It was a rough day for Nebraska Football
What a surprise! And not in the good sense. I was quiet this week as far as posting goes, because I was confident and I felt that the task at hand was rather straightforward. I was confident in a win. Oh how wrong I was. When I awoke Saturday morning the power was out at my house. I entered into a frenzy attempting to get power back on so I wouldn’t miss the game.
About twenty minutes before kickoff power was restored. I sat down to watch the game and upon a turnover on the first play I immediately wished the power had never been restored. ‘They’re going down’. I proclaimed to my father whom I was watching with after the first play fumble. He assured me there was plenty of time, but I knew. I knew that the first play was a dark omen of things to come. Nebraska answered quickly and restored some hope in my mind but following another strong drive by the Illini and another Nebraska turnover my dark suspicions were confirmed as the game began to unravel.
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My last post I discussed how I thought that the gritty win over Penn State may have been a turning point serving as a building block for the program to get back on track, I may have been wrong there as well. Three games remain for the Huskers and finishing 4-3 would still be a step in the right direction (especially after today) but now it looks to be a long shot. Going out and beating our rivals to the east would be another big win and one that would help all involved forget about what we watched today. Let’s hope the team that showed up against Penn State will show up at Kinnick Stadium.
While many plays today could have prompted you to throw your hands and shake your head, one stood out to me. That play came in the early moments of the third quarter. Starting the second half, The Blackshirts made a stand out of the gate only to be duped by an underhanded fake punt by Illinois. I am not a fan of fake punts. They are a low class, unsportsmanlike and downright Busch League way of cheating your opponents for a few yards. I have a family of Notre Dame fans and I will never forget the time Michigan State played this dirty card to beat the Irish in 2010 and I will never forget today (terrible loss aside) for the blatant disrespect and courtesy shown by calling this play in the opening seconds of the third quarter.
Fake punts aside there were things Nebraska could have done to yield a positive result in spite of the underhanded approach of the Illini. First off, hold on to the ball! This is a simple truism in football, if you turn the ball over, you will lose. Nebraska has been free with the ball all season and until that is cleaned up positive results will be more challenging than they should be to earn.
The next thing the Cornhuskers need to do every Saturday is bring energy. The Huskers were flying against the Nittany Lions, but lacked the intensity Saturday. Even with a turnover problem if the intensity is still high you are likely to be more competitive in the game. The final thing Nebraska must to to consistently win games, is be multidimensional on offense.
The Huskers moved the ball very efficiently on their second drive leading to seven points on the board but that did not repeat itself. ‘But why?’ you may ask. Simple, Lovie Smith is a smart defensive mind and after watching Nebraska run through Illinois for an entire drive with spotty pass plays mixed in he made the call that if Nebraska was going to them, they would have to beat them through the air, but beat them through the air they could not. Because of the painful one dimensional nature of the offense Illinois was able to stack the box with no repercussions through the air.
Even though this rough game is over, the season is not. So let’s hope that we can win out, play good football and get back to doing things the right way moving forward. Simply put this is a game I wouldn’t like to think of anymore than I have to. It was just a bad day.