Nebraska football fans have sadly forgotten how to enjoy the ride

Now that the dust has settled after the Nebraska football team defeated Northern Iowa on Saturday, I need to get something off my chest. Let's have a conversation: human to human, fan to fan, Husker to Husker.

Let's start by going back in time. The year is 1998 and the Huskers are coming off a national championship season. After suffering their first setback of the season to Texas A&M, the Huskers faced off against the Kansas Jayhawks. NU had a new head coach (Frank Solich), a new quarterback (Eric Crouch), and was trying to find itself after legendary coach Tom Osborne retired.

I was at the game. Late in the third quarter, a man in front of me kept complaining to his wife, "Nebraska football hasn't taken control of the game yet!" He said it over and over again. I'll never forget it.

It was 31-0 Nebraska at that point. The final score was 41-0.

Have Nebraska football fans forget how to enjoy the ride

The fan's mistake? He clung to outdated expectations in a new era. Of course, he had an excuse. Nebraska was the defending national champions. Still, disappointment was inevitable.

I saw the same sentiment all over social media from Husker fans. Like this comment:

Nebraska hasn't been to a bowl game in seven years and is 5-24 in their last 29 one-score games. And we're underwhelmed by a 31-point victory? What are we even doing here? [By the way, the average margin of victory for FBS teams over FCS teams from 2007-2023 was 28.7 points. This year, Wisconsin, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, among others, struggled against FCS teams.]

I probably don't need to remind you that the last time Nebraska played an FCS school was North Dakota (NOT vaunted North Dakota State) in 2022. Nebraska needed two fourth-quarter TDs to gut out a 38-17 victory.

Didn't we see tangible progress on Saturday? Nebraska did what it was supposed to do to an inferior opponent. They've done it three weeks in a row to start this year.

You'd have to go back a decade to 2014 to find any three-game stretch where Nebraska had a greater scoring margin than this year (+82, good for 13th in the country). [In 2014, Nebraska had a +91 scoring margin in the first three games. However, that was also the year they needed a last-minute touchdown from Ameer Abdullah to beat FCS opponent McNeese State.]

At this point in Matt Rhule's program development, what more could we ask for?

As a fan, are you looking for perfection? Football, like other sports (and everything in life), is not about perfection. It's about direction. Don't you see Nebraska football heading in the right direction under Matt Rhule? I do. It seems fairly obvious.

There was a lot of talk before the Northern Iowa game that Nebraska might have an emotional hangover after the huge win against Colorado. Maybe this game would prove that Nebraska isn't heading in the right direction. Maybe they would revert to their old selves. Hangovers happen often in sports, especially at the collegiate level. Why? Avoiding them requires an acute ability to focus and perform when everyone knows you should win.

That same focus is required to step on an opponent when they are down to deliver that killer blow. It's what many fans believe Nebraska failed to do in the first three games. Maybe that's true to some extent. On the other hand, all three of Nebraska's games have been over at halftime.

Couldn't we argue the fatal blow was delivered before half? Perhaps.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my team put the game out of reach by halftime than be the team that needs to muster up a second-half comeback each week. A boring second half is pretty exciting to me, to be honest.

Now about that killer instinct. Before the season, Rhule said he wanted a close game in the opener. We all thought he was crazy. I think he knew his team would blow out UTEP, Colorado, and Northern Iowa. I also think he knows his team doesn't have that killer instinct yet. To be fair, it's hard to maintain that acute focus when everyone knows the game isn't in doubt.

Rhule is in the process of getting this Husker team there. You hear it when he talks about developing a program in three stages:

1. Eliminating losing football
2. Winning football
3. Championship Football

Nebraska isn't to stage three yet, but Rhule will get them there. They may be a year or two away. But some Husker fans insist that they should play like it now. That's unrealistic and unfair.

Instead, let's enjoy the ride and appreciate the wins as they come. In case you forgot, we haven't had that many lately. And if being "hungover" from a big win means a 31-point victory? Well, I could get used to Nebraska football heading in that direction.