Afternoon Game Roundup: A Couple Close Calls and the Martinez Show

Nebraska 49 - Southern Miss. 20

Any questions of Taylor Martinez's continued development as a quarterback...are at least pushed back a week. The junior signal caller had a phenomenal day throwing the ball for Nebraska as the Huskers marched all over Southern Miss. Martinez put up 354 yards and five touchdowns while completing 76 percent of his passes. Meanwhile the rushing load was split evenly between Ameer Abdullah (81 yards), Rex Burkhead (68 yards, 1 TD), and Imani Cross (62 yards). Defensively Nebraska held the Golden Eagles to 3.9 yards per pass and rush. The game was never really much of one as Nebraska scored two touchdowns a piece in each of the first three quarters and cruised to over 600 total yards.

Wisconsin 26 - Northern Iowa 21

The anomaly that was Wisconsin's 2011 offense has firmly been put to rest. The Badgers came down to earth with just 387 yards and 3.6 yards per rush. The game started out all Wisconsin as the Badgers jumped out to a 19-0 lead early in the third quarter. However, Northern Iowa scored three touchdowns in the final 17 minutes of the game to make things a lot closer. Danny O'Brien had a very solid day, connecting on 19 of 23 pass attempts for 219 yards and two touchdowns. Montee Ball had 120 yards and a touchdown on 32 carries, while Jared Abbrederis hauled in both touchdown passes. The troubling aspect was that Wisconsin's defense allowed UNI to rack up 211 yards and three touchdowns on three late drives to pull the game within one score.

Iowa 18 - Northern Illinois 17

Iowa has gotten its first glimpse of the Greg Davis sideways offense, and Hawkeye fans everywhere can't like what they see. Iowa looked anywhere from ineffectual to downright awful for long stretches against Northern Iowa, and only a phenomenal special teams play to down a punt at the one-yard line in the fourth quarter was enough to give the Hawkeyes the necessary field position to finally put the ball in the end zone. James Vandenberg was bad -- just 21 of 34 for 129 yards -- but even worse when you consider that most of the passes he threw were within five yards of the LOS. Thankfully, Iowa seems to have established the next victim of AIRBHG next number one running back in Damon Bullock, who had 151 yards and the team's lone touchdown on 30 carries. The Iowa defense didn't look great, but it held NIU to 230 yards of total offense and 4.6 yards per play. The offense is going to need a lot of work if Iowa is going to compete with some of the Big Ten's better teams this season.

Night Games:

Michigan vs. Alabama

Indiana vs. Indiana State.