It'sNotAFakeID

After falling behind 14-0, Nebraska changed it's offensive playcalling and marched deep into Ohio State's territory. It honestly felt like they were going to score and make it 14-7 when Martinez slightly sailed a pass over Wandale's hand, which deflected it into an Ohio State player that was on the ground. Would 14-7 be a lot different than a backbreaking turnover? Absolutely. Psychologically deflating for a still fragile team playing against the #5 and arguably better than that team in the nation.

I stated before the game that win or lose, the result of this game won't be as instructive as the results of other games this year. As a program, Nebraska is 26-29 in their last 55 games. Ohio State is 53-6 in their last 59 games. Nebraska is trying to pull itself out of a funk created by inept coaching and dismal recruiting. Ohio State is transitioning its program from one of the best coaches and recruiters of all time, but is always supremely-talented. Justin Fields made Ohio State so much better than the team that scraped by Nebraska 36-31 last year. This was a mismatch. Anticipating this game and getting hyped for what it could mean was fun. But, honestly, we had more chance of winning the Powerball than beating Ohio State and thinking of the possibilities of winning was very similar to imagining what you would do with your jackpot winnings. Nebraska didn't win tonight and they looked awful. But they were playing Ohio State - who is going to make a lot of teams look awful. What's more instructive, and what will matter more, is how they play next week against Northwestern, the following week at Minnesota, against Indiana after the bye, and at Purdue the week after that. Those are the teams that, Nebraska will beat if they're as talented and well-coached as we think, and those are the wins that will signal a step forward from last year, albeit not as big a step as we want to take. Then another chance to prove ourselves will come when Wisconsin makes their way to Lincoln. Then another opportunity when Iowa visits on Black Friday. There are a lot of games left to be played, and the West is still left to be won. As a program, Nebraska is no further back than we were at the start of today. 48-7 hurts, as it should, but in the grand scheme, it's virtually meaningless. I hope the coaches and players learn what they can, focus on getting better, and move on to the next game.

If we should win

How are we 1-4 against the spread when we've played 4 games? How are we 1-4 against the spread when we've played 4 games?

What does DRatings know that the other metrics don't?

Yeah, we'll have the game in hand by then.

Tim Miles would be an interesting choice. Fans still love him. He's a great personality. Forgot about Crawford. Yeah, I hope they go with him so he can KO Desmond Howard.

Adam Devine

Well they're coming...to our city. And I'm not sure how to feel about it.

Listen, he was close

Ugh....we have guys that create fumbles and no one to pick them up

112 yards of penalties huh

You're taught to play to the whistle. Well...we did. And it f#&%ed us...

Just so you all know...a ref blew the whistle on the fumble recovery by Illinois...

They aren't our rivals.

I would love to play OU every Black Friday. Problem is - that's not going to happen until and unless OU joins the Big Ten. Rivalry games are more fun. They're more heated. There's more joy in victory and more agony in defeat. We need those kind of games. We have three trophy games in the Big Ten. It's crazy how that happened, huh? I think we had 1 trophy game in the Big XII - the bell. Now we have the Hero's Trophy (yuck) with Iowa. I think both fan bases hate it. We have the Freedom Trophy (what) with Wisconsin. I think both fanbases also hate it. Of course, we have the Chair with Minnesota, which is loved by the fans and not supported by the admins. These three games get me the most consistently excited every year. Yeah, we play Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State every now and then, and those are top tier matches. But Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin happen every year, and I want us to beat them so bad. It would be to our benefit to stop the self-righteous arrogance and call these three teams what they are: rivals.

Unless Adrian ran it, everything went along the sidelines. starting to have concerns over our ability to move up the middle

We'll see. The two teams they've played have been without weapons. USF looks like a bit of a disaster this year, and Central Michigan is...well Central Michigan. Back to back shutouts are impressive, but maybe not a great indicator of how good they'll be come conference play. The Michigan game will be a real test.

Looking back on this, we weren't the team predicted to win. And a lot of predictions were for a close game. Well...they weren't wrong. But the way it happened sucked.

Two weeks. Two similar ways of attacking the defense. Two similar results. What about stunting the line and delaying the blitz causes this offense so many problems?

I'm sure he would have said nothing if his a$$ got steamrolled like it did in the first half.

We'll have our spectacular years, but those years will rarely result in playoff appearances. We won't ever be the powerhouse that we were, but there's no reason we can't be in the same light as Penn State.