The words that come to mind when breaking down Nebraska’s blowout loss to Indiana are far from appropriate, but shocking, shameful, and down right atrocious will have to do.
From the jump, Indiana showed why they are the 2nd ranked scoring offense in the country. Time and time again they moved the ball down the field at will against a helpless looking Huskers defense. The performance was a night and day difference from the Blackshirts squad we saw in the game against Rutgers a few weeks back.
The Hoosiers racked up 495 yards in total offense and didn’t punt the ball until the 4th quarter when the game was already well out of reach. Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke went for an efficient 17/21 and 189 yards before exiting the game with a hand injury. His replacement, Tayven Jackson picked up right where Rourke left off, going 7/8 for 91 yards and 2 touchdowns. Indiana’s running backs were no slouches either, together totaling 215 yards and averaging 6.5 yards per carry.
While the defense had their own struggles, the offense found a way to exceed their blunders.
Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola followed up his first bad game as a Cornhusker with another disappointing performance, throwing 3 costly interceptions to the Hoosiers defense. Add that to the 2 lost fumbles and this game was very reminiscent of the story from last year’s Nebraska team. 5 turnovers will almost never get the job done, and this team should know that better than any.
It will be back to the drawing board for all the coaches on Nebraska’s staff this week as the Huskers will travel to Columbus to face off with the #4th ranked Ohio State Buckeyes next Saturday.
A loss like this can affect a team in two ways. They can either put up the white flag in submission, or rally around an uncharacteristic outing and demand a higher standard.
Hopefully next week it’s the latter.
