Nebraska Football unfavorably compared to USC’s failed regime

There has been quite a bit made of the comments members of the Nebraska football team said after their loss on Saturday to Northwestern. However, one writer thinks some of the comments reminded him far too much of the failed regime of another Power 5 school.

The USC Trojans are busy digging themselves out of the mess that former head coach Clay Helton put them in with Lincoln Riley and Trojans Wire writer Matt Zemek is hearing a lot of comments coming out of the Nebraska football team that reminds him of Helton’s failed regime.

Zemek said one quote in particular after the game set off alarm bells. It came from new Husker defensive back Marques Buford who seemed to minimize the loss by hinting that the team still played well.

"“I can’t wait to see where we go from here. We played the worst game we’re going to play all year, and we still only lost by three. That’s pretty scary.”"

I made a comment when I saw those words that it’s hard to find fault with the sentiment behind Buford’s quote. He’s a player that is trying to hold his head up after what was a terrible, terrible loss.

However, it is concerning that instead of admitting how bad things are right now, he tried to pretend a 3-point loss, after blowing a double digit lead twice in one game was somehow impressive.

Zemek had the same feeling, saying that Buford’s comments were similar to the kind of thing Helton often said after a bad loss.

"A team just suffered a terrible loss, an unacceptable loss. Optimism about the road ahead is not the way to react to this loss. A healthier culture would have people spitting mad at this performance and the inability to solve longstanding flaws within the program."

Zemek went on to say that “Helton annoyed USC fans to no end by expressing optimism when the reality of the situation was terrible.”

Does that sound like anyone Nebraska football fans know? It wasn’t that long ago that Huskers head coach Scott Frost was routinely making comments about how surprised he was by his team’s failures, considering how good they’d practiced all week. He’s also often talked about how he was seeing positives that no one else was yet, but soon would.

Zemek touched an idea that could be the underlying cause of the consternation around the Cornhusker program right now. He claimed that Helton didn’t and Frost hasn’t taught their teams to hate losing.

And as the Trojan Wire writer said, when it comes to the Nebraska football team, “it’s no wonder the problems aren’t getting fixed.”