Slow start sinks Western Michigan

 Falling behind 27-7 in the second quarter in front of an opposing crowd of 84,485 wasn't what Western Michigan hoped for against Nebraska on Saturday.

That deficit was far too much for the Broncos to overcome in a 47-24 season-opening loss at Memorial Stadium.

"I guess it was a little bit of jitters, a little bit of execution," said Bronco quarterback Tim Hiller, who had 234 of his 342 passing yards in the second half. "We did not start fast, and we needed to get started from the get-go and weather that storm of emotion that they had, and we failed to do that, so that was frustrating.

"But once we got going, there were a lot of positive things."

Tight end Branden Ledbetter, who had game highs in receptions (9) and receiving yards (123), said the crowd really didn't affect Western Michigan.

"We've been in this type of environment before," he said. "It was a great experience and really great fans, but I don't think that affects us much."

He wasn't sure why the Broncos got off to the slow start offensively.

"It seemed like we came out with jitters, and for some reason when that stuff's not clicking, it seems like a lot of stuff doesn't go your way," Ledbetter said. "But you've got to come out there ready to go from the beginning.

"The second half a lot of stuff started to come together and we got in a little groove, but that's really no excuse for what happened."

The Broncos have to look at the game as a learning opportunity.

"We go back, we review the film and we look at the positives, and we build on those, and we keep doing those things, and we get corrected what we need to get corrected," Hiller said. "We've just got to capitalize on a couple of opportunities. The defense set us up nicely twice, and we failed to get any points out of both those drives."

Nebraska's offense scored on seven consecutive possessions to pull away.

Despite not being surprised by what it saw, the Western Michigan defense wasn't able to slow down the Cornhuskers.

"The scheme they were doing, we went over it every day in practice throughout the whole week," Bronco safety Louis Delmas said. "We just didn't execute it the way we should have."

Nebraska quarterback Joe Ganz proved especially tough for Western Michigan to stop. He completed 16 of 23 passes for 230 yards and three touchdowns in the first half.

"He's a great quarterback," Delmas said. "We just lost contain as a defense and we just didn't lock on as a secondary."

Even though Ganz usually had plenty of time to go through his reads, Delmas said the WMU secondary is at fault for Nebraska's passing game success.

"Our secondary is a great secondary, and we're taught to be able to cover eight to 10 seconds," he said. "So we take it upon ourselves to be able to cover for eight to 10 seconds, no matter whether the defensive line gets there or not. So that's our fault and we take full responsibility for that."

E-mail Dale Miller.