It was ugly early. Maryland, a program with real questions circling head coach Mike Locksley, came out swinging and had Nebraska on its heels for most of the first half. The Terps led 16-7 after one quarter and 23-14 midway through the second. Then the Huskers answered.

Dwayne McDougle III’s 81-yard pick-six flipped the momentum, Anthony Colandrea hit Luke Lindenmeyer for the go-ahead score just before the half, and Nebraska poured on 34 unanswered points to close it out, 48-23, on Homecoming at Memorial Stadium.

The Huskers are 5-0 for the first time since 2016 and 2-0 in the Big Ten for the first time since 2017. They have scored at least 30 points in each of their first five games for the first time since 2014. Hello.

Here are my three takeaways:

1. Penalties

Sixteen penalties for 132 yards. Good grief! That is a season high, and it is not close. Nebraska was flagged nine times for 91 yards in the first half alone. Maryland added 12 for 115. The two teams combined for 28 penalties and 247 yards — the most penalty yards of any FBS game this season, and the most flags in a game since 2021. The first half dragged on for more than two hours.

After the game, Head Coach Matt Rhule did not dance around it. “

I thought it was ridiculous,” he said. “I thought it was poorly handled by the officials. It was poorly done by us… You’ve never heard me say it before, but I was frustrated today. There’s things I’ve never had called before.”

He pointed to a defensive holding call on a quarterback run and said the players “probably had more poise than I did.”

Then he cut himself off: “I’m just waiting for the fine. I’m going to stop, respectively. I’ve probably said too much.”

Some of the calls looked soft. Some of them were earned, though. Either way, 132 yards in flags will get you beat by Indiana next week. This has to get cleaned up, and it has to get cleaned up immediately.

2. Special teams continues to be a mixed bag

Jeremiah Charles got a hand on two Maryland punts. One was wiped out on review and a running-into-the-kicker flag. For the record, this looked as clean as it gets. The other stood, set Nebraska up inside the 20, and turned into a Mekhi Nelson touchdown one play later.

Archie Wilson boomed a 53-yarder and averaged 43.6 yards on five punts. That part looked better.

The kicking operation did not.

Kyle Cunanan missed a 52-yard field goal and an extra point. The broadcast crew was blunt that the operation looked shaky. Special teams coordinator Bret Maher’s group has now blocked punts and produced big returns in stretches, but the long-field goal and the missed PAT are the kind of things that flip close games. Refs or no refs, the unit is still a week-to-week coin flip.

3. This team might be for real

The five-game stretch has been favorable. Nobody is pretending otherwise. Ohio, Bowling Green, North Dakota, Michigan State, Maryland.

But the Husker teams of the last decade did not answer the way this one did. This team got punched in the mouth early, trailed by double digits in the first half, watched the flags pile up, and still won by 25 while covering the number.

The defense held Maryland to 95 yards after halftime.

Colandrea threw for 238 and three scores and ran for a career-high 108.

The backfield without Jamal Rule still found the end zone three times on the ground.

I am not booking a playoff spot. Indiana is next, then Oregon, and both of those games can derail the momentum fast. What I am saying is the old version of this program blinks when the game gets messy. This version did not. If that holds over the next month, Nebraska is not just 5-0 in October. It is a program that has a real chance to use this season to jump forward into year five a legitimate contender.