I commend you Mike Riley for a great comeback season. Being 9-3 is something to be proud of especially coming back from a 6-7 season the previous year, but we could have done better.
First, the game against Wisconsin. It was the game the Huskers were to prove themselves, that they deserved to be in the top ten rankings. The game had resulted in a loss in overtime but it seemed to be good enough to show the country that the Huskers were in fact talented enough, at least for a week. Personally, I believe that the Huskers should have won the Wisconsin game. The blackshirts played well the entire game, until overtime, when they let the Badgers slide in. Yet, we still had a chance after Wisconsin's kicker failed to make the extra point, giving Nebraska a shot at taking the game. Until a huge flaw arose in the Huskers' offense.
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It was something that stripped the Huskers out of the top ten, almost out of the top 25. A play call, or maybe a quarterbacks intuition, when the ball is chucked downfield on third down, as if our only option is to score right then and there instead of tossing a short ball and moving the chains. This play has ultimately screwed the Huskers out of winning or even staying with the competition in their three losses. It is the play that lost the Wisconsin game. It is a play seen multiple times within the Ohio State game and what ultimately dominated us in the Iowa game. You would think that something would be fixed, more rushing rather than throwing or shorter passes. So, why would they stick with a play that has failed over and over again?
Then, came the Ohio State game. A 63-3 loss. There's no excuses for why we lost that badly. We had terrible defense, something that we controlled just a week earlier. We were not prepared for the chance of losing our starting quarterback until we did, forcing us to play back up QB, Ryker Fyfe, who did not seem to be at all prepared for any sort of action. Then it went all down hill from there. One of the worst losses Nebraska has ever faced all because they were not prepared.
The Huskers seemed to have picked the pace back up after the loss to Ohio State. Two consecutive wins after two consecutive losses against Minnesota and Maryland. A chance to still end up in the Big Ten Championship game if they beat Iowa and Wisconsin lost to Minnesota. A chance that could have been possible. Could have been. Then Iowa came around.
Iowa, Nebraska's biggest rival. The experts predicted a low-scoring game with Iowa coming on top. At first it seemed as if that would be the case, a defense against a defense, but things took a turn for the worst after Iowa scored two consecutive touchdowns in the first quarter, both 70 plus runs into the end zone. Bye-bye Nebraska. You saw it in their faces. There was no team effort, no leadership, no coaching. Their body language said it all; they simply did not show up to play. Their coaches did not show up to coach, especially head coach, Mike Riley. A team can tell when their opponent is not there to compete and take advantage of their opponent's weaknesses. Iowa did exactly that. They held Nebraska to scoring only 10 points, where they scored 40. Iowa capitalized off Nebraska's weak defense and terrible offense (i.e. the long throws for no reason). Nebraska showed their true side and how far they still have to go.
Nebraska is not top 25 material and is a bit overrated. Like the past, Nebraska won the games they were supposed to win, but they could not defeat those teams that mattered most. Something you can compare to the Bo Pelini era. Mike Riley may not be as fierce as Pelini and sure has a lot more manners but he still has a long way to go before he can please Nebraska fans. Riley did make Nebraska history by having one of the best changing records from season one to season two but Nebraska has seen enough 9-3 records. We're ready for the old days, the National Championship days, something we thought we could be closer to this year than in the past ten years, until it changed quickly once again when we let the top ranked teams take us down.
