Keep penalties in mind Nebraska 93rd in penalty yards per game.
Now add negative plays such as a botched snap that rolls back 15 yards and is fallen on Nebraska 71st in TFL allowed.
Now add rushing YPC 4.82 YPC is not terrible but not great.
Now add passing YPC Nebraska was 116th.
Now Time of Possession, 92nd.
Now bear in mind NU tends to have 1-2 "feast" games a year where it puts up pretty offensive stats against a hideous opponent like Rutgers that pulls up the averages from a stretch run of wretched offensive outings.
Your ultimate stat here is offensive points per game. NU was a putrid scoring offense this year. 100th in the FBS at 23.1 PPG. You don't win like that unless you're excellent defensively.
Interestingly Northwestern only had 23.9 PPG but they were positive in turnover margin for the year and 22nd in Total Defense. Nebraska was 52nd.
Time of Possession NW was 43rd. Nebraska 92nd. They executed the formula to win low-scoring games, we didn't.
Turnovers are one of the problems with this offense but they're far from the only problem. There was a "highlight" posted of every NU touchdown this year. Almost all of them were little 1-yard plunges, barely any long scores in the bunch.
This offense was billed as explosive but what it actually has been is dink & dunk. QB play is the biggest problem with that, enough so that Martinez got benched mid-year. Then McCaffrey was so awful Martinez got the job back and even though he was better he still wasn't throwing TDs.
When you try to "game manage" your way down the field you have to be nearly error-free. A 5 yard penalty doesn't seem like much unless you're a 3-4 yards per play team, then suddenly you can't make 15 yards in 3 tries.
IMO turnover margin is the most powerful stat in football, but it's not the only stat.
