Tad Stryker: Triple Triskaidekaphobia

Another brutal interception means another 13-10 loss for Nebraska and denial of bowl trip

Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports

The fear of the number 13 has never been an issue in the Nebraska football program as far as I can tell — especially in the quarterback room, where Zac Taylor proudly wore the number while leading the Big Red to a Big 12 North title in 2006. Almost two generations earlier, Steve Runty had a 13 on his jersey the day he led Nebraska to 13 points in the third quarter on the way to a come-from-behind Cotton Bowl win over Texas in 1973, wrapping up Tom Osborne’s first year as head coach.

But 13 has taken a beating lately in the Cornhusker State, where I’d wager that anger and frustration over those two innocent digits has never been higher than it is right now. But this time, it has nothing to do with jersey numbers.

If, back on Aug. 30, you had decided to lay a tidy $100 bet that Nebraska would lose three games by identical 13-10 scores, each on a walk-off field goal, each set up by a brutal interception thrown by a Husker quarterback, well, you’d be a multimillionaire right now. That is, if your spouse hadn’t gotten you admitted to the psych ward first.

Gallery: Iowa Nips Huskers at the Wire

It turned out that Nebraska-Iowa was exactly the battle of two inept offenses that everyone expected, with Nebraska’s quarterback, Chubba Purdy, finding a way to make one even more inexplicable, soul-crushing, “Hold-my-beer” mistake than his counterpart, a backup of extremely modest talent named Deacon Hill, in the game’s final minute.

As he goes into his first full offseason in Lincoln, at least now Matt Rhule knows exactly what he’s up against. I’m not sure if he believes in football gods and their inscrutable ways, but he’s got to be considering the concept by now. (By the way, if they’re telling him to find a good quarterback in the transfer portal, I hope he’s listening.)

Fair or not, Rhule has inherited what many fans consider a curse, something which apparently was not broken by Frank Solich last April after all. Rhule now shares the weight of 43 one-score losses by Nebraska over the past decade with his army of loyal Husker fans, an army which is getting smaller by the year. He will have to find a way to change the losing ways of a football program that over the last six years seemingly has spent half its budget on replacing toes and feet that three different coaching staffs and an endless parade of players have shot off. Rhule appears to think it will happen in short order with more depth and more experience, and he may be right. But he’ll have profoundly more skepticism and scrutiny to deal with than he would’ve had, if he could’ve pulled off just one lousy win in his last four games.

Even though I’ve worked several years in an office with Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs fans, I’m not sure I believe in sports curses, but if the football gods really do flit around unseen, they are laughing their heads off at Husker Nation. If, however, it’s simply bad breaks, and if the breaks even up over the long term, Rhule is overdue to benefit from a backlog of them next fall.

If I were Rhule, I’d trade in those breaks for a reliable quarterback.

A month ago, Rhule seemed to have found the combination, ending an undefeated October with a 5-3 record. But a brutally unfathomable winless November has shut the Huskers out of the postseason for an unbelievable seventh consecutive season. The snakebit Rhule will carry that burden without the benefit of the 15 additional bowl practices that would have helped him improve his situation immeasurably.

It we really could do that rewind to Aug. 30, it would’ve been dandy to get even a measure of mediocre play out of Jeff Sims, who may have more talent than Heinrich Haarberg and Purdy combined, but cratered early in the season under a series of fumbles and interceptions. Sims’s downfall was a decisive blow to the Huskers’ fortunes, and it’s something that Rhule’s detractors believe he should have been able to foresee.

There are the predictably angry, but more ominous are the growing number of once-rabid Nebraska fans have become distressingly apathetic about something they used to live and die for. And those who consider the football program cursed no longer seem as wildly irrational as they once did.

Just to dial up the frustration meter for Nebraska fans, the winning kick was made by Iowa senior Marshall Meeder, who had not tried a field goal this season until that very moment. Kirk Ferentz, apparently figuring “What the heck?” sent him into the game after watching the Huskers block two field goal tries by his regular kicker, Drew Stevens. Meeder’s dying duck of a kick barely made it over the crossbar. Of course it did. It came right after Iowa’s only first down of the second half, after Iowa running back Leshon Williams broke a tackle by Nebraska’s best player, Isaac Gifford, and rambled for 22 yards, which got the Hawkeyes’ untested kicker just close enough. Of course it did. Kirk Ferentz’s strategy of “just play conservative and depend on Nebraska to screw up” pays off handsomely yet again.

There’s no justice for the Blackshirts here. They stuffed Iowa for five three-and-outs in the Hawkeyes’ six previous possessions, and should not have had to come back onto the field in the final moments, but of course, that’s exactly what they had to do.

Truthfully, Nebraska was lucky to be down by only three points at halftime to Iowa, which ran more than twice as many first-half plays as the Huskers and had nearly twice as many total yards. A pair of blocked field goals by Ty Robinson and Nash Hutmacher were Nebraska’s saving grace, as was a “where-did-that-come-from” 66-yard touchdown pass from Purdy to freshman Jaylen Lloyd, the longest play allowed by Iowa’s defense all season. Even with his best defensive player, Cooper DeJean, sidelined by injury, Iowa defensive coordinator Phil Parker was like a seasoned veteran baseball pitcher, making Husker offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield awkwardly swing and miss series after series, except for that one mistake, that hanging curveball that Satterfield hit out of the park.

For the Husker fans who keep resolutely showing up to do battle with the football gods, this moment in the 2023 Iowa game will be frozen forever with 31 seconds remaining, and Nebraska in possession at midfield after a huge play by Tommi Hill, his fourth interception of the year. At that point, if Husker Nation had gotten just half a minute of good football out of Satterfield and his offense (including the quarterback room which Satterfield runs), it would have set up the program with a tantalizing array of benefits, not the least of which would have been removing the recruiting stigma of being the only Power 5 team to not make a bowl in since 2016. But that was too much to ask. Or as Rhule discreetly put it afterward, “the things that affected us all year, affected us.”

This program is in need of an infusion of talent on offense, there’s no doubt. A true home run threat at running back would help almost as much as a dependable quarterback. Rhule likely will compare this season to his first seasons at Temple and Baylor, and point out that five wins is the best he’s ever done. That is true, and it may be the closest we can get to a good omen for the future, but he also knows there’s no way the Huskers should have finished with a losing record this season.

In December, the offense could have begun a transition to a more balanced style of football that Rhule and Satterfield want to play. In particular, NU’s freshman wide receivers and freshman running back Emmett Johnson would have gained a lot from a busy December. But it won’t happen.

Rhule acknowledged his team’s inability to get it done at crunch time. He also vowed that “situation football will be way different next year when you’re talking about our games.” I wonder if he plans playing better situational football with the exact same slate of coaches, assuming the Huskers are fortunate enough to retain defensive coordinator Tony White.

Over the next few months, we’ll find out exactly how much patience Rhule, his team and especially the longsuffering fans still have. And how much optimism there still is among fans who have given so much for so long with so little in return from their team.

Rhule and his staff appear to be building a good 2024 recruiting class — a verbal commitment by Iowa’s best high school offensive lineman, Grant Brix, appears likely — and frankly, they need to see some early good signs from incoming freshman quarterback Daniel Kaelin. Just as important, the Huskers need to get less talk and more touchdowns out of tight end Thomas Fidone.

Soon after the game, my inbox immediately started filling with frustrated Husker fans demanding firings of coaches and the pulling of scholarships. Nope, wrong move. That would set up the Huskers for another decade of futility, because it would scare off almost all good coaching or playing talent from considering Lincoln as a destination. But it’s hard to defend Satterfield in particular. He severely underperformed his $1.4 million salary this season.

Rhule has already dismissed the idea of replacing his offensive coordinator. It makes you wonder what he sees that so many others don’t, but apparently the man’s job is safe. At the very least, however, a sizeable pay cut for Satterfield would seem to be in order. When Rhule finishes adjusting his coaching budget, White should emerge with a much higher figure than Satterfield, or there’s even less justice there than the unlucky Huskers got Saturday from the football gods themselves.

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