Nebraska fans are waking up to a doubly painful Sunday after the Cornhuskers blew another fourth-quarter lead, falling to the Oregon Ducks 17-14. Yeah, for those of us who stayed up until 1:45 AM Sunday morning to watch *that* happen again, it’s just another bitter pill to swallow. The Cornhuskers were likely looking at a 5-2 record by now, so it’s not the overall standing that stings the most. It’s the fact that they played well enough for 50 minutes over the last two weeks to be sitting at a clean 7-0. The glass might be half full, but it feels like trying to pour more into it is just pointless.
The Pain is Getting Real in Lincoln
This futility? It’s leading to massive frustration, and that frustration is breeding irrational pessimism. We’ve seen this movie before, right? It’s the same kind of thinking that led them to replace “not-winning-enough” coaches with straight-up debacles like Bill Callahan and Mike Riley. And honestly, it’s tough to argue that the mental funk fans are feeling isn’t creeping into the program itself. This isn’t the first time Nebraska has let a fourth-quarter lead slip away. If you’ve watched *any* other college football between naps, you know this is the wild state of the game these days, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take.
Oregon’s Comeback, Raiola’s Puzzling Performance
It doesn’t exactly help when the quarterback we all hoped would finally break Nebraska out of this cycle seemed to have his fingers all over Oregon’s comeback. But let’s get Dylan Raiola’s fourth quarter in perspective. Yeah, Oregon scored 11 minutes into that final quarter, with Raiola leading two long touchdown drives. But hold up, did you see how Raiola did it? It was classic Dylan: 11 of 19 passes for a measly 59 yards. Seriously, 59 yards. If any team in the nation should have known what Raiola was gonna do, it was the Nebraska Cornhuskers. He was never going to challenge their secondary; it was always going to be a horizontal passing game. Yet, Nebraska fans watched what looked like a green-tinged parody of their own Husker offense from 2024 and 2025. And for some wild reason, Nebraska never even tried pressuring Raiola, unlike every other Big Ten team. They were content to let him pick up four to six yards on every single throw. I stayed up until *2 A.M.* for this?! Yeah, we should be mad.
Now, on the Nebraska side, Anthony Colandrea was a big reason they were even in this game, turning whatever Oregon threw at him into “Duck Salad.” He made some plays, but the report card starts by noting he “missed too many o…” (the rest of that thought is still TBD, but you get the picture).
So, yeah, it’s easy to overreact. But remember those odds in August? Everyone would’ve bet the combined margins of victory for Indiana and Oregon would be around 30 points, not the six we actually saw. Still, that doesn’t change the sting. The report card’s coming.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
Leave a Reply