To me, you watch Nebraska play Missouri and then you watch Nebraska play Washington, and it's a great contrast between the QBs that shows you what a better prospect Blaine Gabbert is compared with Jake Locker. The secondary did indeed blanket both teams' receivers, and apply pressure with four-man fronts. But, though Gabbert was clearly rattled a little bit by the pressure and you could tell in his scrambling patterns, he for the most part stood tall all game, never made bad decisions, and his ability to read the defense and adjust to what Nebraska were doing to he and the offense really got better as the game wore on. That happens when you don't allow panic to set in. He only had the one interception and it was because he failed to place the deep ball on a 3rd & 17 on the outside shoulder (and of course woe be it for a Missouri WR to actually adjust to a ball in the air, they don't do it hardly at all)...it really wasn't a costly situation. Gabbert kept working, kept punching, never resorted to flat out stupid decision-making, and because of that the game was within reach until the end. And that was with taking no less than three illegal hits, some called and some not...helmet-to-helmet type stuff that physically shook him up. I mean, the guy gets speared in the head from a blind side DB blitz, should have been a penalty, he's shaken up, he gets up on the next 3rd & 22 (impossible down), and he calmly scans the field, doesn't see anyone, and scrambles out for a 12 yard gain. At that point in the game, I felt like they should have gone for it on 4th & 10 and if they did then that scramble of his would have been CRUCIAL to making that 4th down a makeable situation. They didn't go for it, they punted it with like 8 minutes left, and they never saw the ball again because that's the kind of day Nebraska's offense and Roy Helu Jr. were having against Missouri.
Jake Locker's bad decisions came in costly situations, led to Nebraska points, and he didn't keep fighting back. By the end, he simply gave up, and showed that he gave up several times with a couple of blind throws where he was just being selfish, tired of dealing with the pressure Nebraska was throwing in his face, tired of dealing with his receivers being covered.
I think Blaine Gabbert compares in a lot of ways to Josh Freeman and Ben Roethlisberger coming out.