The Gould Standard: Cats Up, Huskers Shucked

In a must-win situation, panicky two-TD favorite Nebraska got punched in the gut by Northwestern, which looks like it will exceed expectations.

There’s so much to unpack from Northwestern’s startling 31-28 takedown of Nebraska in Ireland—free Guinness for all!—that it’s difficult to know where to start.

The big national story, of course, is the Cornhuskers’ failure to win—and what that means for Scott Frost.

At least the concessionaires at Aviva Stadium landed on their feet by handing out their food and beverages for free when the stadium internet failed, making it impossible to operate cash registers. And you thought it was because a team coached by a Fitzgerald was winning in Dublin.

But let’s look at what this might mean for the Wildcats and the Big Ten West—which Northwestern now sits atop in its bid for a third division title in five years.

For all the attention given to Nebraska’s retooling on offense, it was the Cornhuskers' defense, which gave up 528 yards, that looked awfully shaky.

Kudos to Cats QB Ryan Hilinski, who looked very poised. Dittos to an offensive line led by left tackle Peter Skoronski—grandson of legendary Packer Bob Skoronski! And a running game that piled up 214 yards while Hilinski, a South Carolina transfer, completed 27 of 38 for 314 yards.

The Northwestern defense also looked stout. Nebraska did a lot of things well when it had the ball. Unlike Frost, we won’t point the finger at new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple. More on that in a moment.

Let’s do the Big Ten West math first. Perennial powers Wisconsin and Iowa are going to keep plodding to a fair number of wins.

Best guess here is that Minnesota, which has a slew of skill players back, will win its share. There is also reason to believe that Purdue, which figures to have a potent passing game with Aidan O’Connell throwing, will be competitive. We’ll know more about that when the Boilermakers open against Penn State on Thursday.

If you’re keeping score at home, by Thursday night, the Big Ten will have played two conference games that ``just mean more’’ than any league in the nation. Including the SEC and the NFL.

And Illinois, which throttled Wyoming 38-6 in another Week Zero opener, also seems to be much improved. Kudos to Bret Bielema for giving himself a chance to become a Downstate Pat Fitzgerald—a sharp coach who knows what his program can and can’t do. The Illini will reveal more at Indiana on Friday night. But Syracuse transfer QB Tommy DeVito added to a promising running game and defense is an interesting combination.

So. . . Wisconsin. Iowa. Northwestern. Illinois. Minnesota. Purdue.

Where does that leave Nebraska? Bringing up the rear in the much-maligned ``other’’ division of the Big Ten?

Of course, it’s only the dawn of the new college football season. But when a two-touchdown favorite stubs it toe in the opener. . . not a good sign.

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What is the deal with Nebraska?

Obviously, it all lands at Scott Frost’s feet at this point.

The Cornhuskers have not been a well-coached team on his watch. And that continued against Northwestern.

Frost brought in new coaches and a slew of players via the transfer portal for this fall. Which is, by all accounts, make or break for him. Especially after Nebraska kept him but downsized his contract, Jim-Harbaugh-style.

So what happened? Nebraska was absolutely flummoxed on defense. To be kind, the offense was a little better fundamentally—which is not a high bar.

The problem Saturday was what you see in the NCAA basketball tournament when a high seed finds itself in a tight game with a low seed.

Nebraska panicked. You could see it on passes that bounced off the nervous hands of receivers, which made the job of new QB Casey Thompson, the Texas transfer who tightened up as the game went on, that much harder.

But most of all, you could see it when Frost called an onside kick after taking a 28-17 lead.

As he said, if it works, it likely salts the game away. Afterward, Frost admitted it was a mistake, saying, ``If I had it over, I wouldn't make the call.”

Why do that? The risk-reward only adds up if you don’t have confidence in your team to win the old-fashioned way. He didn’t want to go toe-to-toe with Northwestern?

That not only opened the door for the Wildcats. It sent a message to his players. And it wasn’t a good message. It was a panicky vote of no-confidence.

I want to try not to pile on here. Frost has gotten plenty of that—and will continue to feel the heat. It’s richly deserved.

I know Cornhusker fans. They are generally very reasonable and patient people. In Frost’s fifth year, they have earned the right to become impatient and unreasonable.

But I am more interested in how Frost, who looked like the perfect hire, could turn out to be such a dud.

The guy painted a 13-0 masterpiece in 2017 at UCF, a school that had gone 0-12 in 2015 before he arrived.

Hiring him seemed to be a no-brainer destined for greatness. The quarterback on Nebraska’s last national championship team comes home after a perfect season with a Group of 5.

Who better to restore the Cornhuskers? Especially in a division best known for playing the Washington Generals to the Big Ten East’s Harlem Globetrotters.

Now it looks like Frost caught lightning in a bottle at UCF. Skeptics say he found an over-achieving quarterback who took a gimmicky offense and lifted an entire team to greatness against a schedule designed for success.

At Nebraska, Frost has had no such luck. Actually, he’s had no luck.

Welcome to the Big Ten. It’s no SEC, except at the pay window. But if there’s one thing the Big Ten does well, it finds your weakness and brings you to your knees.

August is way too early to be talking about a coach already walking the plank. But that’s the college football world Scott Frost lives in.

His best-case scenario: If the Cornhuskers beat Oklahoma—am I really writing that?—and hitch up their pants, they could still have a good season. Because, as far as we know, nobody in the Big Ten West is a runaway train.

If Nebraska could dig in and be the team some experts expected, they could be 7-1 heading into November, when they play Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. And if you believe that, you wear an ear of corn made of foam on your head.

A more likely scenario: Based on what we saw Saturday, another 3-9 season is not only possible. It’s far more likely than 7-5, let alone 7-1. The pressure on Frost, his coaches and players is immense. We saw it in the Cornhuskers’ panicky performance on Saturday.

If the over/under is 4.5 wins for Nebraska, take the under.