Nebraska had Indiana right where it wanted it Saturday. For three quarters, the Huskers looked like the kind of team that could make a loud statement to the rest of college football. Then two throws changed everything.
Indiana’s 20-17 win in Lincoln left Nebraska with a loss that will sting for a while, because the Huskers were so close to turning a huge afternoon into something bigger. Indiana trailed 17-6 heading into the fourth quarter before Josh Hoover hit Nick Marsh for touchdown passes of 75 and 44 yards, swings that erased what had been a strong showing from Anthony Colandrea and the Nebraska defense.
That’s what makes this one hurt: Nebraska was stout for most of the day against a team that arrived with real offensive confidence. Indiana had piled up 600 rushing yards across its previous two games, and the Hoosiers came in with a reputation for being able to hammer teams on the ground and stress them through the air.
“They pride themselves on running the ball,” Huskers linebacker Owen Chambliss said at a postgame news conference.
Chambliss said Nebraska expected that kind of fight and believed the defense handled plenty of it well.
“They’re a physical team and we pride ourselves on stopping the run. I think just playing gaps down and execution football.
“I don’t necessarily think it got them out of running the ball, but I do think that we did a good job executing on our end.”
The frustration, though, comes from the final stretch - and from how quickly a game can flip when a defense misses just a couple of snaps. Chambliss was asked afterward what it will take for Nebraska to get over the hump after a performance like this.
“It’s going to take just staying committed to our process and continually getting better, but just having the same intensity every single play, right?” Chambliss said.
“Like we can’t play 95 percent of the plays like the No. 1 defense in the country and then play the other 5 percent like we’re not. We got to just be more consistent.
“That was a physical game. They strapped their chin strap up just like we strapped ours up and I think sometimes [when] you stop the run at a really high level and then they stop running the ball.
“They did not stop running the ball. They kept trying.
So, a lot of respect to them. They definitely brought their physicality with them.”
Nebraska had built a 17-6 lead after Colandrea’s 39-yard touchdown run with 12 minutes left, and at that point it looked like the Huskers might be on the verge of something bigger than a single upset. It felt like the sort of win that would announce Nebraska back to the national conversation.
The loss changes that, at least for now, but it does not end the season. Nebraska still has a chance to turn this into a strong run if it can shake off the disappointment quickly, starting with a road trip to Oregon next week. The pain from Saturday may linger, but the season is still there for the taking.
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Nebraska had another chance to turn a promising moment into something bigger Saturday, and again the chance slipped away. The Cornhuskers fell to No. 7 Indiana, 20-17, in a game that fit too neatly into a familiar pattern for a program still trying to climb back into the national conversation. The loss extended Nebraskas losing streak against top-25 opponents to 31 games, a run that underscores how hard it has been for the Huskers to cash in when the opponent is at its best.
For Matt Rhule, the frustration is starting to take on a historical edge. Nebraska has not beaten a top-seven team since 2015, and Rhule is still searching for his first win over a ranked opponent since arriving in Lincoln. The broader story around this team remains the same: competitive enough to stay in the fight, but not yet able to land the kind of signature victory that changes how the season is viewed. [Read more 🡒]
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Nebraska had a real chance to leave Indiana with a result that would have felt like a statement, but the Cornhuskers let a winnable game slip away in a tight contest decided by a handful of fourth-quarter plays. The loss also snapped Indianas 22-game winning streak, a reminder that this was not some throwaway opponent or empty Saturday, but the kind of game Nebraska has to be able to finish if it wants to keep building under Matt Rhule.
Instead, the late moments belonged to Indiana, and Nebraska again found itself on the wrong side of a one-score game. It is the sort of defeat that lingers because the opportunity was there, the margin was thin, and the details in the final period made all the difference, leaving the Cornhuskers with another frustrating lesson about how small the gap is between progress and disappointment. [Read more 🡒]