Nebraska’s 24-13 loss to Illinois on Friday night didn’t just add another mark to the ledger. It deepened the unease around Matt Rhule, raised more questions about the Huskers’ offense and left a fan base staring at the same familiar mess.
The numbers don’t even tell the full story, but they’re ugly enough on their own. Nebraska threw it 43 times and ran it 31 times, finished with 426 total yards and still managed only 13 points.
Even with sacks baked in, the Huskers averaged 4.5 yards per carry. That should have been enough to keep the offense moving.
It wasn’t.
John Hohl missed both field goals, and one of the biggest decisions of the night only made things worse. Rhule chose to go for it on fourth-and-1, but Nebraska lined up empty and threw the ball, which fell incomplete. Rule is over 200 pounds and was getting 4.4 yards per carry.
Dana Holgorsen’s offense looked like it was working against itself. The game wasn’t especially complicated, unless you made it that way, and Nebraska did. Holgorsen is a smart coach, but he’s not a fit for the Big Ten.
That frustration circles right back to Rhule, who once again looked like a coach searching for answers and not finding them. Whether it was on the sideline or in the postgame press conference, he came off defeated.
The Huskers have started to mirror that. They talk well before games, then something shifts once the lights come on.
Illinois provided the clearest example of the gap. The Illini turned a fourth-and-12 into a touchdown instead of settling for a long field goal.
Bret Bielema made that decision count for six. Nebraska, in the same kind of spot, didn’t even get three.
That’s been the pattern too often under Rhule. The team seems to expect things to go wrong, and they usually do. What hasn’t changed is the inability to win in November, on the road or against a good team.
It’s hard to find a strong argument for Rhule to be Nebraska’s head coach next season beyond the contract Troy Dannen handed him, complete with a massive buyout.
The quarterback play didn’t rescue the Huskers, either. Anthony Colandrea completed 32 of 43 passes for 284 yards and a touchdown, but the production came with plenty of empty feeling attached to it.
The touchdown pass looked like pure luck, and his pocket awareness has fallen apart. He also couldn’t push the offense to points in the red zone.
Colandrea finished with 311 total yards, but the spark that once made him look different is gone. He’s pressing too much now, and he doesn’t resemble the player he was earlier in the season against a cookie-cutter schedule.
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Kliff Kingsbury has surfaced as a possible name because of his reputation and current role on the Los Angeles Rams staff, but the fit appears shaky from the start. Kingsbury has long shown a preference for the NFL, and Nebraskas direction seems to be moving in the opposite direction of the style he is known for, leaving the search centered on whether Rhule wants a true schematic change or simply the best available name. [Read more 🡒]