Several stars emerge in Ohio State's poor performance compared to Nebraska

The Ohio State Buckeyes were a real disappointment against the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday. Despite a terrible offensive performance, the defense played well and the Buckeyes ended up escaping a potential upset at home.

Here were the players whose stock increased in the 21-17 win and the players whose stock went down.

At the start of the season, the talk in the wide receiver room revolved around the trio of Emeka Egbuka, Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate. Since the start of the season, Egbuka and Smith have been dominant while Tate has faded into the background.

This game was his coming out party for the year.

Tate led the Buckeyes in receptions with four receptions and converted them into 102 yards and a touchdown.

Before this game, I wrote about how the proper replacement strategy for Josh Simmons was to move Tegra Tshabola to left tackle and place Austin Siereveld at right guard. Instead, Ryan Day and his team decided to start Zen Michalski at left tackle.

That proved costly as the senior struggled throughout the game.

Not only did Will Howard struggle with a lot of pressure from his blind side, but the entire offensive line failed to generate pressure and opened up gaps for the running game. The blame cannot be placed solely on Michalski, rather the entire unit deserves plenty of blame.

Maybe things will get better with a slight reshuffle this week before facing Penn State.

The veteran linebacker and second-level leader was once again a one-man wrecking crew. Ohio State's defense played very well in this game while the offense struggled, but Simon was the star.

He led the team with eight total tackles (four solo) and also had three tackles for loss.

Simon was a key reason this team narrowly avoided defeat and a devastating upset.

It was as if this team was already looking to Penn State and wasn't focused on Nebraska, despite coming off a bye week. That’s up to the coaching staff.

Ryan Day is a great coach and Ohio State wouldn't be better off letting him go. This is why fans need to put their emotions aside and think logically. That being said, Day still needs to work on some things and Chip Kelly struggled with his play in this game.

This group also needs to get better as leaders of these young men.

Hopefully Ohio State will be ready next weekend.