Stukenholtz: An All-Too-Familiar Feeling at the Finish

How another close Nebraska loss to Iowa echoed through and rhymed with a season of lost opportunities

Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports

Making the decision to closely follow Nebraska football should require a waiver.

Again and again, this program confounds and confuses its fans. Fathers spend late Saturday nights lamenting the fate they have forced onto their children. Mild-mannered mothers transform and breathe fire upon back-breaking penalties or turnovers. Kids wake up excited to wear their red jerseys and cheer on the team, only to end up wishing through tears that just once it could be a different ending.

This December will feel much like last December, and the December before that, and the handful of prior Decembers, too. Seven straight empty bowl seasons to be exact. Once Iowa’s kick limped over the crossbar to seal NU’s fate 13-10, and the immediate wave of nausea and disappointment passed, there was another familiar feeling.

Déjà vu.

Yep, that’s right. This has happened before. But what series of outcomes did you think of first? Was it how Nebraska lost their fourth game in a row in similarly heartbreaking fashion? How all four November losses were by one score, three by three points and the other in overtime? How about the third walk-off field goal AND the third final score of exactly 13-10 in three crushing losses this season?

We could even go Iowa-specific with the heartbreak. Iowa earned walk-off wins with similar last-second kicks in both 2018 and 2019. This was also the third time Iowa denied the Huskers their sixth win and bowl eligibility at home, just like 2015 and 2019.

Maybe you’re more like me and your mind went straight to stats. It may have crossed your mind that Chubba Purdy’s final pass attempt in the three latest losses came on NU’s last offensive snap. And that all three of those passes were interceptions. And those were Purdy’s only interceptions of the season!

This one was pretty unbelievable: Iowa’s long run in the final 15 seconds to set up the game-winning FG was their first offensive play in Husker territory in the second half. Nebraska had flipped that script, having run only one offensive play in Hawkeye territory in the first half.

I’m sure plenty of fans immediately sifted through the big momentum swingers. Perhaps you thought of the three Husker fumbles, two of which Iowa recovered. Nebraska was unable to come away with either of Iowa’s fumbles. And of course, Iowa’s lone turnover was given right back by Nebraska two plays later.

An area of rock-solid strength for Iowa – entering the game, at least – was special teams. The Huskers drew even in that battle on Friday. Ty Robinson and Nash Hutmacher blocked a pair of Hawkeye field goal tries in the first half. Two straight Iowa kickoffs sailed out of bounds. Phalen Sanford downed a Brian Buschini punt at the 1-yard-line. Unfortunately, Ethan Nation fumbled away a possession on a punt return, and Tristan Alvano missed a 44-yard field goal against the wind wide left. If only competent special teams play had been on the 2023 menu, bowl eligibility likely would’ve been sewn up a while ago.

Gallery: Iowa Nips Huskers at the Wire

You may have felt for the Blackshirts. I know I did. Nebraska didn’t allow a single first down for a stretch of over 28 minutes from late second quarter to late fourth quarter. Five second-half 3-and-outs. Tommi Hill’s last-minute INT to set the offense up to win the game if they could manage just a few yards on a play or two.

And yet, it was another example of the defense slipping late. Obviously, it’s not the defense’s fault that Purdy’s interception threw them right back onto the field. But Iowa’s Leshon Williams had a big hole between the tackles to run through, and sure tackler Isaac Gifford didn’t bring him down, allowing 15 more yards after contact. Iowa needed every bit of that run to make their FG.

Williams’ run echoed the busted run Maryland got late a couple weeks ago on their final winning drive, or Minnesota’s fourth-down touchdown pass and relatively easy field goal drive late in that fourth quarter. The Terps and Gophers hadn’t done much against Nebraska’s defense until it mattered the most. Sound familiar?

I’m not beating up on the Blackshirts, they were phenomenal all year. It just goes to show how thin the margins were for them. A single play going the other direction in a handful of games is the difference between 5-7 and 7-5.

There is a big reason the margins were so thin. Not injuries, though those did hurt. Not officiating, imperfect as it may be at times. Certainly there’s something to be learned from some clock mismanagement, but that’s not it either.

It’s about the quarterback.

The most important position in sports was the most critical to NU’s success this year. An elite signal caller can win you a championship. A merely above-average QB with this year’s Huskers would’ve had them playing for one next Saturday. Had Nebraska been able to find a difference-maker, either a holdover from Frost’s days or the right transfer, it would have been a game-changer.

While I’m sure he wasn’t their first or only target, Matt Rhule and Marcus Satterfield ended up with Jeff Sims. Unfortunately, Sims was an unmitigated disaster, turning it over 10 times across parts of four games, roughly the equivalent of once per quarter. Heinrich Haarberg started all five of Nebraska’s wins, but he’s severely limited as a passer. Then there’s Purdy, who played admirably until the end.

What better way to summarize the 2023 Huskers, huh? They played admirably … until the end. Rhule did yeoman’s work to build this staff and lead this program to an unbeaten October. It’s the winless November that will haunt him and the Husker seniors and others departing this offseason.

Rhule doesn’t deserve to get lumped in with the failures of the past. As for the rest of us who have been here for a long time, the results start to rhyme because there are only so many ways to lose games. But you could see the improvement, the leadership, the foundation for the future.

Nebraska football has dug itself quite a hole for about a decade now.

The climb continues.

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