Entering a must win game on Friday night, the Nebraska football team talked all week about how it needed to find a way to step up and win the "pressure moments." When push came to shove, not only did no one step up, but the Huskers looked like a team incapable of facing any sort of pressure moment no matter when it occurred in the 24-13 loss to Illinois.
The loss to an Illini team that is good but far from great and has real defensive issues was indeed a comedy of errors. Penalties, bad throws, odd coaching decisions, missed field goals ... they were all in there.
It's easy to say there was all bad and no good in Nebraska's latest loss. However, there were some positives to take from the game, if you squint and tilt your head at an odd angle. So who were the winners and who were the losers for the Cornhuskers atrocity on Friday night?
3 winners and 2 losers for Nebraska football against Illinois on Friday night
Winner: Jacory Barney
Anthony Colandrea finds Jacory Barney Jr. for a HUGE @HuskerFootball touchdown! pic.twitter.com/mNkYp3ptpC
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 7, 2026
One of the oddities of Nebraska's offensive struggles is that the Huskers entered the year thinking they had their best wide receiver room, maybe ever. It's been an up-and-down season for everyone involved, including Jacory Barney. Barney's game wasn't perfect, but he did have a nice night catching the ball.
Barney finished with 6 catches for 93 yards and his first touchdown since he scored two against Bowling Green. Barney caught that TD on a YOLO throw from Colandrea into a pack of players, then managed to pull out and rumble for a 51-yarder. If the Huskers turn the season around at some point, he'll be part of that fix.
On Friday, Barney finished with 182 total yards. 93 receiving yards, 54 kick off return yards and 35 punt return yards.
Loser: Dana Holgorsen
Someone would have questioned my sanity if the Nebraska offensive coordinator wasn't on this list. The man went up to the box, supposedly to fix the offense, and his playcalling got arguably worse on Friday night.
The most egregious call came when Nebraska tried to answer an Illinois touchdown to go up 14-7, but on 4th and 1, Holgorsen called an empty-backfield pass that included a route where Barney ran backward behind the line of scrimmage. Colandrea's pass was to effectively nobody, and the Huskers never really challenged after that. Friday was also the third straight game where the Huskers threw the ball more than 40 times and scored less than 20 points.
Winner: Jordan Ochoa
Junior defensive lineman Jordan Ochoa hasn't yet become a household name in his two seasons in Lincoln but he showed a spark on defense for the Huskers on Friday night. Ochoa had two tackles and a big sack that, at the time, helped make the Blackshirts look like they could hold Illinois down enough for Nebraska to get the win.
It was Ochoa's first individual sack (he was credited with half a sack last year) and his best performance since he had two tackles against Ohio. A defensive line that has at times, struggled to get pressure, could use another pass rusher among its ranks.
Loser: Mekhi Nelson
One of the strangest fades of this season has been running back Mekhi Nelson. Against Oregon, he got 37 snaps. Last week against Washington, he had just 19 snaps. Last night, he had just 4.
What makes that weirder is that one of those 4 snaps was a nifty 15-yard touchdown run for Nebraska's first score of the game. Is Nelson hurt? Or has he just fallen to third string behind Jamal Rule and Isaiah Mozee?
Winner: Fred Hoiberg
The Nebraska basketball success last year started people joking about how the Huskers were becoming a basketball school. With NU struggling in the second half of the season for its fourth straight year, Nebrasketball could be the star of the program on the men's side again.
A win over Providence would go a long way in that regard on Saturday night.
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