Nebraska Hits the Road For Elimination Game at Northwestern

For most of us, some good, extended time off can just about always cure what ails us.

But the bye week in Nebraska's schedule, seven weeks into the 2014 season, was both a positive and a negative for the Cornhuskers.

Nebraska used the week off to give some of their injured key players, on both sides of the ball, a chance to heal.

But, the time away from game action also forced the Huskers to spend an extra seven days thinking about what went wrong their last time out in a 27-22 loss at Michigan State.

I asked the 'Voice of the Huskers' Greg Sharpe about the good and the bad of a week off:

What makes this week's match-up at Northwestern even more compelling for Nebraska is the current logjam in the Big Ten West Division standings, where six of the seven teams still have a chance of playing in the Big Ten title game.

I asked Greg about this tightly bunched group:

Two things are certain: when Nebraska and Northwestern square off, the games are close, and there are usually some late heroics involved, like the Huskers' biggest ever 4th quarter comeback two years ago in a 29-28 win in Evanston, and last season's 'hail mary' catch by Jordan Westerkamp on the final play of the game, to give Nebraska a 27-24 win in Lincoln.

Greg talked about this string of tight ones with the Wildcats, going back to 2011: