Oops, they did it again.
For those of you who stayed up to 1:45 am Sunday morning to watch THAT happen again, you are double struggling with a way-too early and a way-too often Nebraska pratfall, it’s a doubly-painful Sunday.
In mid-August, Husker fans likely presumed Nebraska would be 5-2 at this point, and so Nebraska’s record isn’t the source of the pain. The pain is that Nebraska played well enough the first 50 minutes the last two weeks to be 7-0. Nebraska fans’ glasses are more than half full, but it’s starting to feel like filling it further is futile.
That futility justifiably leads to immense frustration, and that frustration results in irrational pessimism; it’s the same pessimism that led Nebraska to replace not-winning-enough coaches with debacles like Bill Callahan and Mike Riley.
It’s hard to argue that the same mental funk that fans are feeling isn’t also present inside the program to some extent. This isn’t the first time Nebraska has let a fourth quarter lead slip away. And if you watched ANY other college football in between naps, you know that this is the state of college football today.
It also doesn’t help that the quarterback who we hoped would help break Nebraska of this had his fingers all over Oregon’s comeback. But let’s put Dylan Raiola’s fourth quarter in perspective. Yes, Oregon scored 11 minutes in the final quarter, with Raiola leading two long touchdown drives. But let’s not forget that Raiola did it in stereotypical Dylan fashion: 11 of 19 passes for 59 yards. Yes. 59 yards.
If there was a football program in this nation who knew what Dylan Raiola was going to do, it was the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Raiola was never going to test Nebraska’s secondary; it was always going to be a horizontal passing game. Nebraska fans saw a green-tinged parody of the Husker offense from 2024 and 2025, yet for whatever reason, Nebraska never tried pressuring Raiola, unlike every other Big Ten team tries. Content, for whatever reason, to let Raiola have four to six yards every time he threw the ball.
I stayed up until TWO A.M. to watch THAT?
Yes, we should be mad and upset. But let’s not overreact. If you had set the odds for the last two games in August, I suspect everyone would have have said the combined margins of victory for Indiana and Oregon around 30.
Definitely not six points.
With that, it’s onto the report card, and as always, your feedback is welcome in the comments.
QB: I went back and forth on how to grade Anthony Colandrea. He’s one of the bigger reasons Nebraska was in this game, if only because he was able to make Duck Salad out of whatever Oregon threw at him. But he also missed too many opportunities and had too many mistakes. I’ll grade him with a B- because I’m not sure he couldn’t have put Nebraska in position to do more at the end of the game with more time.
I-Back: Mekhi Nelson’s numbers didn’t show it, but he probably had gained 30 yards after contact. There was simply no running room. Would have liked to have see Colandrea check down to backs in the flat; those were big plays earlier this season, and there were more than a couple of opportunities to do this Sunday morning. Isaiah Mozee’s third quarter run was critical to getting Nebraska up 14-6. Jamal Rule must have reinjured himself; thank goodness a bye week is coming up. Grade: C+
WR: One of the things I hate about watching a Fox football broadcast is not seeing more of the game and the confused commentary. So when Devin Gardner insists that “nobody is open” and then I look at a snippet of a Fox replay and see that might not be the case, I’m going to err on the side of “Fox is wrong there too.” I think there were plays to be made in the passing game, with the amount of pressure Oregon was committing up front. Grade: C+
OL: Oregon’s defensive line owned this battle, and Nebraska never was able to get into a comfortable rhythm at anytime. Grade: D+
DL: On the other side of the ball, Nebraska’s defensive line controlled Oregon’s offensive line as well. At various times, Jahsear WHittington, Cam Lenhardt and Williams Nwaneri popped, thwarting the Ducks. Says a lot that the only time the Ducks offense had any success was going horizontal away from the line. Grade: A
LB: Huge game from Owen Chambliss (15 tackles) and Vincent Shavers (9 tackles). Grade: A
Secondary: Caleb Benning played huge, with 12 tackles filling in for Jamir Conn. Dwayne McDouble had a big interceptions and 13 tackles. But down the stretch, the secondary got singed by Raiola’s dink-and-dunk game. It was death by 38 paper cuts in the fourth quarter. Grade: B
Special Teams: The special teams highlight was Archie Wilson’s 60 yard punt midway through the fourth quarter. But then there were the lowlights: a low snap that Wilson had drop to a knee to field. I’m not going to criticize an Australian for not being as up on that bit of nuance to American football. Online, several media members seem to recognizing that Matt Rhule’s disdain for fair catching kickoffs is costing Nebraska yards. 14 in this one, to be specific, and perhaps the only time it actually worked out on the second half opening kickoff. And while Nebraska never got close, you have to wonder how far downfield Colandrea had to get on the final drive to try a game-tying field goal attempt. I’m suspecting around the 20 personally. Grade: C+
Overall: B- Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Didn’t. That’s the bottom line. On a day where upsets were the rule, Nebraska couldn’t avoid their own shadow.