The title is taken from a song by the great Pat Green and with the exception of the first half, this game felt just like it should. I was in the first grade when we moved from Norfolk Nebraska to the Missouri Ozarks in a little town called Freistatt. The only way we ever saw Nebraska was two games a year, the Oklahoma game and whatever bowl game we were in so I relied on small articles in the Springfield News Leader about the Big 8 Conference. In the 90s, everything changed when more coverage was given to regional games and even a radio station from Arkansas carried Husker games thanks to an alumni association. We would mute the tv and let Warren Swain and Adrian Fiala entertain us while the tv carried its 2 second delay. LIving in the south for most of my life, we would watch Nebraska fans change from short to long sleeves, jackets, and eventually hoodies and coats in October and November while we remained sweating in the heat and humidity. Those things along with knowing that Nebraska was a powerful, in your face running team always brought me comfort, especially when we were winning national championships. And the second half of Saturday’s game brought back glimpses of those moments: patience in the running game, a stud in Jamal Rule, and a mobile quarterback in Anthony Collandrea, were like much needed sigh of relief and even comfort after the past 12 or so years.
I know, I know, our defense looked sketchy and it’s only Ohio, but when is the last time we’ve seen a Nebraska team make the right halftime adjustments and finish like they should? Honestly, it’s probably been since Pelini and even under Bo, we were getting killed in big games. Hope is the theme for this season I’m choosing to go with and this game should give us some. It doesn’t solve every problem, but it certainly is refreshing and unless the rails fall off, Collandrea is a huge upgrade from Dylan Raiola. Yes, he’ll make mistakes, but having a quarterback that can stretch the field and extend plays like he can is something we haven’t had since Taylor Martinez Tommy Armstrong. Matt Rhule and Dana Holgersen are going back to Nebraska’s roots as much as the current landscape allows and man, it feels so good.
We rotated a lot of players on Saturday which hasn’t happened in years, so there’s depth, the running backs room is solid, the offensive line in better under Geep Wade, our receivers are some of the best in the conference, the defense did a good job in the second half, and Collandrea is a fighter. He was in the receiver’s faces, calling them out and challenging them. He’s different from Raiola in that Dylan was all about Dylan, but AC knows that individual success doesn’t come without team success. That will show up later in the season when we need to get those elusive November wins. We’ve got Bowling Green this week and if all those years of playing College Football USA on Sega (the 97 edition with Tommie Frazier on the cover) have shown me anything it’s that if you’re wanting to pad stats and get your entire roster playing time, then this is the game.
523 total yards with 248 coming on the ground, Jamal Rule with 122 of those and more through the air gives hope. We should be confident, even though everyone else is talking about red flags and how the game was closer than the score indicated, and there’s truth to that, but the bottom line is, this Nebraska team responded better than any team we’ve watched for over a decade. Even if for a moment, things were right in Husker Nation. Go Big Red and hold our heads up high because for one weekend things felt just like they should.
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