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Nebraska Football still has long way to go before being taken seriously

By Leigh Oleszczak

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - OCTOBER 12: JD Spielman #10 of the Nebraska Cornhuskers is unable to catch a punt by the Minnesota Gophers during the third quarter of the game at TCF Bank Stadium on October 12, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Gophers defeated the Cornhuskers 34-7. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - OCTOBER 12: JD Spielman #10 of the Nebraska Cornhuskers is unable to catch a punt by the Minnesota Gophers during the third quarter of the game at TCF Bank Stadium on October 12, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Gophers defeated the Cornhuskers 34-7. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /
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Another game, another disappointing outing for Nebraska football, as the Cornhuskers fell 34-7 to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, who have yet to lose a game this season. Nebraska barely put up a fight in this one.

The loss proves what most of us already knew; Nebraska football is nowhere NEAR ready to be grouped with the powerhouse programs any time soon. The Huskers have a long way to go, and hey… That’s okay.

Nebraska brought Scott Frost in to turn things around and rebuilding takes time. There have been improvements this season (like not starting 0-6, for one), but a lot of the time they appear to be overshadowed by a lackluster performance, or in Nebraska’s case recently, three straight lackluster performances.

The most concerning thing to this point is that the offense can’t do much of anything. With the offensive firepower that Frost had while at UCF, Husker fans figured that would follow Frost to Lincoln, but it’s been hit and miss thus far.

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For instance, Nebraska was on fire offensively to start the season, but in their last three games have barely mustered up anything on offense. It’s disheartening to say the least.

Yes, this past week Adrian Martinez was out due to injury, but there’s no reason that an offense with running backs like Maurice Washington and Dedrick Mills and an offensive weapon like Wan’Dale Robinson should only score seven points.

Defense has been a huge problem too, but to be fair, we figured that’d be the case considering how UCF’s defense typically is on a yearly basis. There have been flashes of improvement defensively for Nebraska this year, but for the most part, it’s been tough to watch.

Look – Minnesota was undefeated, so clearly they’re a good team. They hadn’t beat anyone all that tough, but they put a complete beatdown on the Cornhuskers on Saturday and proved they’re the better team. This was an ugly performance for the Huskers and now has been three straight poor performances by this team.

With all of that said, however, Nebraska is still 4-3 on the year (yes, they have a winning record!) and only need two more wins to make it to a bowl game. With Indiana, Purdue, and Maryland remaining on the schedule, Nebraska should be able to get to six wins (though I highly doubt they’ll defeat Wisconsin or Iowa, sorry to say).

Nebraska has a much needed bye week next week and then host Indiana in two weeks. The bye week will hopefully allow the team to rest up and get healthy, as this team has been absolutely decimated by injuries. Losing Robinson could be a huge blow moving forward, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

The Huskers didn’t put up much of a fight in Minneapolis, and it was even further proof that this program still has a long ways to go before they can be considered one of the greats again.

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