• Jacob Hickman at Saturday's postgame press conference:



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LINCOLN — Nebraska’s offensive line coach isn’t yet ready to shower his unit with compliments, especially when the Husker offense is still struggling to produce points.

But Barney Cotton thinks that the way that his blockers have embraced the recent 180-degree philosophy shift on offense has been critical in the success of this revamped approach, along with NU’s four-game winning streak.

Nebraska hasn’t gone out of its way too often to fool its opponents lately. The Huskers want to run the football, and this tougher-minded offensive line is helping them accomplish that with some consistency.

“I think it shows these last three or four weeks,” Cotton said. “It’s not like we’re setting the world on fire, but I think you can see a more physical offense this last month or so than maybe you did earlier in the season.”

Cotton said it starts in practice, where he’s been challenging the offensive linemen to play more aggressively as soon as the ball is snapped.

He wants his players driving opponents back off the ball on running plays. And it seems, Cotton said, that the players have a better grasp of that now.

By no means is he satisfied, but Cotton has been able to identify progress.

“We’ve spent an awful lot more time working on the run game, as far as coming off the ball and being more physical,” Cotton said. “So that’s what we’ve been emphasizing. The guys have been buying into it.”

It’s worked well enough to get wins, which is really all that matters in the mind of NU offensive coordinator Shawn Watson.

Ideally, he strives for a completely balanced offense, a perfect mix of run and pass. But Nebraska’s been quite run-heavy during the past four games.

Against Baylor, 64 percent of the Huskers’ 59 offensive plays were runs. They ran it 75 percent of the time against Oklahoma, 68 percent against Kansas and 70 percent against Kansas State.

The total of 101 rushing yards that Nebraska gained in its 17-3 win over the Wildcats on Saturday was actually its lowest since Oct. 17 against Texas Tech. For the first time in four weeks, the Huskers gained more yards in the air (166) than on the ground — though that run-first approach obviously created more downfield chances for quarterback Zac Lee and his receivers.

“That’s what we have to do at this point in time to manage wins,” Watson said.

He’s known that for some time now. Last week, Watson said he told the NU offensive line to prepare for a grinder against the Wildcats on Saturday, a game where field position and time of possession were pinpointed as key aspects.

“I told them I was going to give them two aspirin before the game and just to make sure, I’d have the trainer bring two in at halftime — because it was going to be that kind of game,” Watson said. “It was going to be a field position game and we had to maximize our opportunities.”

And far too often this season, the offensive line has seemed to be responsible for many of the failed scoring chances. Penalties have been the most notable of errors.

But Nebraska offensive linemen weren’t flagged at all Saturday. Against Kansas, they were penalized just once — right guard Keith Williams fell down and got caught trying to block a player with his legs.

Improvement still needs to be made. It’s one of the reasons why senior center Jacob Hickman isn’t going to get caught up in this team’s accomplishments just yet.

“There’s a lot of stuff left to play for,” he said.

Contact the writer:

402-473-9585, jon.nyatawa@owh.com

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