Nebraska football fans didn’t even need the Huskers to take the field Saturday to get reminded how thin the margin has become.
While Nebraska sat out its bye week, a bunch of familiar names around the college football world kept piling up the kind of wins Husker fans have been waiting on. Scott Frost, back in his second season of his second stint at UCF, was one of the loudest examples.
He helped deliver the win over second-ranked BYU, and that stung in Lincoln because of who he is and what he once meant to Nebraska. As a former player and the head coach, I still want to see Frost succeed.
I’ll never forget him helping Nebraska win the 1997 national championship.
The irony, though, was hard to miss. Frost now has more wins over ranked teams in that stretch at UCF than Matt Rhule has through four years at Nebraska. That’s the kind of comparison that lands like a punch, especially in a week when parity across college football was on full display.
Nebraska’s own frustration only got sharper when you stacked Saturday’s results against the Huskers’ recent near-misses. The 11-point lead the Huskers held against Indiana suddenly looks even more painful after seeing that same Indiana team need overtime to beat Michigan. The Hoosiers also failed to score on a drive that began in their own territory against Michigan, which only added to the sense that Nebraska let something slip.
Other results kept feeding the same feeling. Oregon went down on the road against Illinois, and while that’s a difficult place to play, it still left another reminder that big chances are out there. Dylan Raiola had two turnovers and some empty passing stats in the loss.
Luke Fickell added another ranked win to his résumé, too. Now in the same coaching class as Rhule and also dealing with his share of struggles, Fickell picked up his third ranked win by beating USC on Saturday night.
The win over Penn State doesn’t feel like a ranked win, but it still counts. Either way, that’s three more ranked wins than Rhule has at Nebraska.
And the list didn’t stop there. UCLA and Northwestern are both ranked, and Minnesota beat Iowa to claim a ranked win of its own. That one hit especially hard because it was something Nebraska fans haven’t seen in a decade.
So yes, it was a bye week. But for Nebraska fans, it sure didn’t feel like rest. It felt like everybody else was getting the wins the Huskers keep reaching for.
In Other News...
Nebraskas Bye Week Put Even More Heat On Matt Rhule
Nebraskas bye week did not bring much relief to Matt Rhule, because the longer the Cornhuskers sat without a game, the more their own situation seemed to stand out against the rest of the Big Ten. The conferences quarterback picture has been messy, with injuries and benchings creating constant turnover, while Nebraska has been forced to live with the pressure that comes from waiting, watching and measuring itself against every other storyline around the league.
Anthony Colandreas durability has been one of the few steady notes in that chaos, and it only sharpened the contrast as other programs kept dealing with instability at the most important position. Add in Scott Frosts recent win over a Top 25 team, and the broader backdrop becomes even less forgiving for Rhule, whose program could have used the bye week as a reset but instead saw the conversation drift further toward what Nebraska still needs to prove. [Read more 🡒]
Blackshirts Are Taking Heat For A Much Bigger Nebraska Problem
Nebraskas defense has been easy to point at after the last two losses, especially with the Blackshirts under scrutiny for the way late-game drives slipped away against Indiana and Oregon. But the bigger picture is a little messier than a simple defensive breakdown. The unit has put together strong stretches, held up well statistically and gotten important efforts from key players, even while the games still ended with frustration attached.
The criticism sharpened when Oregon drove for the winner, with Dylan Raiola facing little pressure on the final march, but the problem in those losses did not stop there. Nebraskas offense struggled to do enough, and special teams errors added more weight to the margin for error, leaving the defense to absorb more blame than it probably deserves. If the Cornhuskers are going to turn these narrow losses into something better, the fix will have to be broader than just the Blackshirts. [Read more 🡒]
Nebraska Looks Even More Dangerous After Another Statement Sweep
Nebraska kept rolling with another statement performance, sweeping USC 3-0 and looking as sharp as ever in the process. The Cornhuskers controlled the match from start to finish, swinging at a .400 clip while holding the Trojans to .095, a gap that said plenty about how well Nebraska was playing on both sides of the ball.
Harper Murray led the way with 14 kills and a .426 hitting percentage, while Virginia Adriano added 13 kills and was even more efficient at .500. With production like that from multiple spots, Nebraska is showing the kind of balance that makes it difficult to slow down once the matches get meaningful. [Read more 🡒]