CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – About an hour before Saturday’s game, new Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts hobnobbed with Husker fans in a corner of the end zone in Memorial Stadium.
He was all smiles. I highly doubt he was smiling afterward.
Alberts may have a challenging situation on his hands.
Or maybe it won’t be all that challenging.
It would be extremely premature to write off Nebraska’s season in the wake of a 30-22 loss to Illinois before 41,064 sun-drenched spectators. The Huskers did make a mild comeback. They didn’t quit. It’s only the opener. Long season ahead and all that.
But, c’mon, this game only provided fourth-year Nebraska coach Scott Frost’s detractors with more ammunition. A lot more. Detractors aside, most Husker fans surely came away from this game with a sense of dejection. This stuff is supposed to be fun. This was not fun. If you’re a Husker fan, this was watching Frost’s program stumble through an afternoon of making the same old mistakes and lacking in the same old problem areas.
Some of the mistakes were remarkable. Did a Nebraska punt returner really field a ball at the Huskers’ 2-yard line, then attempt to toss the ball forward as he was being tackled in the end zone? How often do you see that?
Did Nebraska’s place-kicker really miss two extra points? Connor Culp was 20-for-20 on extra points last season. What’s going on here?
Some of the mistakes were, well, all-too-predictable. Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez held the ball away from his body as he was hit from behind late in the second quarter. Calvin Hart’s 41-yard scoop-and-score touchdown gave Illinois a 16-9 lead, and the Illini never trailed from there.
I could write an entire column about Nebraska’s mistake-prone ways. Yes, it was that bad.
Remember what Alberts said in July during Big Ten Media Days? He said he wants to see attention to detail from all his coaches. As for Frost’s program, Alberts said, he wants to see “incremental progress.”
Alberts saw neither strong signs of attention to detail nor incremental progress. Those fans who already were skeptical of Frost were howling Saturday on social media. Yes, it was all very predictable. Nebraska’s next two games are at home against Fordham and Buffalo. In other words, Frost and company won’t have an immediate opportunity to atone for this clunker because nobody will be overly impressed if the Huskers win the next two.
Notice I said, “if.”
After all, Illinois backup quarterback Artur Sitkowski, who couldn’t hold on to the starting job at Rutgers, riddled Nebraska’s veteran defense to the tune of 11 completions in his first 12 attempts for 121 yards and two touchdowns, with zero interceptions.
I’m not even going to mention Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler, one of the nation’s best QBs. Remember, this stuff is supposed to be fun. It’s not especially fun thinking about Nebraska’s Sept. 18 trip to OU.
My advice to Nebraska fans is to stay in the moment.
Wait, that’s not especially appealing, either.
I’ve said it before: Far too much about Nebraska football has become thoroughly unappealing, which will help explain all those empty seats in Memorial Stadium this coming Saturday. The pandemic also will hold down attendance. That’ll provide some cover from the obvious: Frost’s program tests the patience of even the most loyal Husker fans. The sloppiness is startling at times.
Again, you can’t write off this team. Too early for that. Frost keeps saying how much he likes it. He keeps telling us the talent has been upgraded.
“There’s no doubt we have more talent in the building right now, by far, than we’ve had since I’ve been at Nebraska,” he said in July.
He thinks his team is more confident than ever and more unified. He thinks the leadership is better. Of course, Frost saying all this basically puts much of the onus on the coaching staff, the head coach in particular. If the talent and culture have improved, you would expect significant on-field improvement by now.
You didn’t see it against Illinois. Nebraska’s offensive line couldn’t generate a rushing attack against a defense that finished last season ranked 116th against the run. The Blackshirts couldn’t come up with a stop early in the third quarter when the Illini took control of the game with a 14-play, 75-yard march during which they ran the ball nine times for 41 yards.
Frost told his players last week the program’s resurgence has to start with the Pipeline and the Blackshirts. The offensive line was a major disappointment, and the Blackshirts were so-so at best, especially after Caleb Tannor’s two personal fouls on one play. The Illini followed with 28 straight points. In other words, Nebraska didn’t show the type of resilience you would expect in the fourth year of Frost’s program.
It’s only natural to wonder what Frost’s new boss must be thinking. Alberts won’t make rash decisions. He’ll be fair. This is one game. But he’s also a proud alum who happens to know football at a high level. What’s more, he sees the frustration on the players’ faces and hears it in their voices. They’re resilient. But they need to experience success to feel confident in what they’re being taught.
“Talk is just talk until (improvement) happens,” Husker center Cam Jurgens said. “We just need to make sh– happen.”
It’s a long season. But this was an awfully long day. Not many smiles in the end, especially not from the new boss.
