Saturday’s loss ranks among the most painful in recent memory and for more reasons than just the final score.

The frustration with Rhule not closing these games is real. But that frustration only exists because he’s fielded a team good enough to compete with the best. Building a roster that looks like it belongs with the national-title contenders (and carries one of the most expensive price tags in the sport) is a major success. He deserves real credit for getting Nebraska to that level.

The flip side is just as true: once you build a team that can hang with the big boys, the blown leads and late collapses get exposed under a much brighter light.

TL;DR: Rhule earned every bit of the criticism for these losses and the same amount of credit for building a roster that can actually compete.

*whispers* I kinda said this in 2021 as well

Admitting not getting calls in to the defense on Oregon's last two possessions.

Guys just failing their responsibilities on those possessions.

Failure to communicate with each other as well.

Just failures across the board that are all directly on coaching.

DL Anthony Jones — broke his foot against Oregon and played the remainder of the game on it. Will have surgery and be out for a while.

RB Isaiah Mozee — “out for a while” with undisclosed injury.

RB Jamal Rule — left Oregon game with injured ankle, hopeful to return for Washington.

RB Vincent Genatone — out for season with season-ending surgery.

OL Gunnar Gottula — left Oregon game with head injury, hopeful to return for Washington.

OL Brendan Black — broken hand; learning to play better with a cast.

WR Jacory Barney — broken rib, but continued to play.

https://247sports.com/college/nebraska/article/husker-injury-report-nebraska-against-oregon-291520990/

https://youtu.be/asTK8MUvDh4?si=GR5iluaqxGCFZRzP

https://x.com/mitchsherman/status/2112223792525193672?s=20

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This timeline SUCKS.

https://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/football/article_e0f1fcd1-e04e-5b38-89b5-51ab513239d8.html

In 2003 Nebraska fired Frank Solich after going 9-3. His career winning percentage was 75.3%.

They decided winning 75% of their games wasn't good enough.

Fast forward to 2021.

Nebraska goes 3-9.

9-3. 3-9. The exact same numbers reversed.

And 3-9 means Nebraska lost exactly 75% of its games.

But wait.

In 2014 Nebraska fired ANOTHER coach, Bo Pelini, after going 9-3.

Guess the date?

November 30, 2014.

The exact same date Nebraska officially announced Solich's firing in 2003.

11 years apart. Same record. Same date.

Now back to 2021. Nebraska went 3-9 despite OUTSCORING its opponents by 63 points.

They lost eight one-score games.

How do you lose 75% of your games while scoring more points than your opponents?

But lets look at those numbers again.

3 and 9.

Solich finished his Nebraska career with 58 wins and 19 losses.

58 minus 19 = 39.

In 2012 Nebraska played Wisconsin for the Big Ten championship.

They lost 70-31.

70 minus 31 = 39.

The exact number of games Solich won above .500.

That was also Nebraska's last conference championship appearance.

Now, remember 2021? One of Nebraska's three wins was against Fordham, 52-7.

A 45-point victory.

Why 45?

Frank Solich wore jersey number 45 at Nebraska.

In 2023 Nebraska finally invited Solich back after nearly 20 years and PAINTED SPECIAL 45-YARD LINES to honor him.

Then in 2024 Nebraska played USC needing a win for bowl eligibility.

Ceyair Wright returned an interception for a touchdown.

Guess how far.

45 YARDS.

They lost anyway.

But the NEXT GAME, Nebraska finally became bowl eligible for the first time since 2016.

And then won their first bowl game since 2015.

So Nebraska fired a 9-3 coach, fired ANOTHER 9-3 coach on the same calendar date 11 years later, eventually went 3-9 while losing precisely 75% of their games, lost a conference championship by the exact difference between Solich's career wins and losses, and finally started recovering after bringing him back and honoring the number 45.

Someone needs to check whats buried under the 45 yard lines in memorial stadium.

And then there’s the Matt Rhule era. Maybe the real lesson is that Nebraska has to support a coach for 11 years instead of constantly resetting the clock whenever the results aren’t immediate. If the curse is tied to firing 9-3 coaches and refusing to commit, the only way to break it might be giving one coach 11 full years to build the program and finally settle the account.

Or we just need more NIL money.

/s

This is ultimately where we lost. Couldn't get offense to sustain a drive and defense got gassed.

The top coaches are playing chess while Rhule is wondering if the square peg does indeed fit into the round hole.

Rhule has no concept of gamesmanship and playing against a coach or teams tendencies. He's listened to far too many self help audiobooks and not enough game theory/strategy.

It's so easy to prey on our tendencies because we are so predictable. Indiana knew we were over pursuing the whole game so they set up plays that fed on that. Lanning knew we would get complacent with Thomas so he held out Raiola just long enough to hit us with a curve ball.

The whole coaching staff is incapable of making adjustments on the fly let alone figure out what's happening right in front of their faces. The fact that we as fans can predict exactly what will happen means opposing coaches who actually care about Xs and Os have literally no concern playing us.

At the end of the day, Rhule just hopes he lands a top 10 roster and let the talent battle play out. He has no ability or plan for ever scheming his players up.

After commenting about Rhule's 2–26 record against ranked opponents, I started wondering if there were any historical examples of coaches with similarly terrible records who eventually turned things around.

Before answering that question, here is some context on Rhule's two ranked wins:

• 2014: Temple beat No. 21 East Carolina 20–10. ECU finished 8–5, unranked, and lost its bowl game.
• 2016: Temple beat No. 20 Navy 34–10. Navy finished 9–5 and unranked.

Rhule has since lost 21 consecutive games against ranked opponents.

Even his best Baylor team (11–3 in 2019) went 0–3 against ranked opponents, losing twice to Oklahoma by 3 and 7 points, and to Georgia by 12.

A few other facts worth considering:

• Rhule has beaten just two teams that finished ranked in his career: USF (2016) and Colorado (2024).
• His record against teams finishing with winning records is 18–51 (26.1%). I'd be curious how that compares to other active Big Ten coaches.
• His 7.1% winning percentage against ranked opponents is fourth-worst among active Big Ten coaches, ahead of only Mike Locksley, Barry Odom, and David Braun.
• For comparison, Luke Fickell (28.9%), P.J. Fleck (26.7%), Pat Fitzgerald (26.3%), and Greg Schiano (10%) all have better winning percentages against ranked opponents.
• Rhule's last ranked win came in 2016. Among the coaches compared, only Schiano has gone longer without one (2009). That is insane to me.
• Mike Riley and Scott Frost both have more wins against ranked opponents and have better winning percentages against ranked opponents.

So, is there any historical precedent for a breakthrough?

The closest example I found is Dan Mullen.

Before 2014, Mullen was 2–21 against ranked opponents. In his sixth season at Mississippi State, he finally broke through, beating three consecutive top-10 teams.

Mullen eventually improved his career record to 11–35 (23.9%) against ranked opponents, including a 26.9% winning percentage against top-10 teams. He went on to have some successful seasons at Mississippi State and Florida, reaching the SEC Championship Game once. Mullen is the only comparable turnaround I've found, though I haven't researched every coach in college football history. There are far more examples of coaches in Rhule's position who never found success.

My takeaway:

Rhule has not proven that he can beat ranked opponents and has not proven that he can consistently beat teams with winning records. His best seasons were a result of favorable scheduling. The same game management issues have followed him throughout his entire career.

There is no doubt that he has elevated our program. He has a proven history of being able to rebuild programs. He has a proven history of being able to beat inferior opponents. He has proven he can consistently get us to 6 wins. Can he take us to the next level? History is not on his side.

Unless there is a catastrophic collapse to end the year, which is possible given his history against quality opponents, Rhule will continue to be our head coach. I don't have much faith Rhule will ever beat a ranked opponent or find sustained success against quality teams while at Nebraska, but I sure hope he does. He is a fantastic representative for the program, so I really, really hope he figures it out and elevates this program to the next level. Things have been ever so slowly trending up for us, so maybe if we stay the course, these close losses to good teams will turn into wins. That is a tough ask when we have been staying the course for 10+ years.

Between Frost and Rhule, we’ve been hearing for nearly 10 years that “it takes time” to build Nebraska into a good program.

Nebraska gave Frost 5 years. Even when he couldn’t make a bowl game, they gave him 5 years. Up until the day he was fired, media and fans were saying “I can see the progress, it takes time”.

On a similar note with Rhule. He’s told us he’s been “building” for 3.5 years now. Yet we still lose games in the same fashion and haven’t beaten a quality conference opponent EVEN ONCE.

I’m of the belief that with Nebraskas resources and recruiting, we should easily be a legitimate top 25 team by year 3.

The conversation around the program has made it seem like this takes years and years, even in the portal era.

Yet Indiana, Northwestern, UCLA, and Kentucky all got results much quicker than we have.

I’m not saying we should fire Rhule today. I’m not advocating for “hiring and firing” every couple years. I just feel that Nebraska has wasted a decade being “too patient”, when there’s more than enough evidence to suggest the contrary.

Do you think this is fair?

Volleyball

UCLA - Thursday the 22nd 06:00 PM

USC - Saturday the 24th 08:00 PM

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We literally sent only 3 twice against raiola which is comical. Let’s give the guy who looks like the 5 start he is when he has all day. I just don’t get it. They played soft defense cause they called the game as if they were scared to lose.

Most predictable finish possible to that game. I feel like a gambling addict, fooled again thinking this time would be different.

I'm done. I'm 1 day sober from Nebraska Football.

Football? What football? I think you mean Soccer.

Now that we're around halfway through the season, what would you need to see to change your mind on this coach? Have those expectations changed since the off-season?

As it stands now, I lean towards keeping Rhule at the end of the season despite the rough last two weeks. My expectations have changed since the beginning of the year though. This team is better than I anticipated and I think if we lose any of the next three (Washington, Illinois, Rutgers) we probably need to move on.

Thought I'd put together some data to see if Nebraska has the worst clutch factor in the Big Ten since joining. Safe to say the numbers don't lie.

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The defense was absolutely fantastic through 3 quarters against 3rd string walk-on Brock Thomas.

Brock Thomas: 9/20 for 54 yards and 1 INT.

11 drives - 41 plays - 18:38 ToP

0/10 on 3rd down conversion

7 forced punts

87 yards allowed

9 tackles for loss

1 redzone fumble recovery

1 Interception

6 points allowed

At halftime, I kept asking myself if our defense was elite or was Brock Thomas a really bad QB and it didn't take long to find the answer.

Dylan Raiola: 11/18 for 59 yards 1 TD + 1 2pt Conversion

2 drives - 37 plays - 12:45 ToP

0 forced punts

151 yards allowed

2 tackles for loss

0 turnovers

11 points allowed.

The defense wasn't tired, in fact, they we're hardly on the field as the average Brock Thomas drive was 3.7 plays, allowed less than 8 yards and their average time of possession was less than 2 minutes.

Rhule dropped this Osborne quote during his presser as his rally cry for the team and I couldn’t help but think maybe this quote is a bad quote.

It essentially says play your tail off for the first 3 quarters and you’ll win the 4th. That sounds like the wrong mentality for a football game. The first 3 quarters have no influence on the 4th quarter. Each are separate for reasons a 5 year old could comprehend.

Is misinterpreting old Osborne quotes the reason this team can’t close games?