With an opening night scare behind them, the Nebraska Cornhuskers hope for a better showing when they host Southern Miss, Saturday night in Lincoln.

Nebraska held off a late charge from Wyoming last Saturday night, to win 37-34, in a game the Huskers led at one point 31-14 in the third quarter.

But despite the victory, the 'Voice of the Cornhuskers' Greg Sharpe told me it was anything but a 'winning' mood at Memorial Stadium:

Brett Smith
Huskers.com
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The latest crooked number against the Huskers came courtesy of Cowboys quarterback Brett Smith, who led a Wyoming attack that amassed 602 yards of total offense, more than half of those yards, 383 of them, came thru the air, as the Cowboys took advantage of two late Husker turnovers to make it close at the end.

Nebraska defensive coordinator John Papuchis called the game a 'bad dream', but head coach Bo Pelini said the issues on defense were 'fixable'.

One thing that was undeniable, it was a very young Husker defense, with nine first-year players seeing action in the front seven Saturday night:

Imani Cross
Huskers.com
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There were plenty of pluses on offense, starting with the running game, where both Imani Cross and Ameer Abdullah rushed for more than 100 yards.

Overall, the offense averaged more than 8 yards a play, was 9 of 17 on third downs, and held the ball close to 36 minutes. A very impressive showing for Nebraska's running backs:

Taylor Martinez
Huskers.com
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Quarterback Taylor Martinez was solid in the first start of his senior season.  He completed 17 of 22 passes for 3 touchdowns.

He did fall hard on his non-throwing shoulder in the third quarter and was sporting an ice pack late in the game:

Another area of concern for Nebraska against Wyoming was penalties - 10 in all - including a pair of false starts for the offense on 3rd and one:

Rickey Bradley
SouthernMiss.com
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Next up for Nebraska is Southern Miss, owners of the longest current losing streak in FBS - 13 games.  The Golden Eagles turned the ball over six times in a loss to Texas State last week.  They lost in Lincoln 49-20 to open the 2012 season.

Southern Miss gets most of its offense thru the air with a trio of newcomers.  Cal transfer Allan Bridgford is the quarterback and against Texas State he passed for 193 yards to transfer Rickey Bradley, while freshman Tyre'oune Holmes caught 12 passes for 96 yards.

On the ground, they managed just 23 yards on 24 carries:

Kickoff is 5:00pm in Lincoln, Saturday night.

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