The last decade of Nebraska football has been full of wondering if one play went differently? What if the coach made one decision differently? And now, after Saturday night's loss to USC, "what if Dylan Raiola doesn't get sacked?"
The Huskers seemingly had control of the Saturday night game against the USC Trojans, especially right before Raiola was indeed sacked. NU had just picked off USC quarterback Jayden Maiava and had all the momentum. Had Raiola not gotten sacked and fumbled, the star quarterback and his team would have taken a 21-6 lead and cruised to victory over the 23rd-ranked team.
Instead, he did get sacked. He did fumble and, worst of all, he got injured. Nebraska did manage to fight to a 17-14 lead late in the game, but USC was able to take a 21-17 lead and then held on against a conservative offense with a true freshman quarterback in TJ Lateef finishing the game.
Nebraska won't win games it should until the run defense is fixed
The Huskers' pass defense is for real. They demonstrated that several times over against USC, one of the most explosive offenses in the country. However, fans can almost set their watch to at least one big run at just the wrong moment that will break the back of the defense.
Tonight, it was a couple of 16-yard runs by Maiava that allowed USC to tie the game at 14-all. In total, the Trojans quarterback had 62 yards on 11 carries and a touchdown (5.6 YPC) to go with King Miller's 129 yards on 18 carries (7.2 YPC).
John Butler has to figure something out. If not during the season, then he has to go back to the drawing board in the winter to revamp a defense that gets gashed far too often on the ground. It's cost them at least two wins against Michigan and USC. Keep in mind, Miller is the Trojans' third-string running back. The Huskers didn't even face the best RBs USC has.
Matt Rhule lost his composure, and it could have been disastrous
Rhule has had problems here and there with clock management. Still, his usage of timeouts in the third quarter on Saturday night was inexcusable. During a play where USC should have been called for unsportsmanlike conduct, the refs let it go.
Rhule flipped his wig to the point where he called a timeout, just to have longer to argue. It's not as though he could have convinced them to throw the flag five minutes later.
Then, a few plays later, Nebraska found itself with 4th and 1, and initially, the Huskers decided to go for it. Then they called a timeout and instead attempted a 52-yard field goal that was just short.
At the end of the game, Nebraksa had the ball with a little over 1:30 but a long way to drive. It didn't end up mattering that they didn't have those two timeouts because Emmett Johnson tripped and fell short of the line to gain on 4th and 1. But if he had kept his feet and gotten the first down, the Huskers would be trying to drive 80+ yards with less than 2 minutes to go and only 1 timeout. Rhule cannot allow that sort of thing to happen.
Emmett Johnson is better than people give him credit for
The Nebraska football team has a budding superstar at running back. On the heels of running for 124 yards and two touchdowns last week, EJ was even better, running for 165 yards against USC, and he did that without ever really having big holes to run through.
Johnson is also showing that he can be a workhorse. He had 29 carries on Saturday night. No other running back had more than 1 rush. He also had 2 catches for 15 yards for good measure. On the season he's got 837 yards and well over 1,000 yards of total offense.
It's possible tonight's game was his coming out party. Better than that, it appears the Nebraska football coaching staff is finally comfortable putting the game in his hands. Considering no one knows if Raiola will be able to play next week, that's an even bigger deal.