Nebraska didn’t get it done, more than that, they didn’t show up. This team, this staff and us as fans, were humbled. And looking back, we probably deserved that. We got ahead of ourselves. We got caught up in the, “We are different now because we have Dylan Raiola.” We all believed he alone was going to take us to new heights. That all his teammates had to do, and us as fans, was to follow.
It was easy to get caught up, Raiola is a super talent. And if I had to hand out a best game ball for someone on the Nebraska team, it would be him. Raiola, Banks, and Neyor all had good games, but they weren’t perfect.
I have one complaint about all the receivers. Learn to be aggressive. Two weeks in a row we’ve seen defensive backs take the ball away from our receivers. That can’t happen. You need to want the ball and fight for it. If you can’t have it, no one can. They also need to be aggressive in catching the ball, not just waiting with their hands ready. Go for it. Reach for it. Want it. Take it. Fight for it.
And speaking of fighting, somebody forgot to tell the Blackshirts there was going to be one. They never showed up. Not unless you want to call stupid penalties showing up. Seven of the first eight penalties were on the defense. And while I try to avoid the word stupid, most of these were. My only answer, someone must have taken some cheesecloth and made up Blackshirts jerseys and hung them in their lockers, because the Illini ripped right through them.
I don’t know what is going on, but whatever it is, it started against Northern Iowa and is still happening. This defense doesn’t have it right now, they don’t have confidence. Each possession after the second half got worse. You could see it, no fire, a little more down every possession. Their body language told you they didn’t have confidence.
I didn’t think Tony White looked right either. There is something going on there too. When you saw him on the sideline, he looked subdued. I don’t expect him to be screaming or yelling, showing panic, that isn’t who he is. And while he was talking to someone on the headset, there never seemed to be any discussion with his defensive coaches on the sideline during the game. Never did you see him talking to Knighton, Potenza, or Butler as if trying to resolve what they were seeing. He looked lost like he didn’t have an answer. And that’s bad. If I can see that on television, then you know his players can see it in his eyes on the sideline. They didn’t have an answer, and they could see their coach didn’t have an answer either. It really showed in the second half. The Blackshirts didn’t know what to do. Credit Illinois’s coaching staff, they kept Nebraska off balance.
I think the offense did enough to win against Illinois. If we would’ve had this offense last season, we would have won eight or nine games like we’ve been talking. As for this year, let’s back the bus up. If the things we saw Friday night aren’t resolved, forget the eight or nine wins we’ve been talking about, it looks a lot more like six or seven. The Blackshirts have more than just work to do, they have broken things to fix.
And where is the running game on offense? While Dowdell was solid, I didn’t think he looked like himself. And where was Emmett Johnson? Did he even get a carry? Personally, I think it’s the Mazzccua effect. Not that he physically is superior to Lutovsky, but he’s a bad, bad man. He’s mean and nasty. He brings a mindset this offensive line needs, and that carries over to the running backs and receivers. I think he was missed beyond understanding. Whatever beef there is between him and Rhule needs to be resolved. Being big and athletic isn’t enough to play offensive line, you need to have a little piece in you that doesn’t hesitate to throw rocks at your grandmother.
As for the overtime, I know there are analytics that coaches use. When to go for it on fourth down, when to go for two, and always start on defense in overtime. But I think that is what makes the great coaches great, not following the norm and playing it safe, knowing their team and going with their gut. I thought Rhule made a mistake playing defense first in overtime.
The air went out of the balloon when Raiola overthrew his receiver in the endzone on the third and three. You basically told everybody watching that you didn’t have confidence in your running game to get you three yards on third down. And after the missed opportunity, you could literally hear the final “phhhfffit – waaaaa,’ from the ballon on the missed field goal. The defense then almost let Illinois get in field goal position before running out of clock.
So, when the overtime starts, you turn around and put a lost, tired, and deflated defense back on the field to win you the game. It was the wrong move. They had been dominated the whole second half with no answers. They went out knowing they couldn’t make the stop and allowed Illinois to score in two plays. If the offense goes out first and scores, they have something to play for and they’ve had time to go over things with coaches on the sideline.
Rhule has worked the last two games on this team holding a lead. But maybe what he needed to be working on was keeping it tied. All season it’s been ‘Chasing 3’, but when Nebraska lost that lead, they gave up and tapped out. They said, here we go again, we lost this one. And you could see they went into the overtime with that attitude.
Illinois scores easily, your defense slinks to the sideline with palms up, and you send your offense out with your young quarterback carrying the pressure of winning with him. The whole world knows what you are going to do. You hadn’t been able to run the ball the second half, you were only doing that to keep the defense honest. So, knowing the pass is coming, Illinois sent everybody. The young QB showed up. Nothing against Raiola, he was set up for failure in that situation.
This was a case where you had to ignore what the book said and go with what you have seen. Face it, Nebraska was out coached. I wrote an article before the season called, ‘Rhule and Staff Still Paying Dues’. They are, and Illinois took every dollar they had Friday night.
I hope he doesn’t mind, but I’m going to share something Vincent Shavers Sr. recently posted “I was taught if you fall one hundred times you get your ass up 101 times. Lick your wounds and get back to work. Let’s #GBR.”
I totally agree. It’s Purdue week.
Good things are about to happen.
