OWH: Ranking Every Husker Loss Since 2001

[Mavric]

You know .... if you needed something to brighten your day.....

 

Our criteria include

 

1) how long the loss lingered;

2) how the game ended and

3) significance of the game and

4) level of embarrassment or ineptitude.

 

10 — Oklahoma State 2007 (45-14)

9 — Kansas State 2003 (38-9)

8 — Texas 2006 (22-20)

7 — Texas Tech 2004 (70-10)

6 — Wisconsin 2014 (59-24)

5 — Texas 2010 (20-13)

4 — Oklahoma 2010 (23-20)

3 — Wisconsin 2012 (70-31)

2 — Colorado 2001 (62-36)

1 — Texas 2009 (13-12)

 

Link

[junior4949]

They definitely got #1 wrong. It has to be the CU game in 01'. That loss is still lingering as far as I'm concerned. The Texas game of 09' was pretty much as expected. I'm not sure anyone really expected us to beat Texas in 09'. The Texas 10' should probably be at #2. Here rolls in an unranked Texas team that was probably the worst team they'd fielded in a decade into Lincoln to play us when we were ranked as high as 5th in the country only to do what Texas pretty much did our entire tenure in the Big 12.

[ADS]

That's insanely depressing.

[NUance]

I might put the '96 loss to Arizona State on there somewhere. A 17-0 shutout that knocked us off the pedestal of 90s dominance. I remember how sad that was.

[huskerfan92]

They definitely got #1 wrong. It has to be the CU game in 01'. That loss is still lingering as far as I'm concerned. The Texas game of 09' was pretty much as expected. I'm not sure anyone really expected us to beat Texas in 09'. The Texas 10' should probably be at #2. Here rolls in an unranked Texas team that was probably the worst team they'd fielded in a decade into Lincoln to play us when we were ranked as high as 5th in the country only to do what Texas pretty much did our entire tenure in the Big 12.

 

Yeah I'm with you. The 2009 loss hurt, but we weren't expected to win that game and came within 1 second of beating the number 2 team in the nation when we had Zac Lee at quarterback. The 2010 game was way worse, that was supposed to be the ultimate revenge game. Can't remember that much hype going into a Husker game, and we laid a big fat egg against Garret Gilbert

[Danny Bateman]

What an exercise in sadism this is.

[Saunders]

What an exercise in sadism this is.

I wonder who wrote.... oh.

[Kiyoat Husker]

List seems fair. All three coaches over that time are represented on the list pretty balanced.

 

Solich 3 years - 2 losses on list

Callahan 4 years - 3 lossis on list

Pelini 7 years - 5 losses on list

 

fifteen years of gut punches.

 

can we be done now?

[ColoradoHusk]

I might put the '96 loss to Arizona State on there somewhere. A 17-0 shutout that knocked us off the pedestal of 90s dominance. I remember how sad that was.

Dirk used the Colorado loss in 2001 as the "line of demarcation", as that is the loss that many people say took away the "aura of invincibility" of NU. It's not a ranking of all losses in the past 20-30 years.

[Mavric]

Just in case anyone missed it, the article has all 66 losses ranked along with a description of each. I just posted the "Top" 10.

[junior4949]

I might put the '96 loss to Arizona State on there somewhere. A 17-0 shutout that knocked us off the pedestal of 90s dominance. I remember how sad that was.

 

If we're going to go back that far, then the 96' loss to Texas in the Big 12 Championship game is way more deserving than the Arizona State loss. Arizona State finished the season ranked in the top 5. The Texas loss was considerably worse because Texas was unranked when we played them, and it kept us from a chance at a threepeat.

 

If we're going to go back into the TO years, it would be almost next to impossible to not list the 92' loss to Iowa State. We were ranked in the top 10 going into the game and lost to a team that would finish out the year 4-7.

[Whs from cb]

2001 colorado

[Kernal]

I didn't agree with 2009 Texas as #1 either. I never expected NU to be competitive in that game because we were terrible on offense. Four field goals? The fact we played it close was a moral victory, if such things exist. I'd almost drop that one way down the list- it may have been one of our "best" losses.

 

I'd put 2012 Wisconsin at #1. I've never been more embarrassed by a Husker loss.

[Mavric]

I would say they have the Texas game at #1 because it completely hits their first three criteria:

 

1) how long the loss lingered;

2) how the game ended and

3) significance of the game and

 

Of often is :01 brought up? It was a game we had won and let get away by three crazy plays in the last few seconds - kick OOB, horse-collar tackle, time back on the clock - that could easily have gone our way. And it would basically be tied for the second-most significant game - with the other CCGs, behind the 2001 NCG - that we've played since then. Which would have ended our conference championship drought.

 

So perhaps we weren't expected to win. But that's the old argument - which is worse, losing a game by three scores or almost winning a game you shouldn't only to let it slip away?

[junior4949]

Personally, it is much worse to get curb stomped by three scores when you're ranked #2 in the land than letting a game we weren't supposed to win slip by. The 01' CU loss still haunts most fans to this day. It has been discussed over and over again how this one single game and loss drastically changed the trajectory of the program. We have never overcame that loss. A lot of people still like to bitch about the 09' Texas loss, but most of us still have nightmares about the 01' CU loss.