There’s a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that shows Calvin losing to Hobbes in a game and the next panel shows his parents. His mother mentions how cute he plays both sides of the game and his dad goes, “I don’t know, I’ve heard him using words that he didn’t learn in this house.” That’s the G rated version of how I’m sure we’re all feeling after yesterday’s game. At first it was euphoria, then sickness, then anger, then numbness, and eventually acceptance with some positive thoughts, and then swear words after watching the results of two other games. The first is Oklahoma knocking off Texas, which is awesome, but it’s a ranked team that isn’t as talented as we are tossing the number one ranked team in the country off a cliff while Dylan Raiola decides to crap on our hopes of knocking off a ranked team this coming weekend. Jerk. And I really love the kid and hope he is successful.
It’s another week of talking ourselves down from that ledge and living in the sheltered comfort of a straight jacket, or an extra beer if you prefer. It just sucks and there’s no way around that; sure there’s tons of positives that we can take away from Saturday’s game and there is no question that this coaching staff is doing something monumental given what they inherited, and this team is different, especially thanks to Anthony Colandrea, who is the ultimate competitor that won’t quit, no matter the situation. Thank God for that young man, and I mean no disrespect to Dylan Raiola. Dylan needs more credit for this than he is given. Before he came, we didn’t have an elite athlete/competitor wrapped up together in a long time; he demanded better from his receivers and kept fighting even though he was a pocket passer with a sketchy offensive line. He chose to come to Nebraska, not for money, which I know he received, but he genuinely believed Matt Rhule when he said he wanted to bring this program back and Dylan cared enough to try. I can’t blame him for leaving to find a place that would better prepare him for the pro’s, which Oregon’s style of play does. Just like Nebraska’s style was desperate for Anthony Colandrea. It ultimately worked out for both programs.
Saturday’s game was different from years past. There wasn’t a reliance on luck or a turnover, the other team didn’t play horribly for us to be close, we were the better team for the majority of that game, and the Huskers looked like they belonged there in that fight. Their mentality this year is one of playing to win instead of playing not to lose, and that’s something we haven’t seen in a long time. Frost didn’t have it, Riley surely didn’t, and let’s be honest here, Bo, who we all love, was getting slaughtered by higher ranked teams. I still don’t feel that he was the main culprit, as he was navigating being a first time head coach of a blueblood program. He did a damn good job, but just couldn’t seem to hire the right assistant coaches. This problem started with our next head coach, Mike Riley.
This is where the cancer that has permeated the program started and took hold. His approach brought in players that were just excited to play for a blueblood and created the culture of trying hard meant we all still went out for pizza. Enter Scott Frost, who seemed like the right choice at the time. I think 99% of Husker fans would agree that we all wanted him and hoped that he would be the savior, but he was not the right surgeon to remove this aggressive, life threatening cancer. When Matt Rhule came in, he was proven and had a vision, but still had to take time to access, try a couple of things to see if they would work, and ultimately find an identity that was reflective of the state and fan base that support it, while building for ultimate success. In year four we have an identity that is similar to what we used to be: hard nosed, deep running game, with a mobile quarterback while building in the trenches.
I wanted to write this yesterday when I was pissed off, but I’m glad I slept on it. We really are getting there and Rhule will be the guy that gets us to the top of the mountain. There’s still plenty to hope for. Go Big Red.
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