Five Defining Moments of the 2019 Season

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
Pretty interesting/sad to look at this list:

  • Colorado Flea Flicker
  • Vedral strip/sack vs Indiana
  • Not scoring a TD on/after Darrion Daniels' INT vs Purdue
  • Martinez running OOB vs Iowa
  • Special Teams



The last one is kind of cheating.  But it would have been interesting to see what happens if we don't give up the KOR return TDs vs Wisconsin and Iowa.

On the others, we were in position to put the games away.  But one little-ish thing happens and the game changes. 

What could have been....

 
I think an argument could be made for the I formation drive against OSU that ended with the OSU CB on his back intercepting AM’s pass. 

 
CheeseHusker said:
There always seems to be that one event in every game that just completely breaks them and the momentum never seems to come back (or does when it is too late).
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It happened since Pelini.  The running into the punter against Michigan.  AA fumble against UGA.  Roughing the passer against A&M.  It's like we have been mentally weak since forever.  Just playing hesitant, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  And when it does.....we just fall apart.  We've come from behind before, but there has always been that one defining moment in a game when you see it, you know it and the wheels fall off....

 
I'm thinking having Maurice Washington absent was a big deal. We had no depth at running back and to have a guy you were depending on to be your star turned out to be a dork, the offense suffered.

 
That moment against Iowa when McCaffrey came in, threw a touchdown on his first play, turned the momentum around, made victory seem more than possible, and had all of Memorial Stadium chanting "Luuuuuuuuke!" marking the dramatic beginning of the the Luke McCaffrey era.

Then he returned to the bench and the moment was gone. 

 
lo country said:
It happened since Pelini.  The running into the punter against Michigan.  AA fumble against UGA.  Roughing the passer against A&M.  It's like we have been mentally weak since forever.  Just playing hesitant, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  And when it does.....we just fall apart.  We've come from behind before, but there has always been that one defining moment in a game when you see it, you know it and the wheels fall off....
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Eh, people have said that for a long time.  But I don't really buy it.  You don't have as many huge comeback wins as we did for a lot of Pelini's tenure if you're that mentally weak.  And it's not like we got totally blown out in those games this year.  Each of those games came right down to the wire (though you could argue we blew a big lead against Colorado).  So I don't think we really fell apart all that often.  Probably a little more true in Riley's last year but not so much most of the time.

I think it's more accurate to say we just don't have a lot of margin for error.  So when we give up a big play - which happens too often - we often give up what little margin we had and often can't recover.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
That moment against Iowa when McCaffrey came in, threw a touchdown on his first play, turned the momentum around, made victory seem more than possible, and had all of Memorial Stadium chanting "Luuuuuuuuke!" marking the dramatic beginning of the the Luke McCaffrey era.

Then he returned to the bench and the moment was gone. 
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Priceless.  And true.

 
lo country said:
It happened since Pelini.  The running into the punter against Michigan.  AA fumble against UGA.  Roughing the passer against A&M.  It's like we have been mentally weak since forever.  Just playing hesitant, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  And when it does.....we just fall apart.  We've come from behind before, but there has always been that one defining moment in a game when you see it, you know it and the wheels fall off....
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I wouldn't say that.

In all of the examples above, the team didn't "fall apart" (except for possibly the CU game but that had more to do with our defense getting tired.).

 
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Guy Chamberlin said:
That moment against Iowa when McCaffrey came in, threw a touchdown on his first play, turned the momentum around, made victory seem more than possible, and had all of Memorial Stadium chanting "Luuuuuuuuke!" marking the dramatic beginning of the the Luke McCaffrey era.

Then he returned to the bench and the moment was gone. 
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Yeah that one was super frustrating to sit back and watch.

 
Mavric said:
Eh, people have said that for a long time.  But I don't really buy it.  You don't have as many huge comeback wins as we did for a lot of Pelini's tenure if you're that mentally weak.  And it's not like we got totally blown out in those games this year.  Each of those games came right down to the wire (though you could argue we blew a big lead against Colorado).  So I don't think we really fell apart all that often.  Probably a little more true in Riley's last year but not so much most of the time.

I think it's more accurate to say we just don't have a lot of margin for error.  So when we give up a big play - which happens too often - we often give up what little margin we had and often can't recover.
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I like the idea of not a lot of room for margin of error.  We seem to play a lot of teams (maybe too many) close...

 
BigRedBuster said:
I wouldn't say that.

In all of the examples above, the team didn't "fall apart" (except for possibly the CU game but that had more to do with our defense getting tired.).
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It's not that we can't come from behind. We have and we do.  It's like there is "that one play" that is easy to see when the mentality of the team changes.  It hasn't been in every loss.  Some we just lose, but others (IMHO) is plain to see when the kick in the junk happens and we go south.....

 
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