigan. We talked about the pass protection struggles in general and with two first or second year offensive tackles starting for UNL, the Wolverines need to follow up last week's dominant pass rushing performance with another monstrous effort. If they can get into the backfield with regularity, it will disrupt Martinez's rhythm, and also go a long way towards blowing up the run game. Remember, Nebraska wants to run the ball more than they want to throw it, so getting a lead on offense and then forcing them into passing situations, where Ojabo and Hutchinson should feast, is pivotal. Winning the battle of the line of scrimmage and forcing the Huskers into longer downs is another way to make Nebraska have to pass. 

Putting Nebraska into those uncomfortable situations should be the prime objective on Saturday and everything else will break down after that. This is a team with rather unremarkable receivers and running backs, but a QB who is really dangerous. Winning up front and bothering that QB will go a long way towards bottling up Nebraska's offense.