Worst Loss of the Riley Era

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This question is much tougher than it would seem. There were so many bad losses. Teams that had no business beating us. Games that we shouldn't have lost but we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. So many where the team was I'll prepared and had a horrible game plan....terrible clock management. And yet others where our lack of fundamentals and/or tenacity was mind boggling. Pick one? Hell, I'm having trouble narrowing it down to only 10 really bad losses. Pretty amazing since it's only a 3 year span to choose from.

 
Purdue and Northern Illinois have to be the most embarrassing teams to lose to, especially with NIU in Lincoln. The NIU loss is easily one of the worst losses in Nebraska program history. The fact that Iowa views wins against Nebraska as the most meaningful all season (and you have Iowa players including a former in-state kid throwing bones after TD in your stadium), but Nebraska can’t even show a pulse in those games, that’s embarrassing.

However, if you view the Riley Era in isolation, the worst loss may be the first against BYU as it set the tone for the 2015 season and the 3-yr Riley Era. As fans, we immediately had to start eating that s#!t sandwich and telling ourselves it will get better (obviously, it did not).

 
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irafreak said:
I didn't buy the excuses of needing his players or Bo leaving the cupboard bare.
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I didn't buy that it was 'bare' either, but I do vaguely remember MR saying the 2015 roster he inherited was one of the best if not the best he'd ever had (can't seem to find a link right now). And then Eichorst came out later that year saying it was a 'brick by brick' rebuild.

:facepalm:

 
irafreak said:
Byu. After the blowout Bo losses and headscratching hire of Riley, I was done. The hail mary sealed it for me. I just spent Saturdays enjoying other things. In my mind, Bo wouldn't have gotten beat like that. So if Riley couldn't at least be respectable out of the gate then what hope was there? I didn't buy the excuses of needing his players or Bo leaving the cupboard bare. I didn't root against them or anything, I just stopped following. 
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Me and a bunch of friends were in Lincoln...we sort of spilt up as that game started and some of us were watching it at some beer garden...The place was totally deflated after the hail mary and I remember telling my buddy "Well...this is what you wanted."  He was sort of a Riley guy but really more of just anit-Bo, I was anti-bo and super anti-Riley...

But that BYU loss just seemed like a sign of things to come.  A staff with so many years of experience just looking like the job/scene/atmosphere was going to beat them up.

Fast forward a few years and I was down there for the Iowa game, we were at Barry's partying and "watching" the game...but man had the vibe changed.  The game was on every TV but the fans at Barry's were so not interested.  In fact, I spent about 30 minutes watching 4 girls get into Barry's...only to be escorted out for being underage and then managing to talk the cop out of getting in trouble.  It helped that they were total smoke shows.  

 
Thanks_Tom RR said:
Purdue and Northern Illinois have to be the most embarrassing teams to lose to, especially with NIU in Lincoln. The NIU loss is easily one of the worst losses in Nebraska program history. The fact that Iowa views wins against Nebraska as the most meaningful all season (and you have Iowa players including a former in-state kid throwing bones after TD in your stadium), but Nebraska can’t even show a pulse in those games, that’s embarrassing.

However, if you view the Riley Era in isolation, the worst loss may be the first against BYU as it set the tone for the 2015 season and the 3-yr Riley Era. As fans, we immediately had to start eating that s#!t sandwich and telling ourselves it will get better (obviously, it did not).
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A-freaking-men

 
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Worst loss of the Riley era?  Northern Illinois hands down, and in this poster's opinion, it isn't even close.  Nebraska should NEVER lose to a podunk MAC school, especially on our home field.

Although...it could be argued that losing to Northern Illinois was also the "best" loss because it was Nebraska getting embarrassed in that game which got the boosters to put pressure on Bounds and Green to fire Shawn Eichorst's keyster; which started the ball rolling on firing .500, and bringing Frost home.

 
Apparently Green was already leaning toward getting rid of Eichorst heading into last fall, supposedly due to lack of competitiveness across all sports. Wouldn't surprise me if Eichorst's personality had a lot to do with it, too. Even if you ignore his football dealings, Eichorst was just a complete phony who liked to talk about leadership but really knew nothing about it.

But yeah, it's safe to say that NIU lit a fire under their a$$ with that one. :)

 
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Here's why, of all those losses, I can't put Northern Illinois as the worst loss:

They didn't outplay Nebraska. Nebraska outplayed Nebraska. Basically everything they got that day, Nebraska gave them. Ordinarily, I might suggest that's reason for it to be the worst loss, but this game's impact is as much or more about its timing in the Riley era. It's about being at the start of year 3. It's about barely beating Arkansas St the game before. It's about validating the falsehood of the prior year's 7-0 start.

Nebraska has lost to opponents it shouldn't lose to in the same manner before. This loss is so meaningful because it snapped any illusion anyone may have had that Mike Riley could perform his function. The 2015 losses, and you can kinda take your pick, are very different in that respect. 

 
brophog said:
Here's why, of all those losses, I can't put Northern Illinois as the worst loss:

They didn't outplay Nebraska. Nebraska outplayed Nebraska. Basically everything they got that day, Nebraska gave them. Ordinarily, I might suggest that's reason for it to be the worst loss, but this game's impact is as much or more about its timing in the Riley era. It's about being at the start of year 3. It's about barely beating Arkansas St the game before. It's about validating the falsehood of the prior year's 7-0 start.

Nebraska has lost to opponents it shouldn't lose to in the same manner before. This loss is so meaningful because it snapped any illusion anyone may have had that Mike Riley could perform his function. The 2015 losses, and you can kinda take your pick, are very different in that respect. 
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Come on man... Northern Freaking Illinois! It's unacceptable. We were MAC champs under Mark Pelini but Riley? Pffft. Bottom dweller.

 
I go with Minnesota. Coming-off the NW loss this was a must-win game, we not only lost but got completely dominated by a 5-7 team that didn't even manage to score ONCE in their next two games. That was the worst performance of my lifetime,  but at-least one could shrug-off the ineptitude knowing it meant Riley had to be done and we'd be moving on Frost.  Northern Illinois was a bad loss to take but the defense was solid for the bulk of the game. Those picks killed us, we weren't a complete ****-show. 

 
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