Fans who were not yet born know the moment, among the most famous in the history of college football. The first of six bowl games against Miami or Florida State over a decade, all Nebraska defeats, led Osborne to modernize his schemes and upgrade personnel.
The Huskers snapped the streak with an Orange Bowl win against Miami to cap the season, producing the first championship for Osborne in a run over five years to close his career on the sideline. The Orange Bowl also proved transformative for Nebraska in shaping the way Osborne approached the postseason. He moved after that loss to take the Huskers south in December for longer than the traditional one week of preparation on site. And Osborne pushed for the construction of an indoor practice facility, rare in college football at the time.
Well, the explanation dates to Nov. Already a subscriber? Log In. Subscribe now to get full access to the new sports page. Must read content, player grades, stuff you can't get anywhere else.
Parker Gabriel's turning point: This one is clear as day. The double personal foul on Caleb Tannor that turned a Cam Taylor-Britt interception into 30 yards and a first down in the red zone for Illinois breathed new life into the Illini.
They reeled off 28 straight points from there — 14 to close the first half and the first two scores of the third quarter — and took control of the game.
Turning point: Fordham had a chance to tie the game at 10 early in the second quarter, but senior safety Marquel Dismuke blocked a field goal and set Nebraska up with good field position. The defense and offense both had shaky moments early on, but Nebraska settled in nicely from there and asserted its dominance. Turning point: Nebraska had moved the ball but had not converted in the first quarter. Turning point: Nebraska got the ball to start the second half and drove it right down the field, threatening to turn a deficit into its first lead of the day.
Instead, the Huskers stalled out and senior kicker Connor Culp missed a yard field goal. Ten plays and 58 yards for naught. Then, Oklahoma went 80 in 10 plays the other way. Instead of maybe being NU or at least , the Sooners extended their lead to Turning point: Easy.
Jayden Reed hauled in a wayward Daniel Cerni punt with nobody around him late in the fourth quarter and he raced 62 yards for a game-tying touchdown with to go. Nebraska dominated the second half defensively and offensively.
Both sides will say they could have done more — the defense wanted a takeaway, even though 14 yards on 15 snaps is more than good enough, and the offense wanted to avoid going three-and-out before the punt — but simply put, that play changed the outcome of the game. Turning point: A shoutout to the defense. The Blackshirts had given up a touchdown drive and Northwestern had the ball at the 1-yard line with a chance to get within in the second quarter when JoJo Domann and Deontre Thomas ripped through the line and hit Evan Hull.
Domann forced a fumble and Thomas recovered it. Turning point: Martinez's fumble with 1 minute, 45 seconds remaining put the Wolverines in position to take the lead in the waning moments. The Huskers had the ball with three minutes left in a tie game and a chance to win, but the fumble set Michigan up in field-goal range. Jake Moody calmly put a yard field goal through the uprights 21 seconds later on the game clock.
Turning point: On third-and-goal, junior quarterback Adrian Martinez was ruled down inches short of the goal line. The initial ruling withstood review. Then, freshman running back Jaquez Yant took a fourth-and-inches handoff, tripped on his own and barrel-rolled down short of the goal line.
Turning point: Nebraska caught a break late in the second half and not only kicked a field goal to go up with to go, but then got the ball back in great field position with 20 seconds on the clock.
It would have been a walk-in touchdown and a halftime lead. Instead, NU led by three and then opened the half with four punts and three interceptions on its first seven possessions. Turning point: Nebraska head coach Scott Frost decided to attempt a field goal rather than go for it on fourth-and-4 from the OSU 13 with just under 10 minutes left in the regulation. The Huskers trailed by six at that moment, but instead of halving the lead to three, Chase Contreraz missed and the Buckeyes took over.
The Huskers had marched 73 yards in 11 plays with eyes on taking the lead. Instead, OSU took over and went to work on the clock and on field position. NU got it back at the same score, but with 90 yards to go. The Longhorns' "signature" win may have been their last game of the season when they beat bowl-bound Kansas State, So how good will Thompson be at Nebraska? No one knows that answer until after the '22 season.
I'm an optimist. I think CT is going to do some great things at Nebraska. I know it's way too early to be handing out any awards to the recent Husker transfer players, but Husker fans looking for some optimism may have found reasons to be happy with the additions of Thompson and Palmer.
As many expected this morning, Husker head football coach Scott Frost named former Husker defensive analyst Bill Busch as the new special teams coordinator. Busch, from Pender, Nebraska, has the task of developing a unit that has been one of the worst special teams programs in the entire country. It's a tall task - Herculean, some would say.
All I can say is good luck, Mr. Because I'm rather long of tooth, my Husker memories go back a long way. Some great memories, some painful. Steve Taylor, who was the Husker QB, had declared days before the game that the score wasn't going to be close. That said, getting to six wins will be difficult because the Huskers are only favored by more than a touchdown in one contest and will need to avoid upsets and win a few coin-flips along the way to get bowl eligible.
Specifically, I project Nebraska as less than a two-point favorite at Michigan State, home versus Michigan, and at Minnesota, giving the Cornhuskers no better than a 53 percent chance of winning in each of the three. If Nebraska takes care of business in the five games it is "supposed" to win, and beats just one of three of the Spartans, Wolverines and Gophers, it'll go bowling. But if the Cornhuskers suffer another round of close losses to defending Big Ten West champ Northwestern and Minnesota, for instance, there would be no room for error the rest of the way.
Because of the tricky schedule with so many evenly-matched opponents, Nebraska is a difficult team to predict. Eight - or even nine - wins are possible.
But a record is, too. Home College Football. Recommended Articles. College Football. By Athlon Sports. By Steven Lassan.
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